Umami Burger - Hollywood Happy Hour Deal

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.