Umai Oriental Street Food Cafe in the Oriental Mart is a great place to pick up a bit of Asian Street Food. I have been here a lot and have blogged about them a couple of times already (read more here and here)

If you collect and eat inside it is great value, but if you order for delivery it is a bit more expensive. The trouble is that it is so damn irrestible that even I have succumbed to the temptation recently especially when confined to Working From Home.

Here is just a taste of what I ate

KATSU CURRY BOWL

I blame work colleagues for my decision to order katsu from Umai as they kept on talking about Katsu curry and I was then sold on getting some

as Katsu dishes go it is not a bad effort, there is a nice crispy breaded coating on the fried chicken and the curry sauce on the top was like the classic spicy gravy mix you learn to love. Beyond that it is a large bowl of soft white rice with some green salad.

SPICY CHICKEN GYOZA

I like the gyoza here at Umai, and while these 5 looked pretty perfect the filling of spicy chicken was a little out of kilter with my taste buds. It was a real case of eat with your eyes on this occasion.

POTSTICKER ACTION

I took this picture in my kitchen to show just how perfect and delectable the charred edges are where the gyoza sticks to the pan while steaming in the pot. The reason why we call these ‘potstickers’ in the states, I was also showing off my chopstick skills in action as I was posting to social like a dick.

KOREAN FRIED CHICKEN RICE BOWL

I quite enjoyed the Korean Fried Chicken Rice bowl which was ‘6 boneless pieces of fried chicken in Korean seasoning mixed with a choice of sauce’ (I had Sweet and Spicy, other option were Soy Garlic or Sriracha Chili). served with rice and lettuce, topped with sesame seeds.

The ‘sticky’ sauce was as promised and I like that it coated everything in the bowl once you started to eat it. Moist tender chicken and lots of white rice topped in sauce is basically what is happening here

SOUP DUMPLINGS

One of their newer offerings are these rather moreish Chinese Soup dumplings. They have a number of fillings but I had the somewhat classic offering of Pork and Cabbage. It is not a small portion as you get 10 pieces for your money, enough to share and just enough to make a meal for one.

I thought these were really good as the wrapper, although fairly thick, is soft to the bite and slips down very easily as you eat one. The filling of pork mixed with cabbage was really well balanced as well, a few bits of seasoning but mostly just the steamed pork and vegetable.

A MEAL DEAL IN HOUSE

While I have enjoyed in the main the delivieries from Umai I don’t think that you can beat eating in the cafe directly just like the meal we had here once before (read more here). It is much better value and doesn’t have to travel on a bicycle half way across town to get to you 🙂

It is still a good option though if you have the urge for some Umai action in your life

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Umai Oriental Street Food Cafe is located at the Hydrogen Building inside the new Orientalmart, in Nottingham City Centre opposite the Theatre Royal.

You can check them out on their website and also on Facebook and Instagram

I ordered my Umai through Deliveroo