Today's Deep Thought - I find it pretentious that you refer to yourself as "upper class" in conversation.  Maybe the government classifies you that way, but why do you need to refer to yourself that way when you are discussing your "problems?"  As my mother always says, "Money doesn't buy class."

We only had two children with us for dinner on Saturday night, and despite Carmageddon, we decided to venture out for dinner.  We are a family of burger lovers, and our standing favorite is The Counter.  But I've been hearing great things about Umami Burger, so we decided to try it.

At The Counter, you make your burger, your way, with dozens of choices of meat, cheeses, toppings and buns.  The concept behind Umami Burger is that everyone can sense a fifth taste when they eat beyond sweet, sour, salty and bitter called umami.  The eponymous burger at Umami captures that fifth taste by combining a great beef patty with roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions, a Parmesan crisp, sauteed Shiitaki mushrooms and a house-made ketchup.

I love the "Smile You're in Los Angeles" sign with the radar gun over Ariana's head.

I was the only one who actually ordered the Umami Burger.  David and James had the Manly burger with bacon lardons and beer cheddar cheese with onion strings, and Ariana had the SoCal burger.


The burgers were cooked to perfection, but everyone agreed that we still like The Counter better.

We ordered the sweet potato fries because that's one of our favorites at The Counter as well.


Interestingly, Umami serves their sweet potato fries sprinkled with brown sugar.

The fry that won the competition though was the truffle fry here.



Served with garlic aioli, these were amazing, but they were a special on Saturday night and aren't on the regular menu.

The kids were duly impressed by the Mexican Coke though.  They said it tastes better (sweeter) than regular Coke.


And all draft beer was on special that night for $4.05.  Get it? 405 - hah!