Umami

It’s a little bit pricey since it’s located in the Lakeview district, but the quality and taste of the food justifies it.
Sweet & spicy pork belly was decadent (fat-wise), it even had chicharron.
Pretty good combination to give texture to the melt in your mouth pork belly chunks.
Beef bulgogi was good and had a good amount of kimchi included.
Tonkotsu Black ramen was good, the broth was rich and hearty, it came with a whole marinated egg and wrapped seaweed.
Got our order to go but a glimpse of the inside shows that there’s a lot of tables and the ambiance was pretty chill.

Sad my omurice that was supposed to have an omelet over rice ended up only being a fried egg over rice, which made it $13 sausage fried rice...
😮‍💨 That said, it was flavorful, and my hubby enjoyed the spicy ramen, so we may come back and try something different. Update: I found a video of omurice and am sharing so that I can ask for it on my next visit.
Will update you guys once I do!

Working in Birmingham, AL for a few weeks and I did my usual Yelp due-diligence to find the best places to eat! Well, I found this place, took my wife and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! So much that we came back again the next week! Here's why we spun the block. Atmosphere/Appearance: Set right on the corner of 29th Street and 7th Ave in a more, residential, modern-like district of Birmingham, is this gem.
There's no private parking, but finding space on the street wasn't too bad.
We came on a Wednesday for a special reason (more on that later) and the restaurant was decently busy.
You love to see places thriving no matter what day or time it is.
The exterior is a part of a very modern apartment building so it looks fairly inviting.
There is a cute outdoor patio facing the sidewalk that contains plenty of comfortable seating.
The interior is tastefully decorated and not overly done at all.
It's modern, it's chic, spacious and just nice. Service: Service both times was excellent.
The manager actually took care of me the 2nd time and she was so sweet.
The staff were friendly and made sure I had everything that I needed. Food: So I tried a wide variety of things.
Let's start with the wings that are actually served in an edible crispy rice bowl.
Lol.
The Teriyaki were nice and sticky, a good size.
It was GREAT.
It was crispy, decently salty, not over-the-top and the sesame seeds were a good addition.
The Korean BBQ were beautiful.
They're served with scallions and a sauce over top.
They tasted delicious.
I felt like there may be some schezwan pepper involved in the sauce, but it was bold, tasty and well-executed.
The last wing flavor was Mango Habanero.
It was thick and as juicy as the other wings, not terribly spicy as I would expect from a flavor that involved Habanero.
It was a creamy sauce, a bit sweet and incredibly complex.
Really hard to describe.
Next up was the Basil Duck taco! In it is duck confit wrapped in bibb lettuce then topped with an Asian slaw, basil, red onion and jalapeno.
It was DELICOUS.
The fresh jalapeno definitely adds spice and wakes up the WHOLE taco.
Lol.
It even felt better eating it since it was served in lettuce and not a carb-y tortilla! Lastly I had to try some sushi and I landed on the W.T.F.
Roll.
Lol, in it is tuna, crab salad, green onion, cucumber then topped wit tuna, masago and sweet spicy sour sauce.
The whole thing really just melts in your mouth and was FANTASTIC.
I loved it SO MUCH! Value: Wednesdays are 1/2 off bottles of wine and 4 wings for $6.00! So make sure you pull up on hump day indeed! Lol.
My roll was $25.00 and totally worth it.
So this isn't a cheap-eats place, but a good date night spot.
Bring the wallet, but you may not need the credit cards.
Lol. In conclusion, I don't really even need to say much more.
Lol.
I like it here and will continue to return! Make sure you do the same!