UMI Cafe

Shop 10, The Strand Arcade
250 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

The Strand Arcade is a small, bland, mall-like adjunct of Myer’s Lonsdale Street store. Home to a Dick Smith, Gloria Jeans, a fantasy bookstore, a couple of hairdressers, drycleaner and a juice bar, it is the last place you’d expect to find decent Japanese ramen.

Yet find it you do at the innocuous looking UMI Café. I’ve walked past this place many times without expecting it to be anything more than a normal sandwich and coffee bar, as this is what UMI looks like on the outside. A coffee machine, sandwiches, pies and muffins belie UMI’s Japanese offerings. However, Mellie’s eagle eye had previously spotted my favourite Japanese dish on its bill of fare, so we decided to give it a go for lunch today.

Walk past the sandwiches and pies and you’ll see a glass cabinet with plastic food models depicting the menu items (much like in Japan), offering bento, don dishes (stuff on rice), sushi, sashimi and of course, ramen.

The prices are ridiculously cheap, from around $8 for a bento, and $6.50 for don dishes and ramen. Talk about Rejecting the Recession!  Another glass cabinet held various nori handrolls, and a very Japanese looking chef can be spotted toiling away in a small kitchen, hidden from view by a noren.

After ordering at the counter, we sat in utilitarian plastic chairs and awaited our meal. I have been disappointed many times with promises of good ramen, and my expectations were not high, especially given the location. When it arrived on a beautiful black tray, it looked and smelled the business, with oil glistening on the surface promising serious ramen umami-ness (it ain’t ramen unless it’s full of saturated fat!).

I took a sip of the broth and savoured a very nice shoyu style soup with a surprising depth of flavour, heady with soya sauce and pork, and containing just the right amount of saltiness. I was pleasantly surprised! I delved further into the ramen, slurping up noodles that were just OK, but sampling charshu that was melt in your mouth tender, and fresh and crunchy menma (bamboo shoots). Half a hard boiled egg, though lacking a gooey yolk, was a nice accompaniment. All up, a pretty damn fine ramen! Toppings were scant; I would have liked more charshu and toppings but what do you expect for $6.50.  However, I’m sure that you could always ask for more topping (which I’m going to do next time). The serving was also the right size too – not too big, not too small.

Mellie greatly enjoyed her very nice croquette bento, which came with two decent sized potato croquettes, some Japanese potato salad, a tuna and corn nori roll, some horenso (spinach with sesame seed), cold spaghetti salad, and steamed rice sprinkled with black sesame. Pretty good for $8!! We are dying to go back to try their other dishes, including the katsu curry rice, and the tori no karaage (Japanese fried chicken), which many people seem to be ordering.

The staff were also super friendly, greeting customers on arrival and thanking them when they left.

UMI definitely espouse the very Japanese thing of decent food located in hard-to-find, unexpected locations. Obviously there are better ramen/Japanese places elsewhere, but UMI provides a good option especially if one craves a decent bowl of ramen (or muffin) after a hard afternoon of shopping at Myer!