Yamato Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Tucson

Where do I begin? Don’t come here if you are used to any semblance of normal restaurant service. Food was good, absolutely, BUT they have unwritten rules about everything and the rudest waitress serving the whole place— which is only 5 tables! Firstly, I made a reservation a few days in advance for my bf’s birthday. I try to make a reservation for 8pm and they say the latest they can do is 7:30pm... Their website says last seating at 8pm, since they close at 8:30 (on a Saturday!!!). We walk into the restaurant at 7:32pm after leaving a whiskey tasting early in order to get to the restaurant on time. The waitress comes over to us at 7:33 and says, “If you’re more than 5 minutes late to your reservation, we skip to the next one. I’ll have to wait till a table clears,” then walks away. Okay??? We weren’t late! 5 minutes is such an intolerant policy in the first place, but no one mentioned this to me when I made the reservation. Again, we weren’t in violation of this policy to begjn with. Luckily a table was leaving a minute later. We’re seated. I order curry udon, then the waitress tells me they can’t make that past 7:30pm because the noodles have to chill after they’re made…it was 7:40 and they close at 8:30. I say okay, and try to order the buckwheat udon. She says no, they don’t make that “this time of year”. ???? Okay why do you refuse to make half of your menu? Do you even want business? Insane. They act like they’re a Michelin star restaurant with their terms and conditions for everything. When really they’re just a mom & pop sushi place, only containing 6 tables, that wants to make it home by 9pm to watch SNL. As someone who has served/bartended/foodrun in the restaurant industry for 10 years…unreal. I’ve never been treated with such disrespect...

We were in Tucson to enjoy a few nights at a resort and were looking to have a authentic sushi meal since Prescott AZ is lacking in quality sushi restaurants. Yamato had good reviews but still had moderate expectations before arriving, which the exterior and interior when arriving could only be classified as moderate to time warp from the late 90’s when the place opened.

We had made a reservation to sit at the counter and upon being seating the whole experience only went up and by the end of the night we both felt it was one of the better sushi meals in recent memory and compares very favorably to top notch sushi places likes Sushi Ota in San Diego, at least on food quality and interaction with the owner/chef.

We ordered ala carte from the menu with a few suggestions from the chef, everything tasted fresh and the rice was of the highest order. The chef said he uses 3 different vinegars to balance it out properly, and you could tell. He also had a special cured salmon which was delicious and something unique to Yamato the he created with a previous employee that I would highly recommend. I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking on the food.

Overall Yamato blew away our expectations and while the decor might be stuck in the 90’s, the prices are also from a few years ago which amounted to very reasonable check considering how much we ordered. If you’re in Tucson and want an authentic sushi meal this is the place and be sure to try to reserve to counter, along with asking for what the chef recommends for...

A very cozy Japanese restaurant! Service was very friendly and helpful. Me and a friend went on a Thursday and the restaurant filled up as the night went. We wanted to try a bit of everything so we went all out. I got the unagidon (grillled eel rice bowl), my friend got veggie curry rice and both our mains were fantastic! The eel was delicate and flavorful, the curry delicious and packed with veggies. We also got inarizushi (fried tofu pouch marinated in sweet sauce stuffed with sushi rice) which were really a tasty treat and a few pieces of sushi. The saba nigiri (mackerel) was so good! The temaki spicy crab roll was great. I was surprised to see perennial dim sum favorite shumai were on the menu. These came out super fresh and hot with a dab of Chinese spicy mustard. Everything was just delicious. Atmosphere was nice and quiet. Golf was on the small TV behind the sushi counter. We had one of the many sake selections, the Hakutsuru Junmai Ginjo which is always great and a sake we’ve had many times before. It is very smooth and fragrant with fruity notes when drank cold. For desert I got a melon cream soda float and my friend got mochi mango ice cream! What a meal! Their menu is very diverse and has options for many dietary restrictions as well. Now I need to go slip into...