Dinner at Umami Burger in NYC

Nicole and I went to the only NYC outpost of Umami Burger in Greenwich Village.  Sooo many pros: no wait, fun drink and dessert options, delicious burgers, and only half a block from the 9th Street PATH station.  Only negatives I can see is that the burgers aren't as cheap as I'd like but for the quality of food I think it's worth it.  We shared everything of course and each loved both the truffle beef and duck burgers we had.  The manly fries were also super tasty, and normally I don't love fries that thin, but the beer cheddar and bacon plus onion straws just made every bite awesome and different.  My drink was a little tart for my liking, but still good.  We also both loved the various dipping sauces.  Definitely worth another visit as there were other things on the menu we wanted to try.  I don't think they take reservations so best to come with a small party.  The space was pretty big downstairs and there was an upstairs but plenty of people waiting to be seated.

Pear martini drink (forgot the name) and the four dipping sauces: (Top to bottom) 1. Umami ketchup 2. spicy sriracha sauce 3. jalapeno ranch 4. roasted garlic aioli.  Nicole liked the jalapeno ranch the best, while I loved the garlic aioli and the ketchup.  Something for everyone

Make-em-Manly Fries - fries with beer cheddar, bacon and onion strings. Such a great combo and some much fun dipping

Truffle Burger - beef burger with roasted garlic aioli, house truffle cheese, and truffle glaze. SOOO good.  You can tell the beef is quality by how it melts in your mouth.  Of course I loved the aioli and all the truffle flavor was wonderful.  We could smell truffles when we got in

Five Spice Duck Burger (special to this location) - house ground duck, peach apple chutney, Chinese 5 Spice, Madagascar pepper, topped with crispy duck skin & garlic aioli on a bed of caramelized fennel.  There were so many flavors here, it's kind of hard to remember but everything worked so well together.  I guess I would say there was more obvious "umami" flavor here than the truffle burger but both were really spectacular.  I would definitely order either of those again

Sea salt caramel - such a great balance of sweet and salty.  Only thing that would've made it better was some crunch, maybe pretzel bits.  Yummy.