Sushi Ya Boise — Restaurant in Idaho

My friend owed me a birthday lunch and he decided to take me to Sushi Ya. I'm really hard to impress when it comes to sushi. My family owned a Japanese Steak house for a long time. After serving for them for many years, I have really high standards and expectations. I was very fortunate to have an uncle who took pride in his fish, sushi rice and the quality of his ingredients that he used to serve his customers. From the freshness of his tuna to how perfectly fried his tempura shrimp pieces were to the plates he used to serve his rolls, everything was perfection. With that kind of high standard ingrained in me, I expect other sushi joints to have that kind of standard as well.

I showed up to the restaurant first. I was greeted by Bryan. He was also our server. I was told to sit anywhere I wanted so I picked a table by the wall. Bryan got my drink started while I was looking over the sushi list. Bryan did go over the list with me as well. It was my first time at this joint, never had all you can eat before so it was nice that he went over the dos and don'ts with me. I did get some miso and a salad started. It came out shortly so I worked on it while I was waiting for my homie to show up.

The miso was some of the best miso I have had. It was nice and salty! It was hot! It had pieces of nori in it and a few bits of tofu. Delicious! The salad was cute and dainty. It came with a white sweet dressing. I'm glad the salad was part of the ayce. It was a pretty basic salad. It was ok. I couldn't imagine paying more than 2 bucks for it. It's amazing how much sushi joints charge for basic salad. Bagged lettuce with salad dressing could cost you 4 bucks, it's humorous.

My friend finally showed up, we went through our sushi list, marked off the things we wanted and sent it off with Bryan. For my first round I grabbed the Idaho roll, inari and ebi.

The Idaho roll was basically a Cali roll with cream cheese. It also had the same white sauce that came on the salad. Ya, it was pretty basic. The sushi rice had no acidity to it. I expected the sauce to be a little more exciting but it's salad dressing. I did dip it in soy, wasabi and spicy mayo to add a little flair to it. The inari was decent, it was a little dry. The ebi was super tiny and thin. It needed the rice to give it some volume.

My second round was some kani sticks and the crystal shrimp roll. Kani (krab) is not all made equally. These kani sticks were dry and tough. I didn't notice how dry they were in the Idaho roll. The avocado and cream cheese helped with the dryness along with the dipping sauces. I didn't want my friend to get charged for it as a left over so I hard swallowed those two sticks down. The crystal shrimp roll is marinated fried crispy shrimp rolled in the nori and sushi rice. Crispy is probably a description they should leave off. There was nothing crispy about the fried shrimp. And it was cut into a bunch of tiny pieces. So you basically got a a bunch of tiny mushy pieces of shrimp in the middle of this roll. The Itty pieces of shrimp were falling out of the roll so it was annoying to eat. The second round of sushi wasn't all that impressive not that the first round really blew my socks off either.

Ya, this was my first and probably last visit. Granted, the miso was off the hook and Bryan did a great job taking care of us but everything else was a flop. The sushi rice had no acidity to it. The ingredients were cheap. The owner came up and lost her lid on my friend cause he wanted no rice (sashimi style) with a few of his choices. "We have to charge you more". I guess they serve bigger slices of fish if you order it sashimi style. But why couldn't you have just given him the smaller pieces of fish that you serve for ayce? Why make it a big deal? I thought that was so unprofessional as an owner, to come up all aggressively and make it feel like you're trying to rip them off. All cause he didn't want rice. My aunt and uncle first of all took pride in their product so we would never do all you can eat. Second, no...

To begin, there was no wait time for being seated, but the table we got looked like it had been wet wiped a few many times without being actually cleaned. Staff was courteous and came several times throughout. Was there with a party of 4, we all did the all you can eat sushi. The soup and salad was the best part of the meal. While I understand an all you can eat sushi place has to make cuts somewhere, the food was very unappetizing and in some places downright gross. I made a very modest 2 small roll selection and a nigiri choice, but couldnt even eat the spicy tuna. It was like a can of tinned tuna mixed with sirachi and rolled into rice. It tasted so off. The other roll wasnt too bad, but I struggled to finish it. Something is wrong with the seaweed wraps, it was far too chewy and did not have a pleasant after taste. Also there were so little rice packed in, and the fish wasnt very colorful, which usually isnt a good sign. They cover everything in so much umami and eel sauce that it becomes way too salty, even putting it on rolls that do not have that sauce on it. we all struggled to finish as we didnt want to be charged, but we all agreed that the place is not worth a return visit. Salad dressing was good though. One of the other complaints I have is food coming at differing times. In most places, your food is cooked and done up and generally all comes out at the same time. In this case, food was coming out per person between 5-10 minute intervals. So by the time the first person who got food was nearly done with their plate, Mine was just coming out. Little awkward and not great way to let a customer feel. Made other people feel bad about eating with one person waiting 25 minutes Nothing really stands out with atmosphere. Just looks like your basic slapped together asian american place. I enjoy Sushi, but I think Sushi Ya gets placed as the worst Sushi in Treasure Valley. Food 2/10 - salad is only thing saving it from a 1 Service 7/10 - was decent but needs to be better about customer out time. Not worth a...

I am sory but u need to know this. Sushi is not all about rice, like this place is..........This is my first review on restaurant. Before it was the best place. So disappointed. I even have pictures that was taken of previous sushi. They try to feed you rice. Unbelievable. I make sushi at home all the time too and I know how much rice goes to make one sushi. They use double amount of rice. Today I couldn't even chew sushi because when they were making it Ive seen how they take rice and press It down so hard that it's compacted, (professional sushi makers never press hard on sushi rice, but gently spread rice on to nori. I wish i could attach some pictures of their sushi, it looks like a white blob of packed rice) and when you try eating it your mouth becomes so full of rice that you can't even chew. Before it was specialty sushi, nicely garnished and juicy, today it's choking sushi. Two people that were seating behind us were saying "wow its just rice". It's very sad that restaurants cut corners, but remember they won't last. Non of my big family is ever coming back. Everyone noticed their big change. Also my husband asked to get hot tea refill. She brought hot water with old tea bag that was already bad. The tea bags are only good maybe for 2 cups but not again and again. No respect for clients at all. Treat people same way as you want to be treated. I am a truck driver and I see diffrent restaurants, and those that do same thing as sushi ya they vanish very fast and don't last too long. You better eat less sushi but quality stuff, because some people say that $20.00 is a good price, well they never been to true sushi place. For example other restaurant charges $25 but when u compare ingridients than you get sushi worth of $50, because of real ingredients like salmon, tuna, shrimp, scalops, avocado, crab, etc, but not heavily packed rice......... I can eat rice at home and anyone can. Sushi it's not all...