Yuyu Sushi  

Date of visit : 2 Mar 2013 (Sat) 8pm

No. of diners : 7
Average cost per head : $370
Food quality : 8.5/10
Environment : 8/10
Service : 8/10
Value-for-money : 8/10
Overall rating : 8.6/10

Ship Street is a relatively short street running perpendicular to Johnston Road and Queen’s Road East. However, this short lane has already been settled with a few interesting multinational restaurants such as 22 Ships serving Spanish cuisine, Limehouse for British food, Wing Hing as local neighbourhood eatery, and this Yuyu with Japanese food.

Don’t get misled by its name, this dining outlet does not only serves sushi or sashimi. It offers a full range of Japanese food such as appetizers, teriyaki and tempura. The interior of this Japanese restaurant is modern. You won’t hear the staff shouting “i-ra-sha-i-ma-se” (welcome in Japanese), however, they are still serving with courtesy.

a) Japanese Hairy Beans 日本枝豆 ($38) – 7.5/10

Poached beans with sprinkle of salt, a common snacks to go with beer.

b) From left clockwise, Sea Bream Sushi真鯛壽司 ($36 for 2pcs ), Striped Jack Sushi 深海池魚壽司 ($48 for 2 pcs), Yellow Tail Sushi 油甘魚壽司 ($36 for 2 pcs), Fatty Tuna Mix Shanghai Onion Gunkan 大蔥吞拿魚腩軍艦 ($45 for 2 pcs), Salmon Roe Gunkan 三文魚籽軍艦 ($50 for 2 pcs) – 8.5/10All the sushi and gunkan were fresh, in particular the sea bream which tasted sweet.

c) From left to right, Crab Roe Gunkan 蟹籽軍艦 ($22 for 2 pcs), Duck Meat Mix Goose Sauce Gunkan 鴨肉鵝肝醬軍艦 ($32 for 2 pcs), Grilled Salmon Sushi 三文魚炙壽司 ($24 for 2 pcs) – 7.5/10I only tried crab roe gunkan from this dish, the seaweed sheet wrap was a bit moist than it should be.

d) On top, Grilled Egg Sushi 京都厚蛋燒 ($24 for 2 pcs), bottom from left, Foie Gras Suishi 法國鵝肝壽司 ($58 for 2 pcs),
Jumbo Scallop Sushi 珍寶帆立貝壽司 ($48 for 2 pcs) – 8.5/10The grilled egg suishi in Kyoto style was different from the egg roll 玉子燒 (da-shi-ma-ki), beaten eggs are baked in a pan which makes the exterior look like a pound cake. The baked egg was not too sweet and was the highlight of the dish. The credit goes to them as I haven’t tried the other two sushi.

e) Lean Tuna Roll 鐡火卷 ($58), Yellow Pickled Radish Roll新春卷 ($22) – 8/10

f) Left, Avocado Fried Soft Shell Hand Roll 牛油果炸軟殻蟹手卷 ($38), right, California Hand Roll 加洲手卷 ($28)
I haven't tried any of these.

g) Deep Fried Chicken Soft Joints – 8/10

The soft joints were tender yet chewy, the flavour can further be enhanced with some Japanese spicy seasoning.

h) Sea Urchin Hand Roll 海膽手卷 ($55) – 8.5/10
The sea urchins were large and fresh.

i) Crab Meat Clear Soup 蟹肉清湯 ($45) – 8.5/10
Despite a clear soup, the unami flavour of the crab legs was strong.

j) Sea Bream Simmer Soup 鯛魚湯 ($48) – 9/10
I’m a soup person and this is really my “cup of soup”. The creamy colour was just right for a good fish soup. Smooth and milky, you can find dices of mushrooms and tofu inside.

k) Grilled Mushroom鮮冬菇串 ($26 each) – 8/10

l) Chicken Gizzard 雞腎 ($28 each) – 8.5/10m) Beef Short Rib 牛肋 ($35 each) – 8.5/10The texture of this short rib somewhat resembled that of the chicken gizzard, interesting.

