Umami Burger Palo Alto

Reviews 5

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Adam Lasnik

The quickndirty summary: Interesting tasting food that tries too hard, and ends up being joyless, poorly seasoned, and overpriced. Three stars for the clearly high-quality meat and reasonably decent customer service. I ordered the Manly burger and truffle fries, no drink, and the total came to $22 (!) including tip. Though on the crazy-expensive side for a burger+fries, its technically pretty cheap for a filling dinner in the Bay Area (especially Palo Alto), and filling this was. Despite many other reviewers online decrying the smallness of the burger or inadequate size of the fries basket, I felt that both were quite ample. My wait at 7pm this past Saturday was about 20 minutes; not bad at all without reservations, especially for a new and trendy place. My table and chair was comfortable, though I wish I could say the same for the ambience overall; its an echo chamber, with badly balanced music (inappropriately heavy bass) and low-hanging over-bright lamps. Its the opposite of welcoming and cozy; it seems like they want you (no pun intended) in n out of there quickly. My waiter was fine, and took my order within 5 minutes after I sat down; not bad. Fries arrived not even 15 minutes later, and burger just a couple minutes after that, so I cant complain about efficiency. The truffle fries smelled really funky (guess Im just not used to this particular truffle/cheese smell?), but -- at least initially -- had a great, rich flavor and overall mouth feel. Unfortunately, they were so drenched in the truffle/cheese that the flavors just became overpowering and deadening after a bit, and also there was no crispness to the fries at all; they quickly became practically a pool of mush. This is an instance in which it would have been MUCH better to have crispy fries in a basket and a bottle of the truffle-cheese to apply gradually, or a little bowl of sauce for dipping. Speaking of sauces... despite the Umami site bragging about special sauces, I was offered no sauces. The only sauce at my table was a squeeze bottle of ketchup. And my hamburger was perfectly cooked and juicy, but 100% unsauced. My initial bite was "huh? wheres the flavor?!" Im torn, though; I can also appreciate the subtle pleasure of eating high quality meat that hasnt been pumped full of salt and other "coverup" flavors. Still, though, I feel that Umami could have done a much better job of making this a flavorful burger; the occasional punctuations of LARGE (and chewy) pieces of bacon lardon were offputting rather than pleasantly blending into the larger flavor of the hamburger, and I could barely detect the presence of the cheese and onion strings that were advertised as part of this burger :(. The bun? Er, fine, I guess. Neither particularly bad nor deliciously noteworthy. Just serviceable. Dont get all the excitement over a "U" stamped on the top (which I read about but didnt even notice). Are we that bored in our lives that this sort of thing delights us? :p Anyway, I walked out of here pretty bummed and disappointed. I was expecting a burger bursting with flavor, and crisp fries with subtle and interesting tastes, and what I got was a bland burger and overpoweringly-gloppy fries. Will I be back? I suppose if invited by friends, Id be open to it. But otherwise, I wont go out of my way. Frankly, (and price aside) I get a lot more pleasure out of chomping down on a burger at InnOut, The Counter, or The Habit.

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AL

Alyx Barranger

When I initially saw Umami had opened up a location in Palo Alto, I was ecstatic. Umami burgers are delicious and perfect from the ingredients to the presentation. I was surprised to see that the reviews for this place were so mediocre, and I came in really wanting to like this spot, but alas, the yelp reviews were right - this place falls below the typical Umami experience. I walked in and the decor threw me off right away. I thought it was clever that they made it look like a library, but they took it to a very literal level to where it looked a bit dumpy. However, Im not one to judge a location by its looks since the food is much more important to me, so I tried not to let this sway my opinion. The next thing was that service was beyond slow. It took us 15 minutes after we asked for water to have it brought over. Our waitress was kind about it and tried to brush how slow she was off with humor, but after a while it became annoying. I also usually get a beer when I come to Umami since it just feels like the right thing to do, but they had nothing on tap which turned that into a beyond costly endeavor, so I opted not to go down that path. At this point, my excitement had started to dwindle down, but then came the food and I was really still holding onto my hopes for it to be delicious. I ordered the truffle burger, truffle fries and tempurad onion rings. The truffle burgers bun was a bit off (this is usually one of my favorite parts of Umami with the toasted buns), the meat itself was good so overall, 4 stars for the burger. The truffle fries looked as though they were in a bath of sauce which turned them from delicious to soggy in a matter of minutes. The onion rings were delicious. The other thing that is special about most Umami burgers is that they make their ketchup, but here it tasted really watery. Overall, I think they are still working out some kinks since they are relatively new. I have high hopes that this place will keep getting better and better. One awesome touch that they had was letting you walk around university ave while you waited since they text you when your table is ready. I really liked that and wish that more restaurants had this level of flexibility.

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Steve Winwood

Forma parte de una cadena que está por todo Estados Unidos, y la verdad es que se nota, aunque ellos han conseguido un cierto éxito posicionándose como una comida rápida premium, con decoraciones más cuidadas en los locales, por ejemplo en Palo Alto imitando una librería, y con mayor imaginación en la comida que ofrecen Aquí son especialistas en hamburguesas y les añaden toques que se supone que deben conducir al quinto sabor (el "umami" de los japoneses, que da nombre a la cadena). Así, te encuentras que añaden trufa al queso de la hamburguesa, o al aceite de freír las patatas fritas (algo que ya había visto una vez en San Antonio, TX, en un sitio de estos excesivos de carne al que te llevan las empresas) La cerveza la verdad es que no está mal (tienen varias artesanas de barril) y para los niños tienen limonadas, té helado y cosas así. El ambiente es principalmente de familias (variopintas) y el servicio es bastante correcto (invitan a una cerveza de $7 para pedir excusas por un error...) Resuelve una cena rápida, pero no hay que esperar gran cosa

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MA

Masaru Sato

SF の Umami Burger に初めて行ったのはおそらく3年ほど前。その後も何度か行きました。そのときは店内の雰囲気、接客、そしてもちろんバーガー、さらにクラフトビール全てが完璧に思えて、その感動を求めて Palo Alto の Umami へ。 店内の雰囲気は素敵だし自然な光も入って、空間は良かったです。頼んだものは Umami Burger と妻が Sliders。美味しいです。美味しいんですが、なんだかつくりが雑... 悪くは無いんですけど、若干冷めてるしお肉もなんとなくパサパサしてるし残念でした。 期待値が高すぎた？や、そんなことは無いと思います。が、スケールするなら丁寧にスケールしてほしいです。 妻と、うーん、こんなじゃなかったよね、という結論になってしまったので残念。

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AU

Audrey Guo

I LOVE Umami burger, and Im so glad theyve been opening more and more stores in the bay area! Note that these burgers are meant to be more gourmet than your regular burger. Thus, they will be pricier and not as big of a portion, but the quality is amazing! My favorite burger (and my recommendation for all Umami virgins) is the Truffle burger, and even though it is pretty plain on the outside, the flavor of the patty and cheese combined is to die for! The only downside is that sometimes it can be messy to eat, as the juices drip out of the bun. But honestly, the taste is worth it! Ive tried a couple of the other burgers, but they all pale in comparison I also love their fries, especially the dipping sauces! (You usually have to ask for them) I recently tried the truffle fries, and although they are tasty, Im perfectly fine with saving the extra 2 bucks and just getting their regular thin cut fries because theyre so satisfyingly crunchy!

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