Siah recommended this restaurant and since they were around Damansara Uptown area anyway, The Princess decided to check out Umai-ya. Upon entering, the Zen-like ambience immmediately put them in major gastronomic mood. Umai-ya consists of 2-floor with the ground floor assigned as non-smoking area. The upper level has private dining booths ala Japanese tatami-style dining. The only smoking area is the bar counter, so they settled for that. Good idea, as they could watch the chefs prepare the food that way.

Orders taken, the chefs quickly got into action. For novelty's sake, they orderered live sea urchin, just flown in according to the server. One piece is priced at RM65, bloody hell it better gives her multiple orgasms or else. When the sea urchin is poked at, you can see the spikes moving. Confirm still alive, never kena con.


Below is the clip of the chef preparing the sea urchin. Pardon the bad quality, it was dark in the restaurant ok. Ceh, easy only what, The Princess can also do that.






First to arrive is the Dragon Roll. Yummy, the avocado is not too ripe.





The sea urchin made the grand entrance. After squeezing some lemon, they eagerly tucked in. Ok, first bite, only could taste the lemon. Nevermind, let's try without the lemon. Hmm...how do you describe the taste? Creamy with a faint smell of blocked sewage pipe.



That roll above is very good. Thinly sliced cucumber is used to wrapped the filling of raw fish meat. The filling has some crunchy bits of God-knows-what added and white sesame sprinkled on top. Crunchy cucumber lent a refreshing taste to the raw fish, very light on the palate.





The seafood ramen is a bit of a letdown though. The broth is nothing to shout about, and the noodles is soggy. Ramen is supposed to be springy and firm, else Maggi Mee would do the trick, she didn't have to pay 20+ bucks for it.

Finally, for desert, they had black sesame ice-cream. She liked that the sesame is not grinded into oblivion, just merely crushed to retain a bit of texture in every spoonful.




The sashimi selection looked very fresh, but she didn't order much as she has just recovered from a bout of major diarrhoea - didn't want to upset the stomach with too much raw seafood. There are also many value for money bento to choose from. The bill came up to RM160. All in all, recommended Japanese food at slightly higher price. Just skip the sea urchin and save the 65 bucks for other sashimi.