n) Japanese Sweet Pepper 日本青椒仔串燒 ($32) – 8/10

o) Chicken with Japanese Leek 雞肉大蔥串 ($28 each) – 8/10

p) Ox Tongue 牛舌 ($39) – 9/10The meat was tender and juicy, highly recommended.

q) Grilled Yellow Tail Head Joints 鹽燒油甘魚頭鉸 ($120) – 8.5/10
The fish was fresh and the skin was just grilled nicely. Where is my beer?

r) Mirin Puffer Boshi 味淋魚干 ($75) – 7.5/10
The grilled dried fish was a bit too sweet for me.

s) Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Tempura 日本南瓜蕃薯天婦羅 ($55) – 9/10The pumpkin and sweet potato were lightly battered, moist inside.

t) Cold Buckwheat Noodle 冷喬麥麵 ($65) – 8.5/10The noodle was chilled to its required temperature.

u) Ice Cream (complimentary) – 8.5/10
The restaurant offers 7 choices of ice cream, black sesame and coconut are recommended. The former was blended with noticeable sesame seeds while young coconut could be found in the coconut scoop.

03.2013

Right, so I guess this entry will be my first restaurant review writing in English, haha, I guess it will always be a good idea to explore something new and I suppose I will be able to pick up some english writing skills if I keep doing this so I forced myself to make a good start in 2013 since I am going to have 2 days off!

I went to a Japanese Restaurant for lunch with a good friend of mine today at Wan Chai since my friend works in Pacific Place and it is kinda accessible for him to come over. We were suppose to go to a Teppanyaki place today but I am not feeling too well so I picked a sushi place as well, a reservation has been made but they only have sushi bar table available since it is fully booked.

The restaurant was empty when I entered, and in fact the setting of the restaurant is plain I would say, we were lucky enough as our seats are not right next to the toilet . They served us with hot tea and refilled it quite often, I am kinda impress with that to be honest. Rather than sushi they have different lunch sets available including some donburi sets or udon sets with a few pieces of sushi, price range from $85-$230 which is reasonable enough in wan chai area, it is pretty chilly today so we decided not to eat any sushi or sashimi, instead my friend ordered a teriyaki chicken donburi set and I ordered a Salmon Steak with miso set , both served with green salad and miso soup.
Green salad and miso soup came about the same time, salad comes with some Lettuce, Cucumber and cherry tomatoes served with a japanese salad dressing, the veges are kinda fresh and the taste of the dressing is not too sour for me which is pretty good too!
The miso soup for me is pretty good, I reckon it is not hot enough when they delivered it on the table, and the taste is a bit too light as a miso soup but I found spring onion,tofu and mushroom in my bowl of soup though, in terms of ingrident it is good! Oh well I can’t say it is a bad one but is just not too impressive for me.
While we are half way through finishing our salad and soup my friends teriyaki chicken donburi ($85) arrived, there were at least 6-7 slices of chicken fillets and some pan fried vegetables on top of a big rice bowl that filled with rice, those chicken pieces looks okay , at least it doesn’t look overcooked so hopefully my friend enjoyed it , he was saything that the portion is way too big though therefore when we are finished with our meal there was roughly half of it left in the bowl.
My Salmon Steak with miso set ($95) came in a bowl of rice and a plate of vege and fish, pretty much some pan fried veges and a big piece of salmon steak coated in miso sauce. The veges for me is average, they are lightly seasoned and the presentation was quite bad indeed, the fish was okay and the miso sauce is kinda tasty, but it will be much better if the salmon skin is crispy, the fish itself was juicy enough so I will rate it good but not very good! The rice was done nicely and the texture is good so I manage to finish around 2/3 of it, I have eaten the whole piece of salmon steak except the skin but I have left half of the veges on my plate though.
Overall the food is okay and the service was pretty good, at least the servers in the restaurant are really attentive which is really good because it is more or less an essential element of working in a service industry.
Anyways it is really good to catch up with a good friend, and we have some interesting travel ideas in mind today, see if we will make this happen within this year

My friends and I went to have lunch at the restaurant yesterday. Although we were early, the waiter insisted that our table was allocated at 1.05pm despite our recollection that the appointment was for 1pm. We ended up waiting for 15 minutes. During this time, two staff continued arguing with us that we had a mistake on the appointment time and were not happy with our request to sit at a table for 4 (despite our requested booking. On the food, the rice with the raw seafood was hard and the grilled salmon was not grilled. In all, an unpleasant experience. At $110, it was not cheap and there are plenty of other places with decent food and much better service

My friend brought me to this Japanese restaurant to welcome me coming to HK. I have to say they pick a great choice!

