Umami Café at Portland Japanese Garden

"This was an amazing find inside the Portland Japanese Garden. They take reservations and (at least based on my experience, around 11-11:30 on a Friday) you'll basically need a reservation if you have a bigger group and/or you want to sit at a table, but there are 5-ish bar seats is available for walk-ins, which is how I was seated. IMO the bar seats are better because you can watch the staff prepare your tea and food. The staff was very knowledgeable and friendly - most of them appeared to not be Japanese, but they definitely upheld the standard of Japanese hospitality. The menu features tea sets as well as drinks and sweets a la carte, and savoury chazuke and miso soup. I ordered the shiitake chazuke and the matcha & kinako mochi set. The chazuke came with a separate bowl to drink the genmaicha on its own in addition to the bowl of rice, and the tea was wonderful - very smooth and almost floral, and it worked beautifully in the chazuke dish. The dish was very umami and I was impressed that even the nori seemed high quality. It was also very salty, but the waiters were very diligent about refilling water. The matcha was perfectly smooth with a thick layer of foam - very practiced preparation! The flavour was very balanced. I was actually having second thoughts about ordering the kinako mochi and instead wishing I opted for something less "basic" as I saw some other desserts coming out, but I was ultimately happy with my choice when I tried them. They were very tender, served over a little bit of black sugar syrup and dusted heavily with nutty kinako. Not basic. My total was $29 before tip. Although the portions are small, the point of this is not to eat until you're full, but to get a taste of Japanese tea culture, and I think it was worth it for the quality of what was served. I had no idea I was going to find this teahouse when I came to the Japanese garden, but the authentic Japanese tea experience here really added something special to my visit, and if you plan on visiting the garden, this is something I highly recommend adding on!"

"Maybe I'm not as classy as I need to be for this place, but the menu is very limited. I can definitely confirm that they have high quality Japanese tea, and that they have several delicious desserts that complement your beverage, as long as they are in stock. Their savory foods are definitely lacking, though they have a couple of light and authentic options. I wasn't overly impressed by the food itself, but the place, much like the rest of the garden, is wonderful. Small, but you get great service and an excellent view."

"This is not the place to go when you are hungry. Plain rice in a water without any flavors. Tea was not very intense and they give you 2 free refills. If you like warm water then get the refills, but for us it felt diluated after the first one. Maybe this place is just not for us.."

"I volunteer at the garden so my review will be biased. That said, this is a great place to have quiet conversations while admiring the greenery outside. They mainly have variety of Japanese teas. I like all of the tea they have. All of the teas are serves with Japanese sweets. I like all of them, since choices are not that large, you may want to try all of them."

"Very nice experience, very authentic tea at Umami Café. We thought we made the reservation, but turned out we only made the reservation for the garden… but luckily there was a outdoor seat available when we went, the staff welcomed us and was nice that we were able to get in. It was a bit cold but nice to sit outdoor and enjoy the view with hot teas. All of the food/tea we ordered were really good and if you order tea, you get three rounds of it. (the staff will add water for you) I love their matcha, made me think of the time i visited Japan."