Discover a new taste at pan-asian Umami

There’s no way you can stand another lunch at Queen’s Tower, or the Library Cafe, or even the JCR after your exams. It’s just unacceptable! If you feel that life at Imperial has become monotonic (and at the moment your mind thinks of functions) then you need a getaway. Today we’ll present you with an alternative choice.

Umami is ideally located in the middle of Cromwell Road and serves a combination of Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese and Singaporean food. It has opened very recently (in March 2012) so if you didn’t have the chance to visit it yet, you should do so soon. The award-winning chef Darren Kutty, formerly Head Chef at both the Ramada Hyde Park and The Washington Hotel in Mayfair, promises to treat you well.

The menu includes meals in two sizes, to taste or to share, and an adequate variety of food to choose from; a selection of salads, soups, noodles and curries together with grilled and pan or wok-fried dishes like Ped Makham (pan seared duck with tamarind and mange tout) and Ikan Bakar (grilled red snapper in banana leaf served with sweet tamarind and chilli).

As Food Editors, and computing students whose exams have already finished (hang in there, everybody!) we had the chance to pay a visit at Umami for lunch last week. We began our course with homemade vegetable spring rolls, leaf-marinated chicken, king prawns on scallops and a duck salad with lettuce and green mango.

For the main, we had green curry chicken with peas, aubergine and baby corn, and soy-sauce sea bass. It could have just been this particular selection of dishes we made, but every taste was excitingly combined to form a delicious meal. For trivia-lovers, according to the Japanese, umami is one of the five basic tastes and we would like to think that we mastered it last week! All dishes were fresh and very tasty. The portions are just right, giving visitors the chance to try many different combinations.

Realising that not everyone has the time – or the money – to indulge in a long, leisurely lunch, Umami has introduced an Express Lunch Menu; a three-course feast which is priced at an incredible £9.95 per person. Starters comprise a choice of tom yam soup, chicken toast or Thai beef salad, followed by a trio of equally tempting main courses: Malay chicken curry with potatoes served with steamed rice, Indonesian coconut and tamarind fish stew with steamed rice, or wok-fried tofu and seasonal vegetables with basil leaf served with rice or noodles.

Umami 100 Cromwell Road, SW7 4ER. Open for lunch Monday to Friday from 12pm to 3pm and for dinner Monday to Sunday from 5pm to 10:30pm. For reservations, call 02073412320.