Umaido, Suwanee GA

Umaido is a restaurant with some buzz and I expect the buzz to only get hotter in the coming weeks. First blogged by Gene Lee and then followed on shortly by Chloe Morris, the story of this ramen shop has been told and told well on those blogs. Now, there are places in town that serve ramen, and do it well. Haru Ichiban comes to mind. But I don’t recall seeing anything at Haru that looked like the pork ramen product on Gene’s or Chloe’s blog, and after mentioning this shop to my wife, she was very interested in trying this place.

We came on a weekend after having a heavy lunch, and were planning on having something lighter for dinner. Umaido is just off the Lawrenceville-Suwanee exit of I-85N, to the east, in a strip mall full of interesting Korean eateries, and just a little before Super H Mart. It’s near a Cafe Mozart, which might be easier to spot on first glance than Umaido itself.

Inside, the long grey concrete walls and totally unclad roof make me feel as if Umaido is industrial, designed by Beethoven, as the theme is as subtle as the intro to the Fifth Symphony.  Otherwise the eatery is thin, with one long table in the middle surrounded by bar stools, and smaller tables otherwise set against the bare grey walls. The place where the ramen is cooked is open to view, prompting Chloe’s comment that the cooking is well worth the watch.

Staff is dressed in black, and they have headbands with .. not sure if it was red kanji or a rising sun motif. Service was plentiful and good. Almost everyone in the restaurant at the time was Asian, or part Asian. The table was stocked with plenty of extras.

In the metal jars, there were thin red pickles and garlic. In the 2 liter container was tea. Soon we ordered, and so we ordered the gyoza (dumplings), the chasyu rice bowl, and three ramen soups, two miso and one spicy. We ordered drinks as well. Since they didn’t have any diet drinks, I ordered green tea:

The gyoza arrived first (sorry no photos; they were eaten too quickly), but they were obviously grilled and plenty good. The rice bowl came with it, and no, it didn’t survive the end of the meal either. The meaty squares are pork, tasting of marinade, ginger and other spicy influences.

Soon after the ramen came.

miso ramen.

spicy ramen.

Both kinds were good. My wife didn’t eat the egg (perhaps shocked at the color) but nothing else survived the carnivorous side of the family. My daughter pretty much ate everything, and as they were offering free extra noodles, I added those to my broth and took care of those as well. The egg was actually mild, and nothing to shock anyone who ever ate an egg sunny side up.

By the end, everyone left happy, full, and pleased. My wife was talking about how this place is going to collect a huge lunch crowd and I hope so. It would be a nice plus for Suwanee and Greater Atlanta for this eatery to become a huge success.

Verdict: Good, tasty, inexpensive, worth a drive. Very Highly Recommended.

Umaido
2790 Lawrenceville Suwanee Rd
Suwanee, GA 30024
(678) 318-8568

Atlanta

 

A urad dal based lentil soup

I’ve made several lentil soups whose results I’ve documented (also here and here) on this blog. I hadn’t much success with urad dals (Buford Highway Farmer’s Market sells them as urid dals), a kind of black lentil, because they needed a substantially longer cooking time. Most recipes that use urad dals speak of soaking overnight and then cooking for 3 hours.  So, I decided to try again, and the results are worth reporting. As I’m inclined to improvise, we’ll talk about ingredients as we use them.

We started with a cup of urid dals purchased from Buford Highway Farmer’s Market. Those were soaked overnight and set to simmer in the morning with 6 cups of water. I usually start another pot simmering with nothing but water, so that I can add hot water if the dish requires it.

After 2 hours I tasted the dals, which seemed soft and probably edible at that point. I added 1/2 cup of bulgur (I would have preferred pearled barley but couldn’t find any) and 2 bay leaves, some hot water and started prepping vegetables. I cut up a yellow bell pepper, 3 stalks of celery, some carrot, equivalent to 1-2 full sized carrots, 3/4 of a large yellow onion, and 1 jalapeno pepper, with seeds. These we sauteed in olive oil for 7 minutes (until the onions begin to turn transparent) and added to the pot (after 2 hours, 15 minutes). We let it simmer for 40 more minutes.

One characteristic of the Indian recipes is that they wait until the very end and then sautee aromatic spices, garlic, etc in ghee (clarified butter) and add that to the soup. In the same spirit we prepped 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and deveined, 2 large cloves of garlic, thin sliced, 3 decent sized shallots, and a handful of destalked fresh spinach. These we sauteed in olive oil until the spinach was limp and dark green and the shallots were turning transparent (ca 3 minutes), and we added that to the soup, and let it cook 5 more minutes.

The soup that resulted is vegan, creamy, rich, and full of flavor. All I added was some salt substitute before I served it. Others may choose to add spices of their choice.

I’m not 100% sure whether the soup grew so rich because of the dals themselves, or because the bulgur acted as a thickening agent. In many of these soups, (great examples are here, here, and here) potatoes can be added to give it a vegetable component, and that will thicken the stock over time.

 

Tacos, with salsa

One of the simplest “spreads” that you can do is to make some ground beef, refried beans, add some cut fresh vegetables, sliced jalapenos, and some salsa for people to eat. Your young ones will pile on what they want, ignore the rest. The cooking is simple and fast. Salsas don’t require any cooking at all, and no preparation if you buy a canned salsa.

Black Bean and corn salsa:

We made this using:

1 can (15 oz) black beans
1 can (15 oz) corn
1 roma tomato, diced.
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1/2 green onion, diced.
2 hot peppers, diced finely.
juice of 1 lime.

We should have added minced cilantro but didn’t. It didn’t affect the outcome. We mixed well and put it in a bowl to marinate.

Pico de gallo:

See the blog article here.

Taco meat:

Brown ground beef or ground turkey in a skillet. Season as desired.

Soft flour tortillas

Place between moistened paper towels and microwave for a few seconds, till steamy and warm.

hard taco shells

Heat in the oven, per package recommendations.

additional

We usually take a round tray with segments and fill the segments with things like:

lettuce
diced tomatoes
commercial red picante
commercial salsa verde
sliced cheese
sour cream

and provide spoons for those who want them.

 

Quinoa For Breakfast

I’ve been promising I’ll test both quinoa and amaranth in terms of their breakfast cereal appeal. I didn’t want to cook for 5, just 1, and the guiding principle was KISS (keep it simple, stupid). So, I started with 1/4 cup of quinoa and 1/2 cup of cold water. Put it on the stove and heated. Started with cold water, turned up the heat, waited till it was boiling, reduced temperature, trying to get it to simmer. Never did really succeed in finding an optimum temperature, was playing with temperature throughout. After 15 minutes it was done.

Plain cooked quinoa makes a fine breakfast cereal.

It smelled good when taking it out of the pan. I was concerned I would have to add something to make it palatable, but I shouldn’t have been so worried. It smelled so good, some of the quinoa never made it into the breakfast bowl. It has a nutty flavor, sufficient to stand on its own without any additives. If you were to make a regular routine of the grain, however, you might want to add things, like fruits or nuts, or a little brown sugar, to vary the flavor of what you eat.

I enjoyed it immensely. If you have the patience to watch the pot over the 15 minutes it cooks, you should be able to succeed.  Should work well in a bachelor kitchen. Should work well as a side dish.

Issues? It’s a small grain. That makes it hard to wash, hard to handle. There will be transfer losses.