The 17 best cake shops and cake bakeries in Bangor (2025)

Umami Noodle Bar is Generally pretty good, but yesterday, the noodle dish tasted of soap, and the meat was boiled bland. Don't expect me to tip anymore.

Unfortunately, I can't give zero. I decided to give it a try after a several year hiatus. The "base" bowl is supposed to come with plentiful carrots and sprouts. It did not.... it was literally broth. I was asked to turn 180 degrees to retrieve my bowl from the server, as apparently it is too difficult to come all the way to the table. Our requested add ons didn't come out, and we were overcharged for what we did get. ($11.95 plus three is $14.95. The tea on the menu is $3.50). When I asked for a refill, I was charged again. This was then removed, but I never got my refill. In fact, I never was asked how anything is.

Extremely disappointed that I drove 30 minutes out of my way to find that they closed early. If businesses are going to close early, they should update hours on Google. I'm sure I'm not the only one who relies on hours shown on Google. Great food. But time is money. I may or may not ever return

Stopped in for lunch with some friends and each ordered the woodland forager. The broth was delicious and the veggies and meat were cooked to perfection. Will definatly be stopping by again next time I'm in bangor.

The soup base here lacks flavor, and the food is generally underwhelming. The presentation of each dish looks delicious until it reaches your mouth. The portion size and taste is not worth the cost. The tonkatsu here is basically mushroom soup with a side of scallions.The service here is embarrassingly bad, we waited 2 hours from start to end. The restaurant only had a few tables, but the server really struggled to get anything done in a timely manner.Definitely don't let the photos fool you, there's no flavor in the food.

Somewhat disappointing take on a modern ramen joint. We stopped in for a midweek lunch, and the counter person was very polite and helpful. I ordered a miso ramen with some typical add-ons (chashu, tamago, etc.), and we looked for a table to sit down at. The place was empty, but most tables were still dirty and sticky, so we had to switch spots a couple times. When the ramen arrived, it somehow just looked off. Normally miso broth is cloudy and rich, this seemed watery and separated. The noodles were very similar to what you'd find in a packet of Top Ramen, and the tamago (egg) was still cold and liquid in the center. I will give credit to the chashu; the pork was thick and fatty, and was probably the only thing that stood out. The overall flavor profile seemed more like a generic attempt at ramen, rather than the genuine article.As a visitor from out of state, maybe I'm spoiled for choice living in a major city that's a culinary destination, since this is a smallish town in central Maine, but even without other competition, I would expect better ramen than this.

Another amazing place to stop by if you are looking to experience authentic Asian food in Maine! Great staff and equally charming ambiance.Everything I ordered arrived quickly and tasted amazing. I normally don't go for iced tea, but I have nothing but great things to say about the Thai Iced Tea I tried at Umami. Can't wait to stop by when we are back in town again!Warm wishes from the AXDC CREATIVE Team!

I had high hopes for this place but it let me down. The noodles and broth were bland and the vegetables that I added to it didn't look like it was cooked in with it, just placed on top. The photos make it aesthetically pleasing, but when I ate it, all I could taste was flavorless soup. It wasn't worth the 25 plus tip that I paid for it, other then the customer service. My waitress was sweet and made sure to come and check on me, but I quickly asked for the check cause I didn't want to have to finish it.

What a gem this place is. We heard great things about this place and wanted to try it out while visiting friends in the Bangor area. We went in the evening (around 7pm) for dine-in. The atmosphere was great. The service was great. The food was EXTRODINARY! Fresh and delicious. We all shared appetizers (Gyoza). Yum. Yum. We all ordered build your own noodle bowls with broth. Mine was DEVINE! See photo. I ate the entire thing. Mine had pork, ramen, egg, broccoli, and so much more. We left at 8:30pm with full bellies. We can't wait to go back to Bangor and eat at Umani again.

New to the area and I wanted to try this restaurant cause I have passed it so many times. It is clean and quiet. The workers are very nice and gave good recommendations.

