Japanese food buffet @ Umai-Ya, The Place at Damansara Perdana
[Note: I've been informed that Umai-Ya in Damansara Perdana is no longer in operation. The weekend lunch buffet is available at their Damansara Utama (Uptown) branch, full address at the bottom of this blog post.]
One of the problems you would encounter when a place is called ‘The Place’ is the following conversation,
“Do you know where is the place?”
“Yeah, do you know where is The Place?”
“-_-” ”
We were at Umai-ya’s Uptown branch when Kerol told us about their weekend buffet at their Damansara Perdana branch. Basically a ‘gorge yourself for 3 hours for RM55.20 nett per person’ deal. Okay what.
Gathered the usual suspects, Kerol made the reservations and the 9 of us have to sit outside because of #emoCharlie. Our lives have never been quite the same since #emoCharlie… at least #emoRyan can sit inside! 
At least I didn’t feel the heat until the final hour. Kerol, Shiang and FA sweated it out until we moved our tables to the other side.
Assorted appetisers
They give you a sheet of paper with items available for the weekend buffet. It’s not a wide spread as you’d find at Tenji but it’s sufficient and cheaper by RM34. That’s a lot of money okay. We ticked off most of the menu items a few times, except for the rice and noodle dishes. And some stuff we have no idea what they were, the pictures were not in the dictionary (i.e. ala carte menu) and we couldn’t be arsed to ask the waitress.
The deep-fried soft-shell crabs was first to arrive. I think they precooked it so it was a bit soggy, clammy and not piping hot. Don’t like. The chuka idako and chuka kurage (seasoned baby octopus and seasoned jellyfish) were lovely, I especially liked the latter. The special mushroom soup was awesome! I had 3 servings of that I didn’t take the shishamo (grilled pregnant fishy) so I have no idea what it tasted like. FA said it was okay only. Their chawanmushi was light and delicious so make sure you get that.
Special tofu with oyster and Horng’s unique way of eating it
Assorted sashimi and nigiri sushi
The only complain about the sashimi was that the cuttlefish didn’t seem very fresh. Of course I wouldn’t know, since I don’t take raw fish or seafood alike. I don’t even want to comment on the way Horng consumed his tofu with oyster.
Grilled beef with spring onions, and assorted temaki and sushi
Unagi and cheese roll, and dragon roll
The grilled beef with spring onions was very nice! The combination of the flavours was tasty and yummy. They forgot our 2nd order though 
I also liked the temaki with seasoned baby octopus. Quite a lovely change from the usual handrolls. Don’t know much about the other sushi and rolls as I was already quite stuffed by then.
To finish off, we had green tea and wasabi ice-cream, the former being one of my favourite desserts. When we got there, I wanted 10, then dropped to 5, then 3. I had 2
FA with her beer, Kim with her cupcakes
They also serve free-flow beer in cans (so the option for ‘jug’ in the menu was misleading). All a trick really — if you drink beer you wouldn’t have the stomach space for all the food!
Kerol and FA got Kim some birthday cupcakes. Now you know why I was clearing up the tables, eh 
Corny group photo! KY, Mell, ST. #emoCharlie, Shiang, Kerol, FA, Horng, Kim and I
Re: Buffet. Quite worth it for the price, as a couple of the items we ordered would have cost more than the RM55.20. Some items were quite tasty. However some items’ quality was average, which I suppose if the norm for cheaper Japanese food buffets. No money to go dine at PJ Hilton. Anyone from PJ Hilton reading this?
Re: Service. A tad slow, though I suppose you may get better service if you sit indoors. They forgot a couple of our ordered items which was actually okay because at the end of the meal, we were too stuffed to eat anything else.
If you want to go try out their buffet, go check out their website for more info. You’ll need to make reservations as they have limited tables.
* Larger versions of the photos for this outing, 19 in total at my Flickr set.
Umai-ya Damansara Utama
No. 49G, Jln. 21/37 ,Damansara Utama (Uptown)
Tel: 03-77264410
GPS: N3 08.179 E101 37.417
URL: http://umai-ya.com
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Nom nom, love the beef inoki roll.
And must mention the ice cream portion IS NOT SMALL. So don’t overestimate and order 2 for yourself expecting it to be tiny…because you might regret it.
Could definitely use some mayo with the soft shelled crab, but other than that generally good food.
*ahem ahem* I had TWO green tea ice creams okay, I am totally the man yo :X
The tuna and butterfish sashimi also tasted a bit off, like it hasn’t been defrosted properly or it was frozen before or something like that, the texture wasn’t quite right. But so cheap, can lah!
must go again! was too rush too rush way too rush that day!
with your initiate to clean the table and the reluctant from us the acting baru complete.
I like the beef inoki rolls and the mushroom soup. shasimi abit off though.
2 big balls green tea ice cream for balancing. one definitely not enough.
The Japanese buffet at Starhill gallery must be the mother of all Japanese buffet places in Malaysia. A tad expensive on normal days, but they had a promotion a few months ago (RM50 per head), and i truly gorged myself.
Looks good and of course the best would be the free flow beer! How could you guys sit outside and eat jap? must be sweating like hell!
eiling > hot enough to cook the sashimi!!!
Looks good….will try it one day! thanks
Hmm…..how i miss that restaurant with my place so near there
toufu with oyster… that gives me lots of fantasies.
ST: the beef roll is damn awesome! too bad they forgot our 2nd order
regarding ice-cream, did you mean FA??? bwahahhaha
Mell: should be the bad defrosting part. i don’t know, i don’t eat raw fish!
ky: you lah. we were happily stuffed
horng: ky had one wasabi and one green tea ice cream in that order. he said it’s just nice to clean the palate
The Envoy: you mean Jogoya? Heard the quality went downhill
eiling: the sun even half-cooked the sashimi ok
The Keeper: cheers
foodcrazee: what do you mean? It’s damn far away from Genting
aeroplane: so did horng
Yes, but it was the first time I’ve been there, and it’s the largest Japanese buffet restaurant I had ever seen.