Sunday, August 27, 2006

Yohei Sushi

Yohei Sushi
1111 Dillingham Blvd

Yohei Sushi is located in a tiny strip mall near Kalihi but looks like it could be found in Tokyo. It was packed on a Thursday night at 6:30 pm when we arrived (get reservations, otherwise you’ll never get a table) and the majority of the staff (sushi chefs and waitresses) appeared to be from Japan.

Yohei is known for its ‘Yohei Sets’: beautiful, elaborate set meals. There are 3 choices ($19-26): unagi, sushi or the ‘sokudo set’ (not sure what that one is).

Here is the Yohei Sushi Zen set:

They also serve dinner sets (tempura, sashimi, grilled fish), donburi, or individual sushi/noodle combinations.

Overall, I’d say that Yohei Sushi has the most beautiful presentation of any meals I’ve had in Hawaii and is also a good value for such an elegant meal.

2 comments:

Kathy YL Chan said...

Hey Pia!

I've never seen this place before, but juding by the crowds of people, you sure picked the right place! Man. And I thought Yanagi was the place to go...lol :)

Unknown said...

MY birthday, we took a friend of mine for the first time as the food here is very nice. We made a reservation 3 hrs before and the restaurant was not full when we arrived. We were sat at the smallest table available that sits two comfortably but was too small for three people.We had to move the chairs to be able to move our arms to eat and was told by the waitress to please put the chairs back to the squeezed position. We explained that we didnt have any room to eat comfortably and maybe we could sit on the table for four which was now vacant next to us, the waitress stormed off in a huff and very not happy at our request.
Even though we had put a reservation in 3 hours prior there were only two menus on the table for three people and one dirty old photo example of two of their set menus, that looked like it had a plastic cover on it from world war two, it was quite dirty. As soon as we picked up the menus the waitress, a very short woman with a doopy look who has never provided good service there before but we came back as the food was good, asked us if we were ready after 5 mins. We said no and continued to discuss the menu. She came back and and said "are you done with the photo card" and took it for another table before we had even had a chance to look at it. I do speak Japanese fluently and graduated with a Bachelor of Japanese Language and asked her politely if there was anyway we could customize a "sashimi moriawase"(various kinds of sashimi combination dish) and was looked at rudely and spoken back in pigeon english "no cannot" after I had spoken very polite Japanese to her. The food was bought out as the waitresses struggled to place our order on the small table for two (three of us) as the table for four stood vacant next to us. I was very embarrassed infront of my friend who I recommended the food to at this restaurant. We spent $108.00 for three of us and the food was good but service was disgusting! Ive spoken and dined Japanese as well as living in Japan for several years and never experienced anything like this in my life. I was very angry and called the owner of the store immediately after stating the facts that I have been going to his restaurant for months after a friend recommended it, but never again. I highly condemn the service we experienced last night and hope no tourists or locals to our state ever have to face this kind of terrible experience and attitude towards customers that are paying a premium price for this restaurant. The woman concerned is very short and has continually given us bad service but we liked the food so put up with it until tonight. I do recommend Yanagi Sushi as an alternative to this terrible place. No tip was given and if this was in Japan this would be highly condemned and Im sure would be out of business by now. This waitress needs a trip back to Japan and needs to experience Japanese etiquette training seriously. Very disgusted.