The only time I can have buffet is when a group of people, and I have been craving for buffet for tooooooo long.... Here comes Umai-Ya~ yet another Japanese buffet style that allow you to enjoy all-you-can-eat Japanese food with decent quality.

About Umai-Ya

Umai-Ya is a name that has many meaning but the closest one that I could relate is "Delicious House". "Umai" means good or delicious, while "Ya" means house. Combining these two results in the idea that Umai-Ya is a full house of delicious and authentic Japanese foods.

The founder of Umai-Ya is a Malaysian who accidentally falls into the Japanese cuisine industry because of mere trying and helping on his friend's business. As time goes by, his love in Japanese developed deeply and ended up as his lifelong journey. The founder started his kitchen work without any knowledge in this field. As a result of his perseverance and strong principals to contribute his soul into Japanese cuisine, he had Japanese chefs as his mentor and work for J.W Marriot Hotel for 10 years to be able to achieve this result today.

Apart of authentic Japanese cuisine, food representation is his another strong point which you will see it really soon.

Damansara Uptown Outlet

Opened since 2007, this outlet has two floors that you can choose to dine in at whichever floor your prefer. At this trip, I only visited the ground floor because I'm with my family.

Before entering, I was wondering where is the entrance because there is one huge wooden board with some rope tied at several spots, we thought it's a wall or decoration but turns out it's the door. Once we step in, the walkway is full of authentic yet modern Japanese decoration. Not long before reaching the dining seats, we can see the Japanese tatami style place on our left but in my opinion, it's nothing really special in terms of overall look & feel, and incomparable with actual tatami style. Perhaps other outlet like KLCC has better environment. In the dining place, it's totally different and nothing to do with being Japanese style. It seems more like an ordinary place just for eating and somehow it's giving me the feeling of a karaoke box due to the dimmer lighting and also the cushion style wall.

Other than that, the seats are quite comfy and you can enjoy the sofa no matter which seat you take. Relaxing music and quiet environment able to make you feel much more enjoyable on a weekend lunch buffet. It's a little cold when we just reach the place, and it seems they turn down the air-con later when more people are coming in which make the place much more colder. So it's better to take a jacket with you especially when you are bringing any elderly person along.

Beware of food wastage and additional charges for that. These are all the drinks they have for buffet. Their ala carte menu has much wider drinks selection. You need to add additional RM12 for one cup of sake. The Ocha is quite tasty, full of original green tea taste. Orange juice is more like sugar water with orange "feeling". I'm not a person who enjoy alcohol, for me Tiger beer is just normal.

Umai-Ya offer lunch buffet on the weekend. So they have two sets of menu. Normally, if you dine in during week days or dinner time, you can only order food from their ala carte menu. In my opinion, you might as well go for their lunch buffet because their lunch buffet is RM58++ for a person, two or three of their dishes have already costs more than that price.

Senior citizens who are above 55 years old and children below 140cm height get to enjoy half price which is RM29.

Itadakimasu (Thanks for the food)~

Ordering is pretty simple. Once you are set on the table, asked for the menu in case the waiter did not get you one earlier. Pick a batch of foods that you want from the menu, write the food code as shown in the menu and the quantity on the order-taking paper on each table and pass to the waiter. Try to order as much as you could at one go so that it's easier for the kitchen to prepare and you don't need to wait too long. Side note, this is a lunch buffet and there was only one waiter taking order around the place. If he was not around, we can only wait until he appear. He usually appear within 2 or 3 minutes but you know, it's unbearable when you are really hungry.

One problem with the menu, each of us holding different menus and there are pen writing in the menu such as the amount of each type of food. There is one menu that written 2 pieces of sushi per order while there are other menu that written 6 pieces. Some other menus also have the same issue and occur in several type of foods. Guess they need to work on quality assurance not just on the food, but also on the menu.

