umami burger

i know, i am probably the last in los angeles, but i finally got over to umami burger last weekend. it is a tiny room with another tiny room in the back. i got there around 5:30pm and had a lady take my name for the list. yes, there was a wait already at 5:30pm. the wait wasn't too long, though. after all the hype it was finally good to be there.

the menu is short. it offers six different types of burgers, a couple of side options, drinks, & desserts. i ordered the original umami burger.

for sides i went with the thin-cut fries. see that soup spoon filled with ketchup? it is umami ketchup and that is all you get. it is their special blend and they are stingy with it. it tastes like ketchup with truffle oil, which is not a bad thing.

another side i couldn't pass up was the malt beer-tempura battered onion rings. i ordered the roasted garlic aioli sauce with it, but it came out with the umami ketchup anyway. i like to think that was an accidental bonus.

then the burgers finally arrived! from what i can remember, the umami burger is loaded with sauteed onions, shitake mushrooms, a parmesan frico, (parm cracker,) roasted tomatoes, and umami ketchup.

(notice the classy glass-bottled coke lurking in the background.)

the manly burger has beer-cheddar cheese, smoked salt onion strings, bacon lardons, and possibly umami ketchup.

they even had lustable salt & pepper. these look like the vic firth "pump & grind" set i have seen on amazon.

i read today on chowhound that this location on la brea is boo'd. it was really small and a bit tight in there, but it wasn't as bad as some of the chowhounders said. maybe we got there early enough to avoid madness. in any case, i have been thinking about those burgers everyday since saturday. it was more than good.