Umami Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar in Burlington offers such massive portions that patrons rarely leave without boxing up leftovers. The hibachi-style restaurant provides a food coma-inducing dinner with a show, perfect for a special occasion or an entertaining night out.
Though a typical hibachi meal is between $11 and $20 depending on the type of meat or combination of meats ordered, diners can expect a hefty meal acommpanied by multiple side dishes. If the price of the meal is divided two for the leftovers, the high price is worth it.
An Umami hibachi meal comes with soup, salad, noodles, fried rice, mixed vegetables and an entree of your choice. This main entree can be anything: chicken, tofu, steak or seafood or a combination.
Umami, which has been open since January 2013, features a vast sushi menu that can be eaten on the bar side of the restaurant or as an appetizer on the hibachi side of the restaurant. Specialty rolls cost between $6 and $15, and the sushi combos or sushi platters, which offer more variety and larger portions, have a higher price tag starting at $25.
In true hibachi style, Umami has large tables with a big hibachi grill in the middle. Often, different parties are seated together at a table to watch the chef cook delicious food and put on a show for the guests, providing entertainment and encouraging small talk with strangers.
“It was such an entertaining meal,” said sophomore Sydney Nelson. “It’s fun to sit at a table with people you don’t know as well as with friends.”
The hibachi chefs are trained to delight as well as cook. There are knife tricks, consisting of large metal cooking utensils being thrown around and spun around a finger, and food tricks as well.
More tricks include the onion volcano, where fire comes out of stacked onion rings, the egg roll, where an egg is rolled across the grill before being cracked to make the fried rice, and the beating heart of fried rice, where the chef molds rice into a heart shape and uses the spatula underneath to push rice up and make the “heart beat.”
“The food made it even better with the chef’s tricks and humor as he was preparing everything,” Nelson said.
Nelson’s chef made jokes that were appropriate and funny for both college students and the family with young children that sat across from them.
Chefs are trained before they start working at Umami Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar, usually at the restaurant they worked at previously. Roger Pelayo, the owner, trained in Florida and worked in major chains such as Benihana and Samurai before coming to North Carolina and working at Umami.
He was a hibachi chef for 13 years before taking on his role
at Umami.
“Everyone has their own style of cooking and favorite tricks to do, but there is a general format,” Pelayo said. “Each chef has come from a different restaurant and trained a different way.”
Pelayo said most chefs train for about six months or up to a year before they can cook in a hibachi restaurant. Before he hires a chef at Umami, he ensures they have the level of showmanship that Umami customers expect, can engage with and understand the costumer’s vibe.
“Each chef reads the group and based on who is there, that is how they choose what jokes they are going to use and what tricks they will do,” Pelayo said.
Pelayo’s favorite is the lemon trick, where the chef toasts the lemon and then throws it in the air, slicing it with a knife as it falls onto the grill. But unfortunately, because of insurance reasons, it is not performed any more.
Though somewhat dangerous, Pelayo thinks the samurai feel of the trick adds to the performance.
Umami Japanese Steakhouse and Bar is located at 3263 S. Church St. in Burlington, open every day except Saturday for lunch 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. and every day for dinner from 4:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.