Do note that their kitchen close at 2pm. So keep track of the time and make sure you order one last large batch of foods around 1.50pm if you can still eat. We start with some appetizers first. Clockwise: Soft Shell Crab Age (Deep Fried Soft Shell Crab), Chuka Kuroge (Seasoned Jelly Fish), Edamamee (Boiled Green Soya Bean), Itako Kyuli (Seasoned Baby Octopus).

Soft shell crab, other than most of the part is covered by fried flour, the part with the filling is very nice whether you eat it with or without sauce. I prefer without sauce thou. Edamammee and Seasoned Jelly Fish taste ordinary, no complain or anything. I think Baby Octopus is just fine, not too tasty and not too bad. I prefer it to be more fresh. Dragon Maki is a great choice for sushi. Tasty eel with thin slice of avocado on top of it. Just that the rice is a little hard. I would recommend this if you are going for sushi. A standard quality sushi. The Ebi Mentai (Prawn with some type of mayo and butter sauce) sushi is fully covered by the sweet mentai sauce. Can't taste much on the shrimp. Inari (fried tofu skin) sushi is nothing special, just taste good. The sushi rice is a bit hard and not really sticky. Gotta throw into my mouth as soon as I pick it up with chopsticks before the rice scatter apart. Another standard chawanmushi with good filling but taste pretty plain. You may take it as a warm food but taste not really great. Kaki Tofu Fried (Deep fried tofu with oyster filling) taste good with the sauce from the outside and the tiny oyster in the inside. Just that the flour is a little too much. Ebi Kushi Yaki (Grilled Prawn with Sauce) is another great choice if you love prawn. The big prawn is served with melted sweet & sour sauce around the shell. It's a little overcooked because the meat is a little stiff but not that bad. The problem with the sauce is it topped outside the shell, so after you get rid of the shell, there is no sauce in the inside of the prawn meat. Suzuki (Sea bass) is something really new to me. I don't recall taking any sea bass sashimi before. The presentation of the 5 layers of sea bass sashimi combined together like a flower is really well done, but it's not too fresh and tasty in the mouth. The texture is quite unsatisfying for me. Note that if Dynamic Kitty complain about fish, you should really hear it out. Saba Shioyaki (Grilled Mackerel Fish with soy sauce) is great too. No bone, not too salty, not covered too much by the sauce. Each bite is so full of the mackerel. Shiro Maguro, literally means white tuna. I'm not sure why the description of this dish is written as butter fish. Not sure if they are the same or it's just menu mistake or something. The quality is about the same with the sea bass. Salmon is slightly better in terms of freshness. But the meat and texture................... really need improvement. Sizzling Salmon is too full with sauce. It's written spicy sauce but I don't taste any spiciness at all. The sauce is too much that I can't really taste the salmon. Kani Tama Maki (Soft shell crab and egg seaweed sushi) is a good choice as well for small bite. Tasty seaweed and crunchy bites. Just throw the whole thing into your mouth, crunch, and enjoy. Hamaguri Miso (Japanese Bean Paste soup with Claim) is basically miso added with clams. The clam actually just served as additional stuff in the miso. Miso soup is just standard quality. Not too great, not too bad. Age Dashi Tofu (Deep Fried Tofu) is the one that I tried it once and I'm not going to order again. Age dashi tofu suppose to be crunchy from the outer skin and soft in the inner tofu part. But this whole age dashi tofu is too soft, and so full of the sauce and I can only taste the sauce, nothing much about the tofu. Negima (Grilled Chicken with Leek) is another No-no. The chicken is too tough and hard to chew. The leek is really tough as well and reminded me why I hate to eat vegetable 15 years ago. The sauce is just salty and that's it. The whole thing is overcooked too much and, looks not really appetizing from the beginning. Yaki Tori (Grilled Chicken with salts) is a little too soft for chicken meat. I prefer it to be much more tender. Taste wise, it's really good and not really salty. Sake Kama Ankake (Salmon Head with Soup) is basically salmon head cubes dipped in sauce. I don't think this is a soup, more like sauce because it's too thick. The salmon head dipped in the sauce results in being too soft. Imagine dipping fried chicken in water. Taste is fine but not really nice to chew especially when there are some many fish bones. Beef Negi (Grilled Beef wrapped with green onion). Green onion suppose to be different with leek, right? But this one taste like the leek I had before. But the beef is good in terms of tenderness and taste. Somehow taste like chicken... The sauce is kind of like grilled soy sauce. Smoked Duck Salad has too little smoke ducks. The vegetable is just okay. Crunchy and fresh. The dressing a little sour and salty thou. One of our to-try item: Wasabi Ice Cream. First, I'm curious why is it pale yellow? Second, there is no wasabi taste or anything. Taste really plain. For ice cream, I would recommend green tea.

