Umami Burger

Okay the burgers are good yes but hole mole they are expensive! Paid $ 100 for three adults and a child. We all got burgers and a couple beers (total). It’s definitely a gotta try spot but I wouldn’t make it a weekly staple.

I will never go here again. Not only was the service disrespectful to me and my party but they were super slow in bringing out the food. They are too many other places in Pasadena to spend your time in here, skip this place please.

I had not been to Umami in a while and I sadly feel like they lost their edge/​hype. We sat in the patio which was refreshing and maybe why my egg on my burger tasted cold): I did not say anything because the egg was surprisingly made perfect like it was not burnt but it was really cold. Also from my memory I felt the burger sizes got a little bigger LOL. My favorite was the sweet potato fries! I would probably come back for them only :)

Sad to say, the truffle fries did not ruffle my feathers :(
How do I know? I left most on the plate. They are topped with a truffle white– ish cheese sauce. I did not care for that surprise. And for $ 6 I thought the fries would have the truffle flavor. So if the fries didn’t have sauce, no truffle taste then… Maybe the burgers will be better.
Thank you for acknowledging my review. I do appreciate that. I would recommend that the title be truffle cheese fries. And that way there is no surprise to the customer. Just like when you order fries elsewhere and there is cheese on top, it is described as cheese fries. I hope this helps you and I appreciate your response thank you.
I will come in this weekend to try your burgers. Apparently those are wonderful!

Overpriced, overrated, and underwhelmed. Not sure what the hype is about. I hate to say it, but I’ve had way better at other burger joints.
The truffle fries were good, but still didn’t impress me that much.
The price my partner and I paid for our burgers and fries was really outrageous… Seriously. $ 35 for two burgers and 1 order of fries? Dang.
I really don’t think the burgers live up to their prices. Shame.

Hmm this is the weirdest most expensive place I’ve been to. Online they said they had a falafel burger so we gave it a shot… yeah they don’t have one.
A veggie burger is $ 12 with no fries… wtf. So $ 15 for a veggie burger with carrots on it… yeah this place sucks… don’t go here.

I always get their truffle burger it’s very juicy and tasty. It’s a must try. Love the place very neat.

The one day I decide to have a cheat meal from my diet, I wanted a burger. All this talk about Umami I thought why not give it a try. Honestly, I was not satisfied. And it really sucks that I used THIS as my cheat meal when I could’ve gotten a much better burger. First off, I got the umami burger which is suppose to come with portobello mushrooms. Really, ONE mushroom? I don’t think so. The hostess also wasn’t the nicest person. Had some type of attitude when she sat us down to our table. But not to say our server was superb. He was extremely nice, excellent service on his part. I get my burger with a side of the fries which were a little too thin for my liking (and I usually really like thin fries but this almost just tasted like chips).
As I took my first bite, I thought hmm there really isn’t anything special about this burger. Whatever, at this point it’s too late just eat it and let’s get out of here. But as I am coming to finish my burger… what happens? I find a piece of hair in it!!! Oh no no no. At that point, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Called my server over he was amazing and very nice about it which I appreciate, but damage is already done.
I left this place unsatisfied, paying more than what it was worth, and thinking I probably wouldn’t come back.

Craving for hamburgers I finally get to try this place. When it first opened in Old Town Pasadena there was always a long line and I didn’t feel like waiting. The restaurant is clean and bright, with simple but cool decorations. I was happy we didn’t have to wait, we got seated right away.
:Drinks:
We got Sprite and Diet coke. Both sodas was presented in the glass bottles; Diet Coke was in a small bottle and the Sprite was in a regular size bottle; I prefer getting the sodas in a regular cup. They serve cocktails so I decided to try the Brazilian Mule. It was a bit rough for me so I didn’t like it much.
:Food:
The Truffle ‘em Fries was thin, crisp, and sprinkled with chopped green onions. They were perfectly fried but I wasn’t feeling the truffle which tasted like a mixture of oil and cheese. I got the Manly Burger which had cheese, bacon lardons, onion strings, Umami house ketchup, and mustard. The next burger is the B.U.B. It comes with two patties, bacon, cheese, onions, pickles, mustard, and Umami house ketchup. Presentation of the B.U.B was a «wow» factor but the taste wasn’t. If you can fit the burger in your mouth let me know! Overall, the food was just «okay». I thought the burgers were greasy.
:Customer Service:
Excellent! Adam was wonderful (more details under the Highlight Section). Tatiana the Manager was friendly. When we spoke to her about Adam, she was very thankful for taking the time to recognize one of the team members. Brooke who I think is the hostess was welcoming and very polite. When it wasn’t busy in the front, she helped clear the tables.
:Highlight:
~Adam! Adam was so amazing that I asked to speak to the manager so I can acknowledge the amazing customer service that he provided to us. Adam was extremely upbeat, friendly, polite, funny, happy, and helpful. When he brought out the burgers, he even made presentation noises … Ta … Ta… Ta… Raan! He checked on us often and always asked if everything was fine.
~Another highlight, after eating Adam gave us two round wooden Umami coin. Adam explained, based on our experience place the coins in the three jars located in the front; each jar had a rating. I thought this was creative because a lot of restaurants insert a small survey asking how everything was but I don’t take the time to do it. This method is quick and easy, good idea! I do suggest giving two coins per person, one coin represents the food and the other one is for customer service.
:Rating:
Three Stars for the food that we ordered but FIVE STARS for the Umami Team: Adam, Tatiana, and Brooke!
:M’s Notes:
~Street Parking
~Parking garages surrounding the area

