Yūgen Cuisine — Restaurant in South Lake Tahoe

I would strongly suggest looking at the 1 star reviews. This was the worst restaurant experience I've ever had and it's hard to believe that this place has any positive reviews at all. Here's a rundown of how my evening went at Yugen.

6:40pm - my party of 5 joined the waitlist and were given a 10 minute wait 6:45pm - we arrived at the restaurant and were verbally given an additional 25 minute wait 7:10pm - we were seated 7:20pm - our server FINALLY took our order 7:50pm - our server says our food is on its way 8:15pm - we ask about our food and are told it's being made right now. Our server pointed to the sushi boat being made and said it was ours 8:20pm - "our" sushi boat is brought to a different table 8:30pm - 4 of us FINALLY get our food. Our friend (who's birthday we were celebrating), her food took another 5 minutes to come out. No apology from our server for the very long wait. The food was eh. Nothing special. I fully expected to be comped something for the horrendous service we experienced. I though for sure our server would take one of our appetizers or a roll or a drink off of our bill, but no. Nothing at all was done to even attempt to make up for what happened.

I also want to add that we wouldn't have minded the long wait, if our server would have just let us know. But whenever we asked about our food, we were always told "it's coming now" or "just a few minutes" when in reality it was just starting to get made.

Other complains: Our water was only refilled once throughout the whole evening. Our server was avoiding our table like the plague. She would run past us and duck her head. It was so odd but sort of funny. After our order was taken, we saw 2 other groups walk up, get seated, get food, eat, and LEAVE before we even got our food. We were seated outside, and the restaurant had these misters, which came on out of nowhere and got me and my bag wet. It wasn't hot out at all, and I'm not sure the purpose of the mist, beyond annoying customers. And the next day - I end up in the ER due to me being possibly the sickest I've ever been in my entire life. The doctor diagnosed me with dehydration due to either a stomach virus or food poisoning. I 100% think it was food poisioning from the sushi. On another note, if you need an emergency room in South Lake Tahoe, I highly recommend Barton...

i understand that they are understaffed. for example: saw three servers that were bussing, hosting, and their expected job as a server.

i think the main problem with this restaurant is the layout. i have never seen a kitchen so far away from the sushi corner. why are they separated? i saw the chefs using walki-talkis to communicate with each other. if they were in the same spot, they wouldn't need a communication device. because of this, there is a lack of tables and an extremely long wait line.

we waited for 1.5 hours and waited an extra ten minutes to be seated, only to be seated at the bar for three people. the waiter who seated us didn't even give us the menu, and we waited an extra extra ten minutes to get attention.

food wise, i would say slightly below average. the roll was good, the tempura was good, and the nigiri was good. the reason why i bring it down though is because there was no udon in a JAPANESE themed restaurant the miso soup had mushrooms. i have been to a lot of Japanese restaurants and never have they had mushrooms in their miso soup. the sauces that came with the tempura plate was extremely weird. the tempura sauce was thick for some reason and it came with sweet and sour sauce. NEVER EVER had that happen before.

im sure that other people had their reasons for giving this place a five star, but i cannot agree. i am truly appalled at the lack of authenticity or even the ATTEMPT to resemble the culture. would...

My family and I went here for my 30th bday since the reviews boasted the best sushi in the area. We arrived and ordered apps which came out very fast and were delicious to be followed up with 5 sushi rolls and a teriyaki chicken bowl. We waited at least 45 mins to an hour later and our sushi never arrived. People that walked in and ordered after us had already received their sushi and were finishing while we were still waiting. Our waitress was very nice and sweet but I could tell she didn't know what was going on and said it was due to multiple orders coming in at once. But our chicken teriyaki bowl came shortly after ordering our entrees just not the sushi. We noticed the sushi chefs were on their phones and slacking off while orders were coming in and we suspect that they gave our rolls to other customers who may have ordered the same thing. We ended up asking for our rolls to be boxed up so we could leave and that took another 20-30 mins just confirming that they never fulfilled them in a timely manner.... Our waitress gave me mango mochi to go (on the house) which was kind but overall we were incredibly disappointed with our experience..The sushi that we ended up eating at home was really good, but the service in the restaurant...