Tania T.
Yelp
We visite Yume Japanese Burger on our trip to Ojai. This seemed like a promising place, pretty good review on Yelp and such a unique fusion. We were expecting Japanese flavor in American aesthetic type of food... and Yume were almost there! The place is quite unassuming, it has a small storefront with 2 booths on the front. But, like other Yelpers on the page suggested, there are some unique decors and plenty more seatings if you walk toward the back of the restaurant. We ordered 2 wagyu beef combo and added a fried chicken (forgot what they called it on the menu), but it was advertised on the wall. We almost sat in the front but were so glad to changed our mind and moved to the back where we were met with so many amazing Japanese posters/magazine covers literally covering the wall. It isn't the Ojai I imagined, and it's pretty cool that this place exist in Ojai! It wasn't busy when we placed our order but there were other patrons that was already seated and enjoying their food out in the back patio. We took some pictures while we waited for the food to come to our table.
The food's aesthetic were definitely American. The burger was placed in a paper wrap and you can see what's in it: Tomato, onion, wagyu burger, and lettuce. My husband had the cheeseburger so his came with a cheese. But after looking at it, I was a bit disappointed in the presentation. It seemed like a dinner burger looked better than what we were receiving, I failed to see the fusion in this wagyu burger. The flavor was okay, it was not as great as I expected when I took that first bite. Since we ordered a combo, it also came with french fries, and it was not the best fries. It was soggy and not crunchy/crisp at all. It was just a bad batch of fries. What took us by surprise were the fried chicken! It was not only cooked nicely and crisply, it had a nice ginger like taste to it, even without any dipping sauce, the flavor was there! It was perfectly seasoned and cooked. So the perfectly made chicken made me wonder, what happened to the fries even more.
Anyways, it is a cool place to have in Ojai, very unique in a small town USA and while it has really awesome interior design, the food could be improved. A tad disappointed in the wagyu burger as it tasted and looked like any other burger that you could find in the US. I was really looking forward for that special Japanese twist or something when I ate the burger. Well, little did I know that the Japanese twist came in that fried chicken flavor.