Restaurant review: Bari-Uma, Causeway Bay - ho-hum Japanese

There are more than 10 Japanese restaurants to choose from in Tang Lung Street, Causeway Bay. Half of them serve ramen, which invites comparison. Opened in July, Bari-Uma,  which means “super tasty” in the Hiroshima dialect, offers a big choice of ramen, rice and side dishes. 

One of my friends is a vegetarian, so we asked the waiter if they served any meat-free dishes. The waiter confidently told us they do, and pointed out a ramen dish – tori-yasai (HK$78). When the dish was served, we realised that it was soaked in chicken broth. We then asked a waitress if there was any broth that did not contain meat. She gave us a blank look and asked if pork broth was suitable. In the end my friend was only able to eat the half-boiled egg from our noodle dish and ordered a side dish of bamboo shoots (HK$10). The bean sprouts on the ramen were quite tasteless.

We also tried the noritama-uma (HK$98), as it was the restaurant’s signature ramen. The pork soup broth was rich and thick. The ramen noodles also had a very strong broth taste,  which we liked, and the half-boiled egg also did not disappoint  as it was cooked just right – hard on the outside, soft and runny inside.

For side dishes, the spicy gyoza (HK$38) was, to quote my guest, “a mixture of confused flavours”, and the chilli did not complement the flavour of the dumplings. It is probably a better idea to order the original gyoza (HK$35), as the dumpling itself was quite tasty. The karaage (HK$35), a chicken dish, was too crisp but the meat was surprisingly quite succulent. The texture of the pork in the chashu-mayo rice (HK$35) was quite grainy but the taste was still fine.

Overall, the ramen noodles and their signature broth did not stand out from the competition along the street.

Bari-Uma, Circle Tower, 28 Tang Lung Street, Causeway Bay,  tel: 2180 9172.  Open: 11am-11pm