Umami Street

Umami street is located in Lavington but is quite tricky to find since they didn’t have any signage leading to it. They need to fix that. When you do eventually find it, it’s located in such a pretty compound! So bright and green and it looks even more stunning when the sun is out and the cherry blossoms peep out of the perfect hedges!

I came here for lunch with a few friends and since some of us had just come from Japan, it made sense to come try some Japanese street food so they can tell us how legit it is.

They have a very small menu as they only have street food dishes/bitings and drinks but they are in collaboration with Joto Ramen and Himiko Matcha who are also in the same compound so we were able to order from them as well.

I tasted a bit of the strawberry matcha (KSH800) just to see if I could stomach it… definitely could NOT. It still tasted like grass even with the addition of strawberry syrup in it lol.

Umami is completely halal so they have zero pork dishes which isn’t usual for a Japanese spot but they said it’s because majority of their customers are Muslim so they opted to go fully halal.

Here’s what we tried - the negima chicken skewers (KSH200), karaage (KSH700 for 5 pieces), takoyaki (KSH600 for 6 pieces) and the tornado potato (KSH300).

The negima is a chicken thigh with spring onion skewers. Very very tasty, you can eat several at a time so makes for a great snack but just remember it’s 200bob a skewer so that cost adds up real quick!

The karaage for me wasn’t as good, the batter they fried the chicken in was too thick. I could feel my arteries clogging up with each bite. I would not recommend it unless you’re okay eating mostly fried batter.

Takoyaki is a popular Japanese street food, basically grilled balls of batter filled with octopus, pickled ginger, green onions and scraps of tempura. It has quite an interesting texture, and it was surprisingly tasty for me who doesn’t do well with seafood. I think I only managed to enjoy it because it’s combined with other things, which helped mask the octopus taste.

The tornado potato is fried a spiral potato, such a fun concept which I’m sure works for kids because it’s food that looks fun to eat Also you can never go wrong with a fried viazi pls!

The service here was good, we were only two tables of customers so they weren’t super busy. It makes for a great place to come and try out cultural food from Japan as well as try your luck with matcha and ramen from the neighbouring eateries as well. Great place for a fun lunch date with friends, family or your person.

Because they didn’t have bigger, more filling dishes, I can’t consider it a place to consistently visit but it was nice to experience something new with friends.

Ratings

Food: ⭐️⭐️
Service: ⭐️️⭐️⭐️
Ambience: ⭐⭐️⭐️

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