Yuuuummm, Burgers!

Earlier this week a friend from Boston was in town and we were looking for a good place to grab dinner in the Marina/Cow Hollow area. With the amazing powers of Yelp reviews, we stumbled across Umami Burger in the Cow Hollow neighborhood, on Union St by the Fillmore intersection. Umami has been a popular burger chain in SoCal for many years and opened it's first (and only thus far) San Francisco location last fall. Umami serves gourmet burgers, with custom toppings, cheeses and sides. They grind their meat in-house, purchased from local purveyors only. 

While burgers are associated as being an all-American dish, this restaurant mixes this conception up with a Japanese influence. In Japanese the word "umami" refers to something with a pleasant savory taste. The decor of the restaurant reflects this influences as well, with wood paneling, samurai swords and Japanese insignias. Umami does not have a liquor license and unfortunately their beer and wine list is not too long. We ordered a glass of sauvignon blanc and then focused on the food. 

There are 10 different burger options, plus a special of the day. One burger that is limited to only the San Francisco location is the bacon wrapped scallop burger. This scallop patty is topped with crispy pork belly, sweet chili sauce and garlic aioli. I'm a Midwest girl and we like our beef so I didn't get one, despite reading fabulous reviews about it. I opted for the special of the day, which was a burger topped with their homemade beer-battered cheddar cheese, roasted green chilies and a chipotle sauce. This was by far one of the juiciest, flavorful burgers I've had in a long time. All burgers are served medium rare (which I prefer), so for my friends who do not like them dripping and slightly bloody, you'll need to ask for well or well done. One of my friends got the Port and Stilton burger, but he was disappointed because the caramelized onions overtook the bleu cheese flavor. While these 6 ounce burgers are quite filling, they do not come with sides. Our tables split and order of the skinny fries and the tempura onion rings. The tempura onion rings were crispy and delicious but the skinny fries were your average fries and lacked salt or seasoning. One thing I will give to Umami is that their house-made ketchup is pretty good. I hate ketchup but this one was actually tolerable. It was less sweet and had a small kick to it. I'll still stick with my garlic aioli though! For dessert (if anyone has room for dessert after a meal like this), they serve snack cakes from LA-based Cake Monkey bakery. They also feature ice cream cookies sandwiches, with inventive flavors from San Francisco's own Humphrey Slocombe (such as salt and pepper, fluffernutter or secret breakfast-cornflakes and whiskey). I'm pretty disappointed I didn't leave room for dessert!

Overall, I wouldn't agreed with the 4 out of 5 star rating on Yelp unless you're focusing on the burger offerings only. The ambiance is nice but doesn't knock it out of the park. The limited alcohol options are a bit of a letdown. I really liked my burger and my friend from Boston loved her's, so it gets good reviews for the most part. I wish I could have skipped the sides and gone with dessert. Burgers are priced from $10-$15, with side dishes ranging from $3-$7. This seems a little steep to me, as there are so many other gourmet burger places in the city where you can get a burger and side for under $20 easily.

UPDATE: I was just informed that they have a secret menu. Apparently there are cheesy tots on this menu that would change my opinion on Umami's side dish offerings. Even better, it's not easy cheese drizzled on top, but actual cheese based inside each tot! Bet those ones don't get soggy.