Umami Burger
4655 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
10/28/09
This is a review of their new Happy Hour Special deals. Umami has been open about 4 weeks now as I write this review. Got a email from a blog announcing Umami has a HH special... $5 Smash Burger and $4 Draft beers from 3-7pm. So no plans last night, so I scheduled an impromptu L.A. Foodies event there and was joined by 3 members. Very interesting non-member bar flys... the English mercenary/smuggler and a probable fellow Yelper. It was a very friendly bar with lots of entangled conversations between the patrons within our group and non-members. I had the Smash burger special $5, onion fries $3 and a couple of Allabash dark drafts $4/ea. I found some free unmetered street parking in front of the Goodwill per a Yelpers recommendations.
I enjoyed my burger but like Fathers Office, the special did not allow for any modifications, if you want the $5 burger, have it their way. Period. Which in my case was fine and it was cooked medium rare. Normally I order my burgers medium, but they did not even ask how I wanted mine cooked. But the burger was very tasty and tender... for $5 it did not disappoint. If I had paid $9-10, I would have felt short changed, so indeed, it is a very good value gourmet burger for the $5 special. The rings were pretty tasty and arrived piping hot, but a bit on the greasy side, but compared to FO's $7 fries, they are a bargain. My dark draft beer was excellent as well. So my bar tab was a touch under $17 so I left a $20 and called it a night. So how does the burger compare to FO? I have to say, I still prefer FO's as my #1 favorite gourmet burger. That said, I don't like FO's attitude of no mods to their burger when ordering. I don't like that Umami doesn't allow mods to their HH burger special as well, so if you don't want onions or cheese, you either live with it or order something else and pay full pop. One Foodie was hungry and polished off a Smash and a Umami burger, fries and a couple beers... but at F.O., I've never seen anyone wolf down two FO burgers. The regular menu prices are a bit overpriced to me, but I would absolutely come back if taking advantage of the HH specials. 4 stars for the HH specials, 3 stars if I had to pay the regular prices.
Interesting/attractive bar patrons. Hip and hipsters come here. When I left at around 8:00pm, the restaurant was about 1/2 full. When I arrived here it was 90% empty. Nice crowd, decor okay, lots of outside seating which was mostly empty as the weather was cool that evening.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Little Fat Sheep - Mongolian Hot Pot
Little Fat Sheep
120 S Atlantic Blvd
Monterey Park, CA 91754
(626) 282-1089
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It was the concensus of the others who also went to Lu Gi a couple weeks earlier that we preferred Little Fat Sheep (LFS). I ordered the half and half broth with the spicy side at level 6 of 10. It was just a little too tame for me as I never broke a sweat, next time, I'll order at least an 8/10.
Apps we enjoyed were the Scallion pancakes which is a must order dish and we also had the cold spicy beef tendon which is thin sliced and only moderately spicy. They do not have the bread loaves like the China Islamic restaurant, but we were very happy with the pancakes and even ordered a second order of them. Chef Shana was especially enthralled with them.
The specialty green home made noodles were also another must order dish as well as the lamb or beef meat pies $4.50 for 2 pies. We had both and I liked both, but I'm partial to the beef ones. Lamb dumplings also excellent. We ordered all the sliced meats... lamb, beef, pork, chicken and all were good.
The broth ($3.50/person) was delicious and very herbal/flavorful. So many ingredients that I know are Chinese herbs, very healthy. While the tables can accommodate up to 9 diners, I'd recommend the ideal size at about 6 or 7 at the big round tables. I think our group of six was about perfect.
Plenty of free parking, located at the NE corner of Atlantic and Garvey it was a little hard to find. It's open late til 1am and we arrived here about 7:45pm and left around 10:30 pm on a Tuesday night and it was never crowded and I didn't bother to make a reservation. Prices were reasonable and including tax came to $21/person for food plus $7/person for our corkage fees. I think we should have asked for a discount, but we were in hog heaven and no one thought to negotiate.
About the only dish that didn't wow me was the spicy chicken feet. I guess I'm just used to the way it is prepared by Cantonese chefs which is my preference. Loved the many different sauces, I think the restaurant needs some little sauce bowls that can separately hold 4-6 different sauces.
The partitioned vessel for the broth worked great and was set into the table level with the table which made it really easy to see the food and cook out tender morsels.
Next time, I think I'll leave the wine at home and just buy their beers, but this place is definitely a must return place.