I really expected more from this place. If it was priced lower, maybe they would get 4 stars, but if you are charging $ 40 + for a couple burgers, fries and soda you have to do better.
Don’t get me wrong the burger isn’t bad but it’s definitely not worth what you are charging. what place doesn’t have normal ketchup? Or fresh sliced tomatoes? No Coke, but only Pepsi and served in a bottle so they don’t give you a refill.
I had the Umami burger with fries. The fries are so skinny you just don’t get satisfied. They are like eating chips with your burger. They don’t have much flavor, so you need to use a lot of sauce and then when you go for the ketchup, they give you this tomato pasty sad excuse for ketchup.
The Umami burger just didn’t go together right. The flavors were awkward, the roasted tomato is better suited as a pizza sauce then for a burger. It supposedly has portobello but I saw a very small black thing the size of my fingertip, which may of been it. Sad.
This place seems to have never heard the saying, «if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.»
The only thing good about this place was the servers. They work hard and care about you.

This is a great location for Umami! The restaurant is nice and bright. Everything in here from the tables to the walls are super clean.
The food came out just as I remembered Umami Burgers being. They came out fast too.
I ordered my usual greenbird burger with a half order of fries.
We were there on a Tuesday afternoon and the restaurant wasn’t busy at all.
What’s good about this location is that there is structured parking behind the restaurant. It’s $ 2 for every half an hour you’re there. You don’t have to worry about the parking enforcement. I saw a lot of them around Pasadena.

Holiday burger (turkey and cranberry) is very interesting and does taste like turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce in burger form.
Kbbq burger was also very good. Great portion of meat and the flavored all meshed so well together. If you love KBBq this is it!
Umami burger. How do you even describe this? All the flavors go perfectly together. I don’t like ketchup at all! But… It tastes nothing like ketchup. It has a little kick to it and has a truffle oil base which is different.
Service is good, parking is bad (most of the parking in Pasadena is bad). Prices are a bit more expensive but just think of it as if you’re having a high end burger! Worth a try — at least once!

I recently came here after watching American got Talent audition. It was hungry and happen that day is the Pasadena Happy Hour Week. Group of restaurant in old town Pasadena participate in happy hour promotion. Umami was one of few in the rest offer late happy hour menu.
The atmosphere is a very modem desig, not many japanese restaurant especially burger and this one is one of the more popular out there in LA.
They only have one set of menu for the special but was bargain compare to their normal menu price. Basically is $ 13.50 for Throwback burger, thin fries, and Asahi Beer, The burger taste little similar of Big Mac but much better. It tasted what it look like in the commercial, Strange but I eat a double double protein style burger from In & Out a night before, I don’t think the umami one were better. The thin fries were pretty basic with no truffle oil, it come with 4 different kinds of sauce. I do wish I had order the extra truffle cheese for a dollar more would have been better. The beer is from bottle, not draft.
Overall is a good burger place, but isn’t exceptional. Their retail price of their burger is little in the high side, I would suggest come here for happy hour or promotion first.

