YamaChen's Sushi — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

So, from a person that enjoys good sushi, and stays away from any "sushi like food products" that contain mayonnaise, tuna scrape (i.e. spicy tuna, and other such adulterated stuff), and any other highly Americanized version of the actual food called Sushi, here is my experience of Yama Sushi.

Since my go to place (Nara Sushi) is closed on Monday, and my other go to place (Kyushu) has been disappointing lately (both Japanese owned), I tried Yama Sushi. On entry, the interior is nicely (dimly) lit, and appropriate for the general culture of an American sushi restaurant (i.e. Japanese images, etc). I took a seat at the stone top sushi bar, but the young, bubbly waitperson suggested that I would be more comfortable in a booth, and she was right. The marble counter top at the bar was cold. I ordered hot tea. Hot tea should be hot. The tea was lukewarm right out of the pot. The next thing I noticed is that there is a sashimi lunch on the lunch menu but no sushi lunch (?!). I was there, so... Sashimi lunch. It comes with miso soup and salad. The soup was very average broth with a couple of tiny pieces of tofu. The salad had the obligatory ginger dressing. It seems that most places have their own version of this dressing, and this one had too much orange peel or something that tasted exactly like orange peel in it. The sashimi was a good size and fresh. The rice was fine. The ginger (which I enjoy very much in between types of fish), was sweet and bland. I ordered two pieces of eel for dessert. It was ok, but the brown sauce was more like honey, and the band of seaweed that holds the eel to the rice was tiny, like a rubber band (Hint: it's there for flavor and texture as well).

The worst part was the music. It sounded like something out of a video game - Dance dance revolution, maybe, with squirts and squeals and thumps and roars and frenetic hollering and...

I go to sushi restaurants for a quiet relaxing atmosphere, and this was anything but. And it went on and on and on, to the point that about half my lunch was intruded upon by irritating (really irritating) noise. I don't mind non-Japanese cultural music, but this was juvenile. On the plus side, the waitress did select a different CD when I asked her about it.

All this for $18, $3 more than Nara. In all, I've been to a lot of other non-Japanese sushi places that...

My husband got the spicy chicken and enjoyed it. I got the "pork" ramen and it most certainly was the most bizzare, furthest thing from pork ramen I have ever had. The soup base was bland and really only tasted of fish which is odd because normally you get a pork bone broth or a miso stock. Point being under normal circumstances it should be delicious and full of flavor and it most certainly was not. There were random tomatoes, imitation crab and an extremely overcooked egg. Really disappointed it has a bunch of amazing reviews but didn't live up to the hype. We also shared some sushi and it was not the best I have ever had. The food was edible at best but most certainly not fresh. Maybe it was an off day but I'm not sure I would go back and chance it. The complementary edmame was good though.

Update: On a more positive note, my husband couldn't stop raving about the Fire Chicken and said it tasted even better heated up...

I did have this as a 5 star review but had to come back and take away some stars. I ordered sushi to go, 3 rolls and a kani salad. It was the most tasteless sushi I have ever eaten in my life. The California roll had the krab stick and avocado, no cucumber and the krab was not seasoned. Very bland. The other two rolls were just as bland and no flavoring at all. The kani salad was shredded krab stick and did not appear to have any type of sauce added to it, just plan krab. For the 3 rolls I ordered they provided two packs of soy sauce, like it was going to break the bank if they actually gave me one for each of the rolls. Just getting two might not have been a problem but we had no soy sauce at home to supplement. I have eaten at other YamChen's and the food was great. I will not go back to...