Yoshi — Restaurant in West University Place

Update August 2023: This place has improved considerably. On a recent trip we had a very competent waitress. Our food arrived reasonably warm, with ginger and wasabi. Nice. It does a bustling trade in lunchtime take-aways, so don’t go at lunch if you want a mellow experience. I wonder what would happen if instead of offering so many dishes, they concentrated on a much smaller menu, and did those items really well? Overall, a reasonable place for a quick sushi lunch. Not too expensive.

Original review: On the good side, this place feels Japanese when you walk in. Nice big blinds, minimalist decor, good amount of seating. And the wine, Pinot Grigio, was surprisingly good, not too sweet and not too dry. I’ve been in many places with sticky menus so the sticky menus weren’t a deal-breaker. Unfortunately my lunch did not go well. My miso soup arrived lukewarm. I’ve always had hot miso soup, so lukewarm was a surprise to me and I didn’t like it. The sashimi lunch box was shoved into my table without ginger or wasabi. When I was finally able to get the waitress’s attention, she came with 3 small slices of ginger. I asked for more ginger. I thought ginger was always served with sashimi? Wasabi was gaijin wasabi, ie. not in the least bit hot. I asked for real wasabi and there was none to be had, but the chef kindly sent out some chopped peppers. By the time I got a bit more ginger my undercooked rice was stone cold. It had come out of the kitchen undercooked and nearly cold so no surprise there. The sashimi consisted of 6 very large and generous blocks. Tasted fresh. Soy sauce needs to be squirted directly on food as no soy sauce plates are provided. No chop sticks provided. No pen provided with my check. I dithered about leaving a negative review in case this was a mom and pop establishment. Then somebody, either mom or daughter, came out from the back of the restaurant and drove off in a very fancy sports car. In summary, this place is run by folks who have never been to Japan OR run by folks who are cutting corners to pay for the fancy sports car. Advice: hire, train and pay proper waiters/waitresses. Serve hot food hot. The kitchen is only 15 feet away from tables, so this seems possible. Serve sushi with chopsticks, ginger and wasabi, with real wasabi available on request. This place has a great location and nice decor. With a bit of effort, it could...

Used the DoorDash app to order from this restaurant and after waiting an hour, I received a call from the driver stating he couldn’t find the address. It was difficult to understand what the issue was but eventually understood there was some sort of glitch where the app took the driver to the wrong address. The call ended with the driver rerouting to the correct address. About 10 minutes later I received a call from a woman, that presumably works at the restaurant, who was extremely rude and told me that she was going to cancel my order without a refund because the address in the app was incorrect. Even though the driver had already told me he had rerouted to the correct address and was on his way. I contacted DoorDash support and they were very professional and gave me a full refund. I made a new order from a different restaurant and then, while I was waiting for that new order, the poor driver from this restaurant shows up at my door saying he was told to throw my order away but didn’t feel right doing that since he was already on his way here. He said he wasn’t going to get paid since the restaurant had canceled the order so I went out to grab some cash and gave him a tip. It is a shame that this restaurant has such poor customer service, otherwise I would not have...

RUDE and shady business practices. Ordered through the door dash app, which was only 6 miles from the restaurant. After typing in the address of my hotel, Yoshi came up as an option that looked appetizing. After waiting an hour for our food, we received a very rude call from the restaurant that our hotel was too far and if we didn’t come immediately, our order would be canceled WITHOUT refund. Mind you, the food HAD been picked up already! Despite me and wife trying to be very patient, we were hung up on and our order was canceled without refund. The restaurant actually called the driver and went out of their way to tell him to throw it in the garbage. The driver ended up coming anyway, but since they canceled the order he lost out in his tip, so we had to run out, get cash, and tip the poor confused driver. Makes me wonder how many times they’ve pulled this stunt on unsuspecting people. Yoshi management: if you can’t figure out how to properly set up Door Dash and it’s delivery radius, then don’t use it! And hey, if you refuse to deliver food to an address after they’ve paid, then don’t accept your...