Restaurant Yugo — Restaurant in Vancouver

After an aborted attempt to visit another restaurant, I eventually wound up at Restaurant Yugo. It wasn’t a total loss because this place has been on my radar for a while now. Located on Main Street between East 26th and East 27th, this spacious restaurant serves up some seriously good (albeit somewhat expensive) Japanese items.

The menu here has a lot of options and kind of reminds me of Stem Japanese Eatery. I started out with some nigiri: King Salmon Aburi with Black Truffle ($9 for 2 pieces), and King Salmon Toro Aburi with Black Truffle ($12 for 2 pieces). One thing for certain is that these tiny pieces of nigiri aren’t going to fill you up. They are topped with a piece of black truffle which probably adds to the cost. While the salmon was fairly buttery, the small portion size made it difficult to really tell the difference between the king salmon and the king salmon toro.

On a side note… is it just me or is everyone calling this fish “King Salmon” now instead of “Chinook”?

Next up for my dinner was the Hamachi Oshi ($16) which is 6 pieces of pressed sushi topped with hamachi (yellowtail), shiso leaf, ginger, pickled jalapeño, fried taro crisps and a miso mayo sauce. I liked the contrast of the buttery and crispy textures in this sushi dish.

I also ordered the Grilled King Salmon Kama ($13) which comes with a salad that includes crunchy carrots and cauliflower and a tart vinaigrette which helps to cut through the fatty goodness of the kama. If I’ve learned anything about a good Japanese restaurant it’s that you can tell how good it will be by the quality of their grilled kama. Also known as fish collars, it’s not a dish that most diners will gravitate towards (perhaps due to the bones) but I love when I get a well-prepared version. This one was pretty on point and had a fair amount of buttery and oily flesh. Perhaps not as good as the one I had at Sushi Modo (which was also half the price) but good nonetheless.

I returned to try their lunch menu but noticed that their lunch menu is much smaller and quite limited. The House Bento Limited ($18) includes 6 dishes picked by the chef… in this case, that meant grilled salmon surrounded by Brussels sprouts with bacon, tuna tataki, gomae, tamago, and a corn/squash fritter. I think this bento was just okay, nothing really stood out here.

The order of Sashimi ($18) included the daily fish tartar (which was a spicy tuna on this visit), along with king salmon, hamachi (yellowtail), and a white fish which I think was tai. The sashimi was clean and fresh.

This restaurant serves up quality ingredients and seems to aim for the hipster crowd which partly explains the higher price point. If you don’t mind paying a bit extra, it’s a worthy choice for the variety of food that they serve here (just remember that the lunch menu isn’t...

Japanese people really care a lot about 品質管理(Hinshitsu Kanri), quality control of the product/service they provide to customers. Sadly, my the quality I received at Restaurant Yugo was far off from the premium price tag on the menu.

We walked in tonight and were grateful that the manager got us in to sit at the counter because the only table available was right next to the freezing winter door. However we did not expect sitting at the counter will be a frustrating experience.

"The Chefs"

Chef #1: Supposedly the manager/owner, did not wear an apron, and kept making unnecessary noise by slamming food containers onto the table

Chef #2: Wore a full uniform but had dandruffs all around his shirt. It was snowing tonight but it sure wasn't snowflakes on his shoulder.

I looked at the scallop sashimi container and it read "best before December 25th", are they serving expired scallops?

"The Servers"

One server poured hot sake into the cups without asking for permission. It seemed like a nice gesture but we didn't want to drink it right away. He poured half way and burned his hand, stopped, got a paper towel/wrapped around the neck of the sake carafe and taped it. It made a fool of himself by having hot sake on the menu but don't even know how to serve.

They kept the metal tea pots on the same counter that we were sitting on. Everytime they're done with the pots, unpleasant "CLINK" "CLANK" noises would stop us from enjoying the food. They can easily put a towel beneath the pots to reduce noises but attention to details was missing.

"The Food"

$7 miso soup Super salty. We expected it to be a cooked fish miso soup but they awkwardly put two pieces of sashimi (tuna, and scallop) on the rim of the bowl. Not sure do you call it fusion or not but I did not appreciate it.

$18 3 pieces of Salmon Nigiri with Truffle sauce on top The rice was not packed tightly and when I picked the nigiri up with my chopsticks, it dismantled. $6 for salmon Nigiri with a bit of truffle sauce on top? Overpriced.

$27 Uni pasta The best tasting dish of the night, I say it was reasonably priced

$17 Hamachi Oshi Nothing amazing about this, reasonably priced as well.

"The Aftermath"

I spoke with the floor manager, she was kind enough to offer 15% off for our bill.

She handed me the bill but it was still $93, price without any discount. I had to point out that she did not input the offer that she initiated.

Overall the lack of details this Japanese restaurant has is definitely concerning to consumers.

I find it super disrespectful to put premium prices on the menu of a restaurant but don't have the attention to details to back it up.

You can say "Irasshaimase" and "arigatogozaimasu", you can serve sushi to customers but this restaurant will never serve as an authentic...

A high level of care went into the interior, menu, food preparation, and order taking. We had an OpenTable reservation, so, the restaurant was aware of my 'no garlic no MSG' request. A very concerned owner explained that the only things I should have was sashimi since even some soya sauce may contain MSG. He insisted that he would make sure our salad dressing was served on the side (unfortunately, that didn't carry through to the Black Cod dish). We ordered Grilled Soy Maple Black Cod, Sockeye Salmon Sashimi, Cauliflower Salad, and House Bento. We didn't notice the garlic in the black cod, it was very well cooked and even the skin was edible, I found the fish a bit too salty. The Cauliflower Salad was a delight although I couldn't tell where the cauliflower was, the little white chunks tasted more like soft tofu, and the white leaves were definitely curly endive. But the taste of the salad was stunning, and we were reminded by the sunflower and flax seeds that we are in south Main. I particularly enjoyed the salmon sashimi – one would think that is such a common item served everywhere – but no, it's the texture and taste of this particular fish at Yugo that is outstanding. The House Bento was artistically served on a slate platter as the items would not have fitted in a Bento. It is always such a pleasure to explore various sample size menu items. The mixed vegetable dish with warmed Brussels sprouts, mushrooms and pieces of pork belly was a treat. The house made tamago was delicately tasty. Our picture showed a cup of tea because they chose to serve lichee oolong, so good! I did leave with a terrible taste in my mouth due to the garlicky salad dressing used on the Black Cod dish, frankly, I am surprised that they didn't bother making a garlic free dressing just for us. However, the rest of the food is worth at least another visit. So we went back for dinner. Our dinner experience (on a week night) was totally different than our lunch experience (on a Sunday). At dinner, the music was loud and high energy, and the patrons were talking very loudly – such that we could hardly hear each other even though we sat in a booth. The menu was different as well. We were not able to order the House Bento, and the Ghindara came with soba noodles which we weren't prepared to try. However, we did find the baked miso salmon enjoyable. My partner thought that the Brussels sprouts were too raw and didn't eat much of it. The temperature of the Hamachi sashimi was not as cold as we liked. The Cauliflower Salad that I loved was no longer available. So, this will be a lunch-only...