Yabase — Restaurant in Dusseldorf

The food is fresh and tasty, no doubt, and the decoration is nice and modern. However, you cannot fight the feeling that this place is painfully overpriced, especially because service not up to standard. Good sashimi, sushi, meat, even high quality vegetables are expensive, I know. But the contents of the tiny appetizer bowl of spinach for example, while delicious, fits all of its contents onto two table spoons and costs 7 EUR. That's simply outrageous. The thing is, food can be excellent and expensive, and you may feel it is justified if service is excellent as well, but service at Yabase - at least two nights ago - was way below average. Instead of roaming around the restaurant to proactively clear empty dishes or ask if everything is okay (a question that was not asked the entire evening) or if we would like to order another drink, often up to 4 staff were standing in a corner chatting with each other. There were 1 or 2 exceptions, but there does not seem to be a strong service mind among the team in general. Our unagi (while very good quality eel) was again a terribly overpriced bento box of rice covered with unagi for 29 EUR - wow. It didn't come with unagi sauce either, rather it was accompanied by a tea pot filled with lukewarm water. When asking for unagi sauce the first time, the waitress told us this is fish broth and it is the sauce of this dish. Maybe someone had held a piece of fish into the lukewarm water for 5 seconds before serving this, but it was not fish broth - the liquid was clear as day and tasteless. So we called another waiter to ask for unagi sauce. He brought us a bowl of liquid soy sauce, and charged us 1 EUR for it. Honestly, ask any person in Japan for unagi sauce and they know what you mean - thick, sticky dark sauce specifically for unagi. It's a pity because the food itself is generally good, but I won't return simply because service is subpar and the price is far too high for...

So let’s write this:

The Place is located right next to Immermanstrasse which is good location. Easy to Find for new comers to Düsseldorf. The Restaurant Atmorsphere is very similar to what I have always been to in Japan. Typical Sushi resto with Bar, crowded. The staff are quite friendly. They even called me on the time of my Reservation if I would come.

The Food. So lets start with Appetizer. I got Eggplant with Miso and it was so good. The Miso sauce is house made and the Eggplant is grilled to Perfection.

I got the Luxury Sushi set. It was so good! Like take it from me, It is as authentic as what someone can get like in Japan itself! The Fish Nigiri is so soft, melts in my mouth. The Tuna Belly Nigiri is Heaven! Combination of good rice and Nori, Soft texture and High Quality Tuna. Lastly I got some Unagi and It was simply, The Jackpot for tonight! Its the same taste quality I got from Japan before. The has crispy Skin, good sign that it is well grilled and very tender/ Juicy meat. A perfect combination for Unagi with warm rice on it. The Unagi Sauce is also something to consider since it taste something house made. Overall its a 5 star Rating and I highly Recommend this Resturant to everyone. Trust me, this is as closest as you get from...

Some huge problems with this place despite liking the food. This place is waaaay too expensive for no good reason. This place actually has rather tasty food but it is not good enough to justify the extraorbitant prices.

I also always visit a place twice at least to make sure I don't catch them on a bad day but both times I felt like its not worth visiting this restaurant.

It's very loud, uncomfortable and just lacks any form of care. On my second visit the reservation also ended up being completely useless and they made us wait in line with a huge pile of people, who all had a reservation too. This stuff happens, it's called a mistake but the bare minimum is to apologize and not act like nothing happened.

We waited 40 minutes to be served and they only served ONE person, the other did not get their food until almost 20 minutes later.

What's the other person supposed to do, watch you slowly eat your meal while they go hungry? It was genuinely an uncomfortable night that cost us 170€ despite not ordering much.

If this place was cheaper, I could at least rate the food 5 stars, but it's expensive. A high price should also come with high...