We ordered a bunch of sashimi and sushi. The sashimis are very fresh and the eel sushi are very nice.My friend also order some foie gras sushi for me to try. Oh my god! They just melt in my mouth! It was good I can just eat that for the whole night.My friend also recommended the curry pork cutlet to me. The pork is really thick and juicy.

Definitely would come back again when I have time.

Came here on a Sunday for lunch and there was hardly anyone there.. probably partly to do with the fact tht it's Japanese!

Mostly sushi/sashimi on the menu, but the restaurant doesn't give me a feeling of high quality and fresh raw seafood.. so I went with cooked dishes.

The menu has some udon/rice lunch sets. I had the salmon (seared) + salmon roe + sea urchin rice. The salmon was a bit too fatty and the sea urchin was alright. The miso soup was also on the salty and oily side but was acceptable. Their sushi looked mediocre.

Overall a very Hong Kong japanese restaurant.. most staff are very young. Although mostly polite, it does feel like they are very new and confused as to how to do a proper restaurant service.

I would say overall it's an OK place for lunch around the area.

X’mas and New Year are my favorite times of the year – lots of gathering and pigging out – chow time
This year I’ve sampled many more restaurants in Wan Chai (Surprise?? Haha), I want to start with the most impressive one – YU YU.
This Japanese restaurant lies on the famous船街, it’s too hard to miss.
Bf and I walked in on Dec 26 for late lunch, the servers were friendly and helpful.
We each ordered lunch sets – grilled mackerel set and mixed sashimi over rice; and for $50 per dish we added yellowtail and tuna sashimi.
Within minutes, they started serving us salad, miso soup (w/ salmon), sashimi and our main courses.
Everything was so fresh and in the right size. There were 4 pieces of good size sashimi of each kind.
While I was very satisfied with the food quality, I was particularly impressed when the server made an effort to introduce to us when each dish arrived. They even gave us serving suggestion on sashimi, not to mention they remained very friendly and smiley. This is star quality service!!!
YuYu is very top on my list. It’s good to have them in Wan Chai, I appreciate all the culinary development in Wan Chai, together with the traditional and established eateries which I adore, I can easily say that Wan Chai is indeed a food paradise!
Happy New Year!!

After 3 months of long battle, my friend is finally done with 3 big projects on hand. Instead of asking my friend to travel all the way to Wanchai North for lunch, I decided to look for a nice Japanese restaurant that is close to her office and found this one. Decor is cool. Food is unexpectedly good. The only drawback is the setup of the sushi bar is a bit too crowded. Either way, I had a great time there with my friend. Definitely, I shall visit this restaurant for lunch often in the future. Not close to my office, yet, it worth the walking.

Today, I ordered 雜錦魚生飯 (YUMMY!)

It looked like very neat place to me. Honestly, sushi are not only so so... only some of the fish fresh only. To me, this jap sushi place is only OK. You know, a place that you will go for the first visit and nothing attracks you for re-visit.
you had something and anything reminds you what you had in this place.

Four of us paid our visit there on a Sunday evening.
油甘魚刺身 was great. Grilled Salmon Heads were even better!
Grilled Ox Tongue had a lovely texture, but were a touch salty.
Cheerful staff. Extremely attentive service. Nice decor. Super clean toilets.
Nice enough, honestly.

Lunched with colleagues at this place recently. I've passed by it many a time, but have never bothered to look inside. (Sorry for the cheap poetry lol)

The front-of-the house person greeted us in a nice good way and the four of us were promptly given a table by the window. They also have booth seats that look pretty comfortable, as well as bar seats by the rotating sushi conveyor belt that I always find dizzying to look at. From the decor you can tell they have put some thought into doing up the place nicely. Encouraged, I was rather hopeful about the food.

