YOSHI MAME — Restaurant in Albuquerque

Rating is only on their AYCE part and in hopes that this review will give the restaurant some better guidance. Family went there for AYCE, figured it was good and we went on a day where they are not too busy. Have been to some good AYCE before, so had high expectations, but understood that with local prices AYCE may not meet them. I give them a 4 star rating as a simple dine-in, not as an AYCE. It's a good try, but if they took AYCE off their menu, it wouldn't surprise me. There's nothing wrong with it, just execution Is not solid. For the readers, I am not saying it's a bad restaurant, just my experience here was below expectations and I am okay with it. Your personal visit should not be based on my experience, and enjoy it.

Firstly, only had 2 visible chefs that evening so obviously rounds were slow. My table spent maybe 15-20 minutes waiting for each round of food, even with the generous 2hr seat limit (have been to places with 1hr and 1.5hr limits).On a table of 8, thats possibly 8-12 rolls of sushi to get through. Came out in short spurts. It's an early weekday, so figures. They don't need 3-4 sushi makers if they are not expected to be busy on weekday.

Secondly, decoration on AYCE dishes which is what made it slow. Most AYCE places I have been to all serve fast and furious and so forget about decoration. At good ones, its just the one or several rolls simply on a plate. Yes rolls are made to please the eyes before hitting your pallette, but little plastic flowers stuck to your plate with a wad of green horseradish paste? Its cute, sure, for the children that love posting their food to instagram. Save the pretty stuff for the single group that come in to dine on a few things and go, and save some of that paste. Also, less garnishments like shredded carrots, it will help save on food waste. I normally eat the lumps of daikon places use, but when its 60% of the dish, i worry that since not all diners eat the decor, why bother to waste it?

Thirdly, this is just personal opinion. Rolls are good, just not tasty. They all look different, but depth of flavor does not make it stand out from buffet style sushi. Will not knock quality and fact they only had 2 chefs and 10 other tables to serve. I get it, they have to make rolls as fast as they are ordered, just that there are things that suffer with it. Making sure the flavor and quality is there takes time, and when time is rushed, these things get lost in it.

4th: I know we ordered a lot of nigiri(the slab of fish atop rice, for those who don't know), but they came out a bit warmer than i am used to and at the very end. Means they put a lot of focus on rolls first. Nigiri can come out very quickly and shouldnt take long if you cut the slices (as thin as they can be without letting the customer feel like the restaurant is skimping), roll a few balls of rice, and toss them on. I know proper places take their time to add on lemon juice, sauces, wasabi, etc, for additional flavors and flare. The nigiri they made had none, so as simple as this style was, why did it take so long? Meh on the nigiri, it should be the quickest dish out first so they can focus on their rolls, not the other way around.

So final decision: would LOVE to go again, just next time with smaller party and not the AYCE, plus on the weekend so I expect to see more staff and better output. I can see the other diners got their foods sooner than we got our rolls, but its understandable. I will say that the overall service was great. Waiter was attentive even with a lot of customers, and i appreciate that he was keeping track of...

My partner and I went to Yoshi Mame on New Year's Eve, eager to try a new all you can eat sushi place.

Let's start with the positives: the food is above par, actually. The menu is reasonably priced.

But: my glass had a garlic-tasting residue of some kind in it, after they brought my drink. I had it returned. We waited a long time for our food. An extremely long time. My partner ended up leaving before she had received most of her sushi rolls, which was not for lack of trying on her part. We brought up that we were missing rolls with the server multiple times throughout the night -- I had finished most of what I was comfortable eating before she even got much of her food at all. So we ordered and did not receive probably 2-3 sushi rolls?

Their time limit is a joke. If it takes you two hours to bring me everything I ordered, there's no sense in holding me to a two hour limit. They seem to have understood this, or they were too busy to care, or something, because it never came up. I was quite worried it would.

Now the reason I am writing a review is this. Because we did not get what we ordered I attempted to get my partner's ticket refunded. The server told me I'd have to take this up with the manager, I asked her to send him out or discuss it with him. This never took place. We were billed for two tickets. Now, it had been a chore to even locate our server, let alone "hey what about the food" every time we found her. I chose at this time not to argue the point of the second ticket -- my lady did receive food. Just not most of it. So I tipped $0. Total ticket including drinks, 63.96.

Imagine my surprise this morning, then, to find out that once a ticket of $63.96 with a tip of $0.00 cleared, the total bill to my card was $78.87 This is substantially more than even 20% gratuity, added by the waitress or management for some reason. Or perhaps a surprise bill item of some kind?

Needless to say it is not the transaction I agreed to. I am furious. Hopefully Yoshi Mame will face up to its staffing shortages and its ongoing estrangement from the concept of professionalism. The two kitchen employees they had for a very large NYE crowd seemed to know their craft very well, and the food is reasonably priced, like I said. But the juice is not worth the...

Its very rare I write anything other than a positive review for a place. We have visited about 4 times. The first few times we had no real issues or complaints.

However, on April 8th we went in to splurge a little. And it was a completly horrible experiance for me. My partner had a better experiance, but was very concerned about my experiance.

We ordered the all you can eat, of course. It was also the only menu offered. We were also seated within arms reach of another whole family, and i feel bad for their experiance in being seated near us. I say this because we had a very..sensitive conversation, however that was not on the resturants fault. We were ordering and eating the food as we normally do. I had learned on previous visits, that certian dishes i did not like. No big deal, before they were apologetic and we did not have to pay seperatly for the dish. ( it was the heat level). So when i ordered a salmon skin roll, i wasnt exactly worried. Salmon skin rolls are supose to be crunchy, like the skin was fried. My first bite was very painful. I ended up with salmon skin so hard, and sharp it actually cut my tongue and gums. I was very shocked, and told the waitor why, and that i was actually bleeding after one bite of the roll. My partner verified that yes my tongue and mouth was actively bleeding from cuts made by this overly hard salmon skin. Ive had the roll in other resturants and it was never this hard. Ive never bled from eating sushi or any kind. The waitor looked at me without expression and pointed to the menu where it said " uneaten protions will be charged full price". There was no manager to be brought to our table, there was no reaction from the waitor other than pointing at the menu. When i told him i literally could not..eat the roll he started to argue and point at the menu again so i just let it go. Im not one for confrontation. Nor do i want to stick my bloody tongue out in the middle of a resturant. I also dont think it would have matter to their "policy" i will not be returning, the meal was almost 100.00 for two people. And i was left with cuts in my mouth, and oddly an upset stomach. Its really not worth 100.00 for a meal for two. People with swallowing issues or any sort of eating issue, please be...