Yoyo Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Halton Hills

TLDR perfect quality sushi. Cute but dirty dinning room. Service could be kinder and more welcoming.

I ordered sushi lunch on a Tuesday at 130 pm. I waited maybe 6 minutes for my main to arrive. Sushi lunch was 24.99 and included soup or salad and 5 pieces of salmon 4 pieces of tuna and one salmon maki roll.

Atmosphere. They have traditional Japanese fixtures and architecture inside. The personal private booths with parchment windows was very unique and a nice cozy touch. I only wish they were more clean as the walls had splatters of sauce and other random stains. The seats were comfortable but felt sticky or unwashed. Same goes for the menus.

Food. The salad was small but had beautifully julienned pickled radish and carrots topped with a home made mandarin house sauce. The lettuce was romaine and extremely fresh and crispy. Like wow.

The rice for both the maki and sushi was the correct temperature and consistency. Perfectly executed.

The maki was thick and had more fish to rice in the ratio which is always a welcome sign. The sesame seeds on the maki were toasted or seasoned because they tasted very strong and delightful.

The sushi was in the style of long and draping over the edge. On the thinner side but that didn't matter because the quality and freshness was among the best I've ever had.

The salmon was well marbled and melted in my mouth. Firm to the bite but yielding in a velvety texture.

The tuna was clearly belly cuts. Rich and dark red. I found myself not applying soya sauce or wasabi after the first because it was unnecessary.

As for the soya sauce it was high sodium and likely homemade.

Overall I think this places food was perfect. And if they spent some time cleaning up a bit and improving the mood of the server. Than it would be on a wait list to dine in.

Well...

This. Was. Horrible. I want to preface this by saying when it comes to small businesses I try not to be too hard on them or review them too low but this was the worst dining experience at any restaurant I have ever had, period. I had heard good things, so I decided to stop in after an appointment and had time to kill. I ordered a “spicy” udon dish, lobster sushi (you don’t see that often in this area), and fried soft shell crab. The crab came out and was burnt in a few places. I took a bite and nearly puked. I have never tasted something so vile, it tasted rancid. Then I received the spicy udon noodles and the sauce was sickly sweet. No spice at all, no depth of flavour. Just a cheap sweet n sour sauce. Then came the lobster roll, which I was looking forward to most. They DRENCHED it in a sweet brown sauce to the point you couldn’t taste that expensive lobster you’re paying for. And the sauce was super watery too, so inevitably the entire roll just broke apart. And that all cost me $90! The waiter saw I barely ate anything and didn’t comp anything off the bill. It all went into the garbage. The restaurant also had a dirty rag smell. I will never, ever dine there again. Thinking about the crab still...

I’ve been coming to YoYo’s for years and the sushi has always been fabulous. We usually do takeout. Ever since Covid, the prices have gone up tremendously especially this past year so we don’t go too often anymore. Tonight we did takeout again as we decided to bite the bullet and spend the $250 + for sushi for 3 of us. While the flavour of the sushi was still good, there was more filler than fish in the rolls. Barely any fish - lots of cucumber and breadcrumb mixture which took up most of the roll filling, it was ridiculous - not sure if we’ll go again as it’s one thing paying lots of money but paying lots of money for substandard sushi is entirely different. I think it may be under new ownership or management so if the new owner/manager is reading this, please rethink how you’re gouging people with high prices & skimping on ingredients. People are not stupid and you will suffer the consequences if this continues. YoYo Sushi was a fabulous restaurant with the...