While visiting in the US for a few days, my Partner and I decided we would try some local spots that caught our interest. Umami just so happened to be one of these locationsThe atmosphere is lovely, the decor is very pleasant, and to our amusement a movie played off on a screen to the side. Customer Service was fantastic. Our waitress was bubbly and friendly, and checked up on us often to ensure we were enjoying our time at the restaurant.We ordered between the two of us Scallion Pancakes, Gyoza, Drinks (I a Boba, and my Partner a Soft Drink) and made a Build your own Bowl Ramen. Our total was 77$ after tax.The Scallion Pancakes were alright, they were delightfully crispy, but had a very clear oily fried flavour to them, and seemed to lack overall flavour otherwise, aside from your occasional spotty bite of green onion.In my opinion, the Gyoza was the best dish we had received. Juicy, crispy, and delicious we ate those the quickest out of them all. However the portion did seem rather small for it’s almost 10$ cost.Lastly, our noodle bowls. Though the presentation is simply beautiful, and aesthetically it is easily some of the most gorgeous food I have had the pleasure of consuming- The dish falls short after that. My broth was bland, and lacked any body of flavour, the noodles were sticky and over cooked, and much more reminiscent of an instant ramen noodle than that of a homemade ramen shop. The Pork Belly I had added to my bowl was deprived of it’s usual smoky, well marinated flavour, and instead tasted of oil. I was unsure if it was fresh, or perhaps something re-seared to use. I will give it points for being tender however! The dish was not horrible, but with the areas it lacks, it is not something I could see myself ordering again without knowing clear improvements have been made.Overall, this was not a bad location. The environment was cozy and friendly, the staff was polite and helpful- but the food was ultimately underwhelming. I would like to come back to this location, as I feel it has a lot of promise. However, I would be trying another main course, and maybe some different appetizers to find what in my opinion would be the best of the best Umami Noodle Bar has to offer!

YOU GET TO MAKE YOUR OWN BOWL!!! WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?!? The new additions are great. Staff is amazing. The Chive Dumplings are To. Die. For.

We wanted to try a new restaurant and saw Umami. We started with a gyoza appetizer which hands down I will say it's the best gyoza I've had in Maine. For a meal I chose to try the pork tonkotsu ramen. The broth was awesome very flavorful but not overwhelming at all just delicious, mix in the perfectly gelatinized egg yolks and a melt in your mouth pork that kicks with a tasty flavor.My wife chose to build her own bowl with a curry broth which she has deemed a staple for the next time we stop in. Great boba tea and sake! Will definitely be back!

I have been eating at Umami for a number of years. This is where my fiancée and I had our first date out together. We were so disappointed by the food tonight. The portion were alot less then what they used too be. We couldn't even use all the broth for our ramen in the small container we received it in. We got home and our food looked like a frozen meal warmed up. We had to put our Ramen into another bowl just so we could try and break up the pasta sticking to itself. My yellow curry was so disappointing barely had any flavor. The whole menu seemed to be reworked for the worst; increasing the price for the food all awhile making the portions smaller. They added bobba tea which is a nice flare but it doesn't make up for the lack of flavor in the food. Ramen bowls used to come with a single piece of seaweed, the cherry on top. But now it is something you need to pay extra for. The fire roasted corn which is something I always added to my ramen bowls is now just corn from a can no flavor just bland. I honestly don't think I will return for ramen again. I always talked up how Umami was the best ramen restaurant in Maine and now I can't suggest it for anything. Maybe the Boba tea, but I can't suggest it for ramen anymore. It breaks my heart writing this post, 💔 I do hope they eventually improve.

My wife and I stopped by here for lunch over the weekend while we were in Bangor. The Tori Katsu Curry was amazing. The broth was extremely flavorful, the eggs were gooey and delicious, and the cutlet was juicy on the inside and extra crunchy on the outside. I would highly recommend it. The staff were also very friendly especially considering there was a 14 person party that had come in right before us and wasn't exactly easy going.

