Umai Sushi Factory

I LOVE this place. My favourite ready-​made items are the pumpkin tempura sushi, and the avocado sushi. I’ve also had the ginger inari and tofu sushi rolls, but the ginger is a little strong for me. Still good though. My favourite thing to have is the big pumpkin tempura pieces from the hot counter. I also had a tofu teriyaki skewer, and while the coating tasted really nice, the actual tofu wasn’t cooked the way I like it– it was tasteless, wet and bland inside. I like my tofu spongey and firm the whole way through, rather than it being the same as it’d be straight out of the packet.
I like buying stuff from here and sitting down in the park in Leicester square to eat it.

Stick to the sushi, the ramen feels like an afterthought. They do pretty good matcha lattes and miso soup but the hot offerings, particularly anything with tempura are often soggy with them not being freshly made– if you want these things hot they are just put into a microwave. There’s not much point in tempura anything if your batter is moist and claggy.
Completely different story with the sushi offerings, they are a lot cheaper and have a lot of variety compared with some of the blander and pricier offerings on the high street (looking at you, itsu) The quality of the sushi is pretty good, particularly at the price point. Not just tuna and salmon, you can find eel, scallop, roe, beef in nigri, maki, gunkan, chirashi… there’s really a lot of choice. And it tastes good. I tried a fair few different things and they didn’t disappoint.
Not sure why the drinks are not out as well… at least they weren’t when I went but it’s a little diconcerting sitting down with your meal and realising there’s no drink. And then having to get up, go into the shop side of the building, pick your drink, wait in line and pay before sitting down. At least your sushi can’t go cold, I guess. A really odd decision and I can’t think why they’ve done this.
The ramen/​hot food offering is forgettable. The noodles are great but the broth is quite poor which surprised me. I wouldn’t hurry back for that though the rice burger looked intriguing… maybe for another visit.
I’d go back but forewarned is forearmed, stick to the right options and there’s a five star review to be had. Expect fresh hot food or forget to get your drink and it’ll be a disappointment.

Umai Sushi Factory is inside the Japan Centre on Lower Regent Street. The front of the shop has ready to eat food — refrigerated things like sushi and bento boxes and there is hot food you order at the counter.
The back of the shop has Japanese food stuffs for sale
Now that Josy A has unleashed the ramen monster in me, I feel obliged to try any ramen that I see advertised. So, when I spotted ramen at the Japan Centre, I naturally thought,“How can you go wrong?“
The tonkotsu ramen was a new addition to the menu and being my favourite type of ramen, I naturally plumped for a big bowl of that. The first negative was when I went to pay for it. If you want to eat it, the cost is 20% more than trhe advertised rate on the board. Hmmph
You pay at the till and they call out your name when your food is ready. I must confess that a part of me was sorely tempted to give them one of those Bart SImpson style spoof funny names for them to call out! But I resisted. Only just!
I suppose I should have known that my hopes were too high from a place where the only cooking appliance is a microwave. However, I think any hope was snuffed out when I went up to collect my food and the bowl still had clingfilm over the top of it. Any idea that fresh cooking was involved in the preparation of my food died in that instant
The stock was weak and thin without the proper porky fatty goodness of a good tonkotsu stock. The vegetables were limp with no crunch as a result of having been microwaved rather than blanched at the last minute. Disappointing. With the advent of ramen places in town, the Japan Centre has to pull its socks and standards up as far as tonkotsu rament is concerned
However, I’ve given them 4 stars because I love their cheap sashimi and I come here often to get some as a snack. Stick to the sashimi and you’ll be fine

This place is actually inside the Japan centre on Regent street.
Limited park-​bench style seating where you can sit to eat whatever you’ve bought from the place. I had a 15 piece salmon sashimi, fresh cut at the fish counter, and yup, I can safely not eat now for a day.
There’s outside seating as well (with no smoking signs), so you can finish off your fishie delights then sit outside with your green (or black) ice cream cone and lemongrass tea, watching tourists walk by…
I’ll be looking forward to coming back.