Sushi Yuka — Restaurant in Port Arthur

A colleague of mine told me about Yuka, and I was excited to try it, but I will almost certainly not be returning. The food itself was fair (not great), but the service, on multiple levels, was grossly wanting. First off, I called a day or two beforehand to ask how the all-you-can-eat service works, but despite asking specifically about the times for lunch versus dinner, I was not told that there are no weekend lunches. That was very frustrating as my wife and I specifically coordinated our schedule over the weekend to go for lunch to save some money as my wife cannot eat big meals. Also, there is nothing on the menu itself saying that the all-you-can-eat lunch option is only available Monday through Friday or anything like that. I hope it is readily perceptible why I would have the opinion that this is less than professional and outstanding business practice. Still, we decided to go ahead and go with the all-you-can-eat dinner option for thirty dollars each. Because there was a wait for a table, we opted to just sit at the bar. Our bartender/server was very busy, but we definitely did not receive adequate attention during our visit. I don't know if this was primarily due to poor management and allowing servers to wait on too many tables at once or due the bartender not being good at consolidating her processes and working effectively and/or not asking for help when she needs it; in any case, the point is that we were definitely not properly attended to during our sixty-dollar (just counting the food--no alcohol, tax, or tip) lunch. Here are my specific complaints with the service. We originally forgot to order the pot stickers when we placed our initial appetizer round of food, but we did order them before those initially-ordered appetizers came to the table. Still, those pot stickers did not make it to our table until after our main entrees came. My house salad also did not come until after our main entrees. Obviously, this is far from ideal. Furthermore, when I asked for some teriyaki sauce or something for my hibachi rice, I was told they did not have any. That is really perplexing to me as they have teriyaki dishes on their menu. In general, the dishes did not come with sauces or had very little sauce. For example, my wife's sushi had neither wasabi or ginger, our tempura pieces had no sauce, and the spring rolls we ordered had maybe half a teaspoon of sauce for them. Maybe if the service has been more properly attentive, I would have felt like asking the bartender for the missing condiments or extra of the ones I wanted, but given how slow the pacing was, we just made due with what we had. The last main service complaint I have is that, when my wife and I got ready to pay out, we did not receive any kind of receipt by which to verify the charges but instead were just told a total. Then, upon giving the bartender our credit card, she inserted the card into some kind of tablet she was carrying around and gave us the tablet to add tip and sign while she was standing there, watching over us. I strongly feel that this is another unprofessional way of conducting business and an unfair means of pressuring patrons into tipping more than they might otherwise. I have no problem tipping generously, but I believe tipping is fundamentally based on merit. And this service was certainly lacking. Yet, my wife, due to having this unnecessary pressure, tipped more than we had literally just agreed to do. My last complaint is with the design of the all-you-can-eat sushi menu. On the non-sushi appetizers and entree dishes, you get smaller portions, whereby you can sample a broader variety of the menu. However, when it comes to the sushi rolls, you cannot order it by the piece or even half-roll; you have to order full rolls. This seems wholly unnecessary and very accommodating to the customer, especially since there is a disclaimer about being given and upcharge for wasted sushi rice. Also, the pictures on the menu show the sushi roll selections in sets of four or five pieces, leading you to believe this is how...

I ate here with my family, a party of 6 on November 8, 2023. The food tasted delicious, but the service was not good. We had the evening bartender as our server and when she got "slammed" with drink orders she asked one of the other servers to check on us.

Don't fall for the All You Can Eat (AYCE) for $30. If you're not going to order everything you want at the beginning, you won't get the value of the $30 fee for the meal. There are no prices on the menu so you have to ask what the prices are, which makes it difficult to make a well informed decision. They offer kids the AYCE at reduced prices depending on their height. Not worth it. Little kids won't eat $15 worth of food, ever. Don't let the server's urgency make you not want to ask about the prices. The service gets much slower after the initial round of food and they don't bring it all together. One of the boys ordered a tempura roll and it took several reminders and over 30 minutes to get it. We had so many different people bringing plates we weren't sure who to talk to about the service or ask about when certain items were coming. We never got everything we ordered and the bartender decided without asking to order a whole other different kind of tempura roll even though we had finally received the original roll and didn't ask for another.

No manager ever came by to see if we were having an enjoyable experience.

Overall, the flavor of the food was really good, but I won't be going back.

The ladies restroom wasn't clean. And if you haven't heard before now, take this advice. Always check the cleanliness of the restrooms before you order anything at a restaurant. If I had remembered and done that, we wouldn't have eaten there to begin with. If the bathroom isn't clean, you cannot trust how clean the kitchen is and their food handling processes. That's...

NEVER AGAIN. Came in today for the first time at 4:30, gave our phone number. Host told us it would be an hour wait and that we would receive a text when they were ready for us. It’s 5:30 and we haven’t received anything. We decided to go inside to check on the wait. The new host couldn’t find our name on the list. She leaves to go check and comes back and told us they had texted us after 40 minutes. We told her we haven’t received anything that’s why we came in to check. We showed her own phone. She shows us the iPad, they had the wrong number… We gave the correct number. She tells us we’re going to have to wait a while. We ask to speak the manager, “Wendy”. From the start she had a hostile attitude and look on her face. We explain to her we shouldn’t have to wait another 30 minutes or so for a mistake that wasn’t done by us. She tells us we have to wait for all the other people they texted after us to sit and eat, because we didn’t answer. At this point we’re just repeating ourselves to her that we never received anything. Then she basically blames us by saying “well you decided to wait an hour to come in and check…” Um… we were told an hour by the host and there were no available seats so we’re going to wait outside and assume we’re going to receive a notification… We ask to speak to someone above her because she just seemed to not care AT ALL, she said there was no one because the owner was not there. Not one time did she apologize. The whole experience was just very unprofessional and I hope the owners are aware of the very apathetic manager the customers have to face when there’s a small mishap. Was VERY excited to try this place and left very...