Contact & Location

Monday to Sunday: 11:30am - 2:30pm, 6:00pm - 10:30pm
Suria KLCC: 11:30am - 10pm

49A, Jalan SS21/37,
Damansara Utama, PJ.

Main Website: Click Here
Facebook: Click Here
Hotline: +603 7727 7777
Damansara Uptown: 03 - 7726 4410
Suria KLCC: 03 - 2161 3939

Umai-Ya Damansara outlet is located at Damansara Uptown or AKA Damansara Utama, the area near Tropicana City, Atria, and Bandar Utama. There are many ways to reach Damansara Uptown depending on where are you coming from.

The nearest path to reach Umai-Ya after you enter Damansara Uptwon is to enter the road where Village Park Nasi Lemak Restaurant (one of the best Nasi Lemak in town) is and go straight. Umai-Ya is in the same lots of Village Park Nasi Lemak Restaurant, 7 eleven, Caring Pharmacy, Starbucks, HSBC Bank, Dai.komm Coffee, and (the famous) Uptown Hokkian Mee. Umai-Ya located right beside Starbucks and somewhere in the middle of Uptown.

If you are totally new in Damansara Uptown, do not worry because the entire place layout is one huge square. You only need to drive in a loop inside Uptown and you will eventually see them. The only problem is the parking because Uptown is full of people time to time and parking is really limited.

Rating

Quality

Good. I would say quality in terms of taste is between average and good. It's more than average because most of the foods are better than any usual Japanese food you can find out there but consider that you are paying for a decent Japanese lunch buffet, I wouldn't say it's really good that I will miss it or highly recommend it to others. Other than that, most of the food presentation is really good and looks appetizing when the food is being served.

Portion

Good. Despite this is all-you-can-eat buffet, my rating is based on how much food you can enjoy before you can't take it any more. Just like all buffet style, many of their food are heavily covered with sauce. Good thing is you can choose the quantity you want and their minimum quantity is quite reasonable. So it's easier to control and you won't get to over eat too soon. Most of the serving is not too small, yet not too big. I guess that's the ideal portion for buffet. Go with the proper buffet method: take something light such as appetizer or salad, take some main and sides, back to veggie, and go on and on... you won't over eat it too easily and eat until the last minute is possible.

Cost

Worthy. I don't consider their food quality really good, but cost wise still consider worthy as there are some really great stuff that they can offer. But I would probably recommend something else if you looking for buffet around this price.

Service

Average. Customer service wise is consider normal. Nothing like friendly or greet me when I walked right into the place even when staff and waiter saw me. Serving times for foods are usually within 5 to 10 minutes. The only problem is the disappearance of waiter (yes, only one waiter) time to time.

Environment

Good. It would be great if it's as authentic as what stated in the website. There are some Japanese deco that able to make you feel like you are dining in a Japanese restaurant, but it's not as authentic as what they had stated in the website in my opinion. For a buffet lunch, the overall environment is quite comfortable and enjoyable.

Next Visit?

I'm willing to explore more on other type of foods especially mains like sukiyaki and grilled stuff. Let's see when do I get the chance then.