Definitely over rated and over priced. I think you could find a better burger joint down the street. There’s probably at least 5 other ones. If you’re looking for a quick bite when it comes to just appetizers, then I guess that would be the only reason to come here. None of their burgers or fries or salads were memorable. For example, I don’t think I’ll ever be like «remember that time we ate at umami? The burger was so good.» It’ll be more like «yeah I’ve been there… it was okay.» Also, I split a bill with a friend and they didn’t split the tip (the suggested tip percentage) so it’s a way of trying to trick you into tipping like twice more. It’s not a huge deal… But Just as a heads up!

Umami is nothing to get excited about. Ordered the Umami burger and there were only two shiitake mushrooms and the house ketchup was really sweet. The burger looks small but it’s much more filling than expected.
Came in for lunch and there were only two tables seated. Service was AWFUL. The server just dropped food on our table without describing anything. There were 4 different dipping sauces and he didn’t care to indicate which is which, and the same for the pickles. I’d rather have In-​n-​out over Umami.

Was excited to finally try this place, since my friends recommended it to me. And to my surprise, there was one right down the street from my job. I was feeling the hype as I soon approached the place, but unfortunately I’d be disappointed in the end.
I walked in and the waiter was very friendly. Brought me a glass of water, and I ordered my food right away. I went with the first burger on the menu, the umami burger. Mushroom, caramelized onions, and etc, all sounded very delicious to me. I asked for a medium well burger, and it was cooked correctly when I took that first bite.
The burger seemed decent, but nothing too special. I felt the burger wasn’t seasoned enough, and the caramelized onions could have been seasoned too. The burger was plain, with a slight sweet taste from the caramelized onions. The bread was also quite thick too. Felt the bread overpowered the meat as I took a bite.
Overall, I was simple not satisfied with the burger. And paying $ 13 dollars for it, was also quite disheartening, I could get 2 burgers at In N Out for that price. Was hoping It’d be a burger I’d try more often, but unfortunately, no. Perhaps I’ll try another burger, in the Pasadena location, or try another umami burger location, in the near future.

Very overrated! We got the Umami Burger and the Truffle Burger. I would say you can never go wrong if it has «truffle» in the ingredients. The second burger was definitely really amazing. The Umami Burger was very weird. I mostly chose that because it had a parmesan frico (parmesan crisp) but the weird tomato in the burger ruined the flavor of everything that I didn’t enjoy the parmesan frico.
For sides, we got the regular thin fries and sweet potato fries, both of which were excellent choices. If I were to come back, I would get the K-​BBQ Burger and the Sunny Side Burger, and probably try the Maple Bacon Fries. Next time!
It was very mediocre for my first time here; the service is robotic and very fast-​paced and the atmosphere unwelcoming, as if they could do with or without your business. So we may try going to another location next time.

This is the second time coming to umami burger. The first time was at an LA location couple years ago. Good to come back to reminisce the memories! Haha…
This was our second stop for Pasadena burger week. Again we ordered only 2 burgers to try Among the 4 of us. Our other friends have never had it before so this was the perfect opportunity to have them try it!
We ordered the original umami burger and the truffle burger! Do get the truffle burger! We liked this more than the umami burger for sure.
Umami burger was good as the patty was juicy, the Parmesan crisp gave it that crispy cheese taste to the burger and the roasted tomatoes were too much. It was a lot of flavors going on in that burger. Don’t think we all liked that burger.
Truffle burger was the winner here! That ooey gooey cheese melted on the patty! Winner winner!
We ordered half of the sweet potato fries which was very good! Crispy and it has brown sugar sprinkle on top! We also ordered half of the thin fries. Not bad but can’t go wrong with regular fries.
Love the new modern decorations in the place! Staff are nice and service was not bad.

You can’t go wrong with truffle. Truffle burger with truffle fries dipped in truffle ketchup? Yup, it’s still good.
I like the décor of this location. Clean and simple. Located in Old Town so you’ll be forced to walk off a little of what you just ate. It evens out. Customer service is always good. Our waiter this last time was a guy named Eddie and he was actually pretty funny. Very friendly and definitely offered great recommendations for food and beer. Checked in with us just the right amount of times to make our experience smooth and enjoyable.
Overall, always a good experience here.

You can never go wrong with the secret Cheese Tater Tots! Yes! They have a secret menu!
They’re super fat and oozes out lots of cheesy goodness! Perfect with all of their dipping sauces. I also order the Unami burger itself, Medium rare.
I love that there was no wait. The ambience and décor was stunning. All of the Unami restaurants that I’ve been to have their own personalities. This one is very hip and fancy with its white walls, tables, and chairs.