Yamato — Restaurant in Boston

Lemme just first say that I've been going here for 6 years. Food: The sushi is the worst I've ever eaten at a restaurant. If you haven't eaten good sushi, or don't have much of a standard for sushi, you may not notice this. But the fish has often been low quality and the sushi is sometimes falling apart. Although to be fair, this past year the quality of the sushi seems to be getting better.

Service: This does not bother me, but I should point out that the waiter never interacts with us more than the bare minimum. Every time, the waiter simply asks if we are doing buffet, and if anyone isn't, asks what they are ordering. Then the waiter will leave and only come over with food or if we call the waiter over for another food order. Each time the waiter will say as little as possible to take our order, and I have never been asked if the food is good or if everything is ok. Additionally, the waiters where rather unhelpful when I inquired about sushi that I did not know. I only had these sorts of questions when I first came here 6 years ago, so it is possible (although not necessarily likely) that this has changed. And also, I noticed that the waiters almost all speak chinese--I know this because I can speak chinese myself. And it seems that the waiters are slightly more talkative with chinese customers. Overall, the service is subpar.

Policy: There are some unusual policies at Yamato. One of them applies only to the buffet. The sushi is all made by order, and if you order sushi but do not eat it, everyone doing buffet will be charged double price. This is a rather ridiculous policy that discourages trying out unknown sushi. I'm not sure if they would really charge you double if you left one or two pieces of sushi, but when I tried leaving two pieces of sushi that I didn't like they asked us to eat it. The second policy, that might or might not be an actual policy, is that no one who is not eating may sit with you in the restaurant. Once while I was here with friends, another friend was passing by and decided to meet up with us. He came to sit with us at the table and said that he wasn't eating and just wanted to sit with us for the 10-15 minutes until we finished. They told him he could not stay if he did not order anything. My friend didn't have any money on him and told the waiter as much but either the waiter did not understand or did not care and simply walked away. When my friend didn't leave or order anything in the next couple minutes, one of the staff members came by again telling my friend to leave or order something. And this time the staff member stood by us until one of my other friends bought the food-less friend a bowl of rice. It was a pretty awkward situation and perhaps they were worried that my friend would eat from the buffet without paying. However, my friend would still be able to eat from the buffet without paying even if he bought a bowl of rice. However, although these two policies in my opinion are ridiculous, it isn't too difficult to abide by them.

Conclusion: Based off my poor review on their policies, service and food, you might be wondering now why I've been going here for 6 years. That is because it is the only place I can easily go to that gives you unlimited sushi for $20. True it is bad sushi, but it is still sushi. But if you were to go here and not get the buffet, I don't think this place is worth it at all. Go to a different sushi place and trade quantity or price for quality.

Recommended sushi: Dragon maki eel handroll Salmon (they recently made their...

One of the most disrespectful and disgusting experiences I’ve ever had at a restaurant — and it happened at Yamato.

I walked in and waited for my order. There was a delivery driver already standing there before me. We both stood in silence for about 5 minutes — no acknowledgment, no greeting, no “how can I help you.” We were invisible.

Eventually, the driver tried to ask something to a woman who I later learned is the manager — and she straight up turned her back and walked away. No response. Just full-blown disdain.

Another few minutes passed. They handed him the package without a single word. Then, she turned to me — no greeting, no courtesy, and with an attitude — she asked, “What’s the name for the order?” She didn’t ask why I was there. She didn’t care. She assumed I was a delivery driver too, and acted accordingly.

I asked her, “Why did you ignore that man earlier?” She gave me the dumbest look I’ve seen in a while and said, “He is a delivery driver.” Like that explains anything. As if being a delivery driver makes someone unworthy of respect or basic human decency. The way she said it made it clear — she sees delivery workers as beneath her.

I asked her if she treats customers the same way. No answer. Just kept asking for the order name. I never even told her I was a delivery driver, but apparently, in her little judgmental head, I must’ve looked like one — and that was enough for her to be rude.

When I told her I’d be filing complaints with the city and the state, she smugly said, “You can. I’ll report you too.” For what? For existing?

This kind of ignorant, classist, and discriminatory behavior has no place in any business, especially in a diverse city like Boston. I will be contacting Boston city officials, the state labor board, the Department of Labor, and ICE. I seriously doubt a place run with this mindset is treating its employees fairly or following the law.

Avoid this place. And read the other reviews — this manager’s behavior is not an isolated incident. People have been complaining about her...

Sushi is ok (5/10). Price is not bad at all. We do have an issue as of recently with them though. We have ordered several times with them via Foodler when we needed to throw in a quick/reasonably priced order while busy with other things. Last night we were really let down.

We put in an order for pick-up (the first time instead of delivery). Pick-up stops at 11pm and we placed in an order for a late dinner as we were busy all day. We get there at 10:50pm. All of the employees had their jackets on and were at the front door, waiting for the manager (or owner) to finish something (keep in mind this is before their pick-up is even closed). We get greeted by an employee who says "ummm, we're closed." We told them we are here to pick-up an order. The employee grabs the manager and he states that Foodler "screwed-up the paperwork" and so they had to cancel it but he made sure to tell Foodler to call us.

Now Foodler never did call us like they were suppose to (though we found an email buried in a Google Folder). Foodler not calling us is Foodler's fault but the problem is that Foodler's email stated that the restaurant was unexpectedly closing, so the order had to be canceled. What this tells us is that the people at the restaurant wanted to leave early instead of abiding by the hours they placed on their own location and decided to say "screw everyone else" for whatever reason. None of the employees or the manager seemed to be running off to an emergency or anything, they just decided to close to close.

When we brought it up to Foodler to let them know that the restaurant was blaming them for "paperwork", Foodler apologized for the whole mess and said they would speak to the restaurant about what was told to us (which tells us the restaurant was lying to us instead of admitting they screwed up - which I could have let slide a bit more).

It was poorly handled by everyone and a huge waste of time to us that lead us running around the area trying to find a place very last minute that still had an...