I think I could do better at 7-Eleven. Or really just any neighborhood convenience store heating up some Ramen in the microwave. It seemed like a big noodle bowl filled with lots of broth, very little vegetables, and only that I ordered. We had to address errors on the bill multiple times. Prices of some menu items do not reflect Final bill prices.

Ayooo they recently changed up everything and it's absolutely worth the wait.The rice bowls are 🔥The chive dumplings too!I spent way too much but i ate it for 2 days.

Loved the chill atmosphere and all the windows for natural light and people watching. The food was also incredible and they have lots of healthy options :)

I am here picking up an order for someone else. It seems ok. I will not ever eat here because they have a cook that has only an apron on his top half. Yuck! Armpit hair anyone! On top of that, it took another 20 minutes after I got here for the order.

I went with my sister during the recent Pride parade and festival! Went last year, too. Last year was fine. We got noodles, we left. This year was, honestly, pretty bad.We went inside, sat down, then soon left because I had lost something while walking around. Not their bad. We come back, every seat is taken except for one table- not filthy, but clearly needed to be wiped down. We sit down, they come over in a hurry and wipe the table down. Honestly, I get it. It's pride, they're basically the only restaurant on the block. And it's a ramen shop, what more could a huge gathering of queer folk want? It's busy. I don't blame them for that.The food was great, so let's start with that. I got a huge bowl, I'll admit. I got several proteins, with a lot more eggs. It was, all in all, a great meal. What wasn't great was the fact that the pricing was so far off I had to go home and explain to my grandmother why I was 10 dollars over my budget. With the huge build-your-own bowl I got, it should have been 20 dollars if it's +1 and +2.50 for each protein and addon etc, and 13 or so if it was a single-time charge. I was charged THIRTY. My sister, who also got a build your own that should have added up to 7-12 was charged 19. They didn't even get my order right, and added bean sprouts and scallions despite the instructions I wrote on the order form.Let's not even talk about the fact that they gave us NO WRITING UTENSIL. I FILLED IN MY BUILD-YOUR-OWN CHECKLIST WITH CRAYON. We got boba, too, but they also got that order wrong, and gave me tapioca instead of the ordered popping boba. We had our forms taken, and it took them nearly a full hour to get us our food. In that time, we were brought an order of boba that Was Not Ours (and included 4 cups, not 2, all of which were not the right thing), and we were brought 3 bowls of ramen. None of which were ours. Not a single time did an employee come in to check on us, and they actively avoided coming over. We were even given 3 waters, when there were only 2 of us.Sorry for the long rant. All in all, great food, horrible service. Apparently it was an error with the table setup, but it should not have taken that long to be rectified.

Honestly. We'll start with the good.The location is good. It's very central and walkable. Parking is street parking but there tends to be lots of options with ample time to park and eat.The interior is well done with well spaced tables.The concept itself of a build your own noodle is goodThe execution is alright.We ordered 2 bowls. Both broths were good, reasonably flavored. The noodles were kind of where this fell down. I ordered the ramen and the other was egg noodle. The ramen noodle was not springy at all and reminded me of a instant ramen style noodle. The other was egg noodles, these were better they had more chew and generally were good. The proteins were also a mix bag, the tofu was not bad, but it felt very hastily assembled and not fresh as it looked like it should be crispy and hot but was more spongee and slightly warm. Beef was had in the ramen noodle bowl as well, this was also evidently premade and was dropped in as it was also not very hot. Lastly both bowls were ordered with a marinated egg, this was good but again the temperature it was served at was cold, however if they had been able to atleast come upto temp in the broth it would have been good as it was otherwise a good soft boil.I will say the food visuals were good.Combine this with the fact that in the end the bowls were a a bit expensive and the overall size of the dishes were small was a let down.Lastly cutlery, the plastic bowls I actually liked, chop sticks also good, but the soup spoons were just jagged and far to floppy.