Yoko's Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Portland

I just want to state clearly before I write this review that this is not a personal vendetta review and I'm not a disgruntled customer who feels like I was wronged. I just want to offer a fair warning to someone who might be reading these reviews trying to decide if this is going to be a good sushi experience. And if your idea of a good sushi experience is lots of big pieces of fish and lots of sort of "Americanized" rolls with things like "krab" in them, you might like this place just fine. For me however, I'm a bit of a sushi snob admittedly and my bar for loving the sushi place is pretty high. I love the delicacy of good sushi. That essence of edible art. And unfortunately you're just not going to find that here. Now typically when I go to sort of a "sushi for the people" kind of place, I'm not typically inclined to write a "warning" review - I would just usually leave the place alone and move on to the next. However what makes Yoko's different, Is that it is REALLY popular. Like pretty hard to get in popular. Like you better be lined up 20 minutes before they open if you want a first seating popular. Or be prepared to wait up to an hour for them to work through the waitlist. How things got this way for Yoko's is mystifying to me. Although I get the sense that it's kind of the same reason why Saburo's is also so popular despite the atrocious quality of the fish: It's simply the portion sizes. One of my biggest pet peeves is when the nigiri is so big that you have to take it in 2 bites. Nigiri by definition is supposed to be bite-sized. It's supposed to be the perfect single bite of delicate beautiful fish. Not a big honking slab of fish meat with a tube of rice underneath it. So I don't know, if you like Saburo's or if you know that you like huge pieces of fish then maybe give Yoko's a try and maybe you'll like it just fine. But if you're anything like me do you enjoy the fine art of good, delicate sushi made from highly select cuts of the finest sashimi-grade fish, let me be the first to tell you, don't bother with the clamor...

Hate to leave such a terrible review (I literally never do this sort of thing), but the service I received tonight was nothing short of disrespectful. From the moment we arrived, the blonde waitress seemed annoyed at our presence. It’s notable that my date and I were the only people of color in the establishment. After being seated, she took our order in a no-nonsense unfriendly manner, which didn’t bother me. She seemed to be the only waitress there and the restaurant was full. I didn’t think much of it. As we are waiting for our sushi, I ask if it would be possible to order some food to go for my friend. She loves this restaurant and has been having a particularly hard week, and I wanted to cheer her up. I call the waitress over, since she hasn’t returned to our table since taking our order (which, again, is fine. She seemed busy, but I wanted to get the order in before it was too late.) when I ask about the to go order, she is immediately visibly annoyed, not even trying to hide it. She returns to the table to confirm the items on the apparent nuisance of a to-go order, and I repeat them back to her, referencing my friends text. When I read it back, she scoffs at me arrogantly and says sarcastically “so, exactly what I just said”. I was genuinely stunned at her, had we been in any other setting, my response would have been a lot less classy. But I wasn’t going to give this girl another reason to treat POC guests this way. So I carried on the meal, maintaining as much politeness as I could given the way she treated us. Truly a shame because all of the food we ordered was delicious. I worked in the service industry for years as a server, and I could never fathom having such a flippant, overtly rude attitude with guests. Dining as a person of color in Portland has been more challenging than any of the other cities I’ve lived in, but this experience...

ALERT VEGETARIANS!!!!!!!! I just spoke to Yoko after a night and New Years eve day of nausea and vomiting after eating at her restaurant. I have been a vegetarian for 25 years and had made it very clear that I was a non-fish (haha) eating vegetarian and only wanted their vegetarian options. I ordered 2 of the same sushi rolls because there were only 2 veggie options on their sushi menu. It was delicious but I thought I detected some strange texture in one of the pieces of sushi and later I realized that it was fish. But even if it was not fish in my veggie sushi Yoko just told me "I have been open for 20 years and nobody has ever said that you have to use a clean cutting board or clean knife" between making fish sushi and veggie sushi. I guess it has been a while since she has taken any kind of food handlers fresh up course, or even thought about the way that the fish juice can be absorbed by the seaweed and rice from the veggie sushi, but this is absurd! Don't the chefs need common Portland vegetarian sense and a food handlers course as well? If I ate fish and had not gotten sick, this would be a great hole in the wall to go back to. But until Yoko informs herself of the hazards of serving raw fish to long time vegetarians, I recommend vegetarians avoid Yoko's and go to a restaurant where they wash the fish off of the knives and cutting boards for their...