Yuzu Sushi & Robata Grill

We saw Yuzu Sushi & Robata Grill on Check Please about 1 month ago. We were in the mood for sushi so we decided to give it a try - despite the recent feature (and popularity).

Robata Grill Items

Robata grill items (robata means "by the fireside" and refers to old style cooking of norther Japanese fisherman).  They are appetizer size and there is one skewer per order.

We picked 3 different robata items.  We ordered 1 of each of the vegetables and 2 chicken satays
Nasu (japanese eggplant) - served with teriyaki sauce
Eryngii (king oyseter mushroom) - served with peanut sauce
Chicken Satay - marinated chicken in light curry and basted with peanut sauce

Unagi roll (L) My favorite Midwest roll (R)

The chicken was pretty standard for satay but the eggplant and mushroom were really great - maybe because they were a bit different. We would definitely try those veggies again.

Sushi Rolls:
My favorite Midwest roll - there was no rice, ahi tuna, avocado, cream cheese, jalapeno, scallin, masago, spicy mayo, lighted battered tempura - served warm with pepper yuzu sauce - not a traditional sushi roll, more like a Japanese style jalapeno popper

South Beach Roll

South beach - white tuna, spicy tuna, mango, japanese pepper, sesame oil, masago, mayo, red and black tobiko, lime. Got this partially because it had mango in it, but really couldn't taste the mango; it was spicy - due to the spicy tuna and peppers. This (and the dragon roll) had beautiful sauce "art" accompanying it.  They put a few different flavors and colors of sauces on the sushi board and then use a small wood stick point to swirl the colors.

Dragon Roll

Dragon Roll

Dragon - shrimp tempura, unagi, avocado, cucumber, tempura crumbs, masago, spicy mayo, sweet soy sauce.  Yummy specialty roll with lots of good flavors.

Unagi - fresh water eel, cucumber, sweet soy sauce. This was the simplest of the rolls we got but probably Natalie's favorite because she loves eel and there weren't any competing flavors here so it was highlighted

We figured this restaurant might be a little busy, so we wanted to arrive on the earlier side.  We didn't make reservations because we didn't know exactly what time we would be there. We got there at 5:50 and there were only three tables full (so probably 10 tables open). But they didn't want to seat us at a table because they had a lot of later reservations.  So they had us sit at the sushi bar.  There were 6 chairs there and 2 people already sitting.  This wasn't a huge problem for us, but we had a sneaking suspicion that we would probably be done and gone before all of the open tables were filled.  And we were right; when we left there were still 3 tables that hadn't been filled.  They were so quick about bringing us our food that we were out of there at 6:35 - so we had only been there 45 minutes. (In fact, this would have been even quicker but we ordered 3 sushi rolls at first and then ordered the 4th because we still had a little room left). It was nice to sit at the bar because we got to see all of the sushi being made and that was fun, but the whole thing was just a bit awkward since we knew for sure we wouldn't still be there at 7 - when those last reservations were probably scheduled.  Don't know if this place has always been this busy or if is the Check Please effect. Maybe it was too soon to go there after it being featured on TV

Final thoughts on Yuzu Sushi:
Food - The sushi and chicken satay were good; the Robata veggies were great. Due to the reservation situation and the fact that the sushi rolls were pretty standard we probably won't be back since it is a medium sized hike for us.  The Midwest roll was different, but not really sushi.
Service - the service was very quick and efficient.  The Robata items and the first 3 sushi rolls we ordered came out very quickly.  The 4th sushi roll took a bit longer but at that point there were a few more customers at the restaurant.
Atmosphere - small place, very dark inside, playing really loud music (rap) which didn't always have appropriate lyrics, but I guess this didn't seem to be an issue for the family with 4 small children at the front of the restaurant.  They have a large to go business as well which we could see since we were sitting right int front of the area were everything was boxed up at the sushi bar.