My Darling B spent just about all day in her garden yesterday, happily digging up a four-by-eight plot of ground, then inching her way along on all fours poking holes in the dirt and burying seeds for lettuce and peas and I don’t know what else. When she finally came indoors late in the afternoon to take a shower she was all smiles. Well, mostly smiles. Also aches and pains, but happy ones.

Although we should probably cut back on expenses like eating out every week, we celebrated this first glorious day of summer (or spring, or sprumming, whatever) with a trip into town to eat dinner at Umami, the new noodle shop on Willy Street that reminds us so much of our favorite noodle house in Misawa, Japan, the Familiar Roll Noodle House. The pan-fried dumplings are spot-on, and the ramen is so close as to make no difference. B read somewhere that the noodles come from R&P Pasta, a shop just a few blocks away on Wilson Street. They used to serve the best bowl of spaghetti in town until they closed the dining room, a sad day we are still in mourning over.

The last time we went to Umami I wrote a fond reminiscence of our days slurping up ramen in Japan and thanking the good people at Umami for taking me back to those days. Shortly after, someone from Umami shot a text message to me on my cell phone thanking me for the writeup and inviting me to ask for Mike or Randy the next time we dropped in, so last night as we were being shown to our table I dropped those names, asking if there was any chance I could talk to one of them. “I’m Mike,” he said, so I introduced myself and thanked him once again for such an enjoyable dining experience. After saying thanks he had to run off to seat others waiting for tables, but when he had a bit more time he came back to thank me for writing such a nice review in my blog. If he’d had more time I would have liked to ask him more about the restaurant, but there was a line of people out the door and he had to tend to them, so we cut it short at exchanging thank-yous.

We ordered almost exactly the same dishes we ordered last time: B had been daydreaming about the miso ramen all afternoon, the whole reason we ended up going to Umami in the first place. I ordered the pork ramen, still scrumptious, but I was eyeing B’s miso ramen with a jealous eye all through the meal. We couldn’t visit without ordering a big plate of dumplings, and ate every one of them – no leftovers last night! Just to shake things up, though, we added a plate of pickled veggies: beet, beans, carrots, cukes and mangoes, to add an extra touch of Japanese-ness to the meal.

Once again, we waddled home happily stuffed with good food. If ever we have to cut back on meals eaten out, I don’t know how we’re going to choose which places we go, but Umami will remain high on the list for quite a while.