Please note that since writing this blog post, Umami has closed down
The other day, I booked a restaurant more or less entirely because it had a deal on offer. The friend I asked to come with me said I was getting more Dutch by the day. I decided to take that as a compliment.
Said restaurant was Umami – a recently opened Asian-fusion joint in the center of town. From the outside, it looks like a deserted, UV-lit, tunnel-shaped, retro-looking cocktail bar. Deserted because, it seems, all the diners are actually in the far more spacious (and mercifully darker) restaurant bit out the back. Which is a shame because – to the passing observer – it doesn’t exactly look like somewhere you’d want to eat.
But not to worry. We cracked on with the menu, which took us a while because we needed to choose four dishes from three “courses” (not that they were the usual starters, mains and desserts – but all collections of small sharing dishes) plus sides – a total of 14 dishes between the two of us. Phew. To make matters more complicated, each course was split into “Asian Bites” or dishes with a “French Twist”.