| rev:text
| - 3 stars because:
Food = wonderful! Six stars.
Service = not as wonderful; thoroughly disinterested with everything. Zero stars, maybe one to be nice.
First the positive. The food here is consistently great! I get the vegan ramen with a garlic bomb and spicy tofu buns most of the time. Got it again this time and was super happy. Flavors were complex and perfect in the broth, buns were pillows of perfection. Others had good experiences with the food as well.
I recently went for dinner with friends for a celebration. Let me set the stage. It was a rainy Thursday much like today. The restaurant was not crowded at any point during our visit. I think it may have been during UWs spring break.
We mentioned the reason for our visit when booking the reservation and again upon arrival. Most humans would say something like "congratulations" or "why are you excited about that? literally no on cares" but at every step the Umami staff somehow managed to ignore us entirely. We weren't looking for singing or a cake, but as the organizer, a polite verbal acknowledgement would have been appreciated.
Most of our party arrived 15-20 minutes early and ordered drinks. The bartender was also not interested in our existence - although not busy, she needed to be flagged down more than once, no drink menus offered, etc.
As the time window for the reservation approached, the hostess approached me and reminded me of the policy - your entire party needs to be present in order to be seated, reservations are held for 15 minutes after the stated time - which I was aware of. I let the hostess know that a couple from our party was running late and would arrive within the window. She repeated the policy again (it had been less than five minutes since she told me the policy). Before replying, I looked around the empty except for a guy at the bar section of the restaurant and said, "Well, I certainly understand your policy. If our table is needed, let me know and we can change our plans accordingly." At that moment the couple, who was 12 minutes late, arrived. We sat ourselves, as the hostess had vanished.
Our server was ok. But the entire experience was devoid of anything even remotely resembling a pleasantry. No thank you, no anything.
Final thoughts: It's not like I won't eat at Umami again. I love the food. It will, however, be awhile before I return and longer before anyone in my group that evening will be willing to return. I don't understand why anyone would be as actively unwelcoming to a group of people trying to buy things and have an enjoyable time at a place. Especially when said group are darn near the only people trying to do so. While I certainly understand the need for a reservation policy like this, the strict enforcement probably doesn't need to be in place when your restaurant is quite literally empty otherwise. Also, the people eating and drinking at places, they are humans! Holy crap, talk to them! Say hello, say thank you, say f-off, say something!!!!!!
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