Restaurant Yamaguchi — Restaurant in Town of North Hempstead

It has to be the best authentic Japanese owned and operated restaurant in Long Island. Many sushi restaurant son Long island are owned by Japanese but have Chinese chefs. That means its not a life style for them its just a job. At Yamauguchi its their life! We have been many times and we just realized we have not taken many pictures and we take pictures everywhere we eat! Maybe we are so hungry we just eat! We have had sushi all over the country and many of the country's top restaurants including Maui and Honolulu Hawaii. On the east coast I have been to all of the highly rated sushi restaurants in NYC a few in DC , Jersey , CT and upstate NY. We have also been to Sushi Ota in San Diego, Makato in DC, Morimoto in Philly, Nobu in Manhattan, Ushiwakamaru, Sushi Sieki in Manhattan, Hatsuhana in Manhattan, Sushiden, Sushi Say and many others. One Major minus is that is is freezing in there. I wish they would keep it warmer for the customers. The food is very good and they are a very friendly staff. I order take out usually and I will keep doing so. I like that Mrs Yamaguchi is always there and that her husband is the head sushi chef. It takes years of training to be a good sushi chef which is why authentic Japanese sushi is hard to come by especially on Long Island. (I am part Japanese) If you are looking for authentic fresh sushi on Long Island go to Yamaguchi's just...

This used to be owned by a lovely Japanese couple, the husband being the head chef, up until a week ago who served authentic and delicious homestyle Japanese food and the freshest sushi where fish was flown in from Japan as well.

They stayed afloat by offering take out only during the pandemic with a limited menu but finally came back into the full swing of their menu when they started opening again for dine in.

Sadly the owners have retired and moved back to Japan and the new owners are not Japanese and have already removed most of the homestyle options on the menu that the locals and out of town visitors alike would come here to enjoy.

The restaurant was full of screaming chinese speakers from the patrons and the staff and they had their contractor walking around with an employee darting in and out between tables looking at what's to fix and change. I didn't choose a Chinese restaurant to go to for my dinner. Food was not as it used to taste, the spicy roll was bland and the rice had too much water added to it that it was mushy and tasteless. It was good to see a couple of familiar servers that used to be there with the old owners but service with the new staff was not how it used to be either. Sad to see another authentic Japanese restaurant not be...

Updating my review to 5 stars. The rude, racist waitress is finally gone under new management, and the restaurant has completely turned around. Clean tables, good service, and smart management that kept most of the staff but removed the one person who ruined the experience for many. Glad the original owners retired—it was going downhill fast before. Surprised and impressed by the turnaround.

Previously, I loved this place since 2021 and gave it 5 stars. But I had to blacklist it after a terrible visit.

We had a 7PM Sunday reservation. Our short-haired, Chinese-speaking waitress took our order at 7:04 but didn’t bring our bottled teas until 7:40. Others who arrived later were served first. She got our order wrong and argued about it, then took 15 more minutes to correct it. The fish wasn’t fresh, toro slices were thin, and the fried app was lukewarm. Quality had clearly dropped.

We complained to the presumed owner, who just walked away. Sticky tables, bad service, and declining food—unacceptable for a place serving raw fish....