We scanned the set lunch menu. As other reviewers have shown, they have lunch sets ranging from the $60-something to $88 range. We all decided to go for the $88 set that has a sushi combo and a bowl of wheat noodles/udon. I choose the noodles with beef and 2 of my colleagues went for the tempura with noodles/udon.

Appetizer was a leafy salad all round. It was in a small dish with a few leaves and one or two halved cherry tomatoes. "So far so ok", I thought. The dressing was the standard affair and the leaves were more or less fresh. Then came the sushi combo. Maybe I was too hungry/expectant, but I wasn't paying much attention to the plate before me and I've forgotten how many pieces of sushi there were - it was either 5 or 6 max. There was raw shrimp, scallop, salmon (I think), octopus and something else (time to bring a good camera along for respectable reviews hehe). Taste-wise, the quality of the fish was so so, and the rice was ok - at least it was not straight out-of-the-fridge cold. It was overall nothing to write home about but a teeny bit better than average. I like the way the pieces were good pop-in-your-mouth-in-one-go sizes, so no embarrassing bits of rice falling everywhere scenarios.

Then came the noodles. Swimming in an elegant but small bowl, the wheat noodles were lifeless strands of bland. Literally strands, as I swear I would have been able to count how many there actually were had I the luxury of time and solitude. The beef was short thin wisps, and I found I had to eat them piece by piece to make them last. There were also 4 or 5 leaves of veggies, a whole small mushroom cut into thin slices (hurray!), and an altogether non-descript broth finished off the experience. My heart sank as I emptied the precious contents sans soup in less than 2 minutes. The four of us all took less than 30 minutes to finish the meal from ordering to finishing.

My heart hit the bottom of the sea when, after they cleared the table, we were not asked about our preference for coffee/tea, etc. We were simply left alone. "No hope for dessert then", I thought. At least they were generous and attentive with the serving of green tea.

I left the place with that empty and unsated feeling which I absolutely hate, especially that I forked out a grand $100 for this "half-meal". I am a glutton I'll admit, but the overly scroogeyness of the place has definitely done the job of making Yuyu a one-time visit for me only.

More than a decade ago sushi was just as unfamiliar as "Turkish Delight" or "Spanakopita" today. Then over the past so many years it has invariantly become the lazy unthinking, push-button repertoire that we turn to when dining options are considered. The popularity has skyrocketed over the years, passing steak, or hamburgers to become the foreign food du jour, and it's not just by my robust internationalism to embrace sushi as the front-runner, but because there really are lots to talk about when it comes to international food. Sushi just happens to be the most talked about, and embraced for among all.

With the rise of "rotating sushi" (on a sushi belt) people forget all about meals presented in a lacquered tray and delicate presentations. Instead, interactive dining takes over. Along the belt you find the "best looking" sushi to your liking and you "choose". The satisfaction was amazing, at least in the beginning. Then after a while you begin to wonder all the sushi joints serve the same sushi over and over again -- the same acrid guest-star appearances of salmon, salmon and more salmon presented raw, smoked (packaged), blowtorched, or even cured...etc Traditional Sushi joints have simplistic minimalist decor, much like the food served -- you let the star shine on its own.

YuYu Sushi was a different subject to talk about. The decor was the hip contemporary kind, from complex candences in the music to the black x gold decor on one side overlooking the oval sushi belt and booths, the space was supposedly spacious but suffered from a decidedly crowdedness you thought a sushi joint would lack. This is, afterall, a 'contemporary' sushi joint.

Salmon abundance hit me right between the eyes on the very first look of the menu -- Every customer will receive a complimentary order (2 pcs) of salmon sushi, and a 20% off during lunch hour. Oh what good news it must be! Then I opened the menu to realize that this sushi joint charges higher than most chained sushi joints like SenRyo and Itamae...The calculator in me started crunching soon as we ordered -- (one order of sushi each) Ark Shell Clam, Uni, Avocado and Soft-Shell Crab Roll (specialty), Salmon Roe, and something unfamiliar called "太刀魚".

The complimentary salmon arrived with a fake plasticky orange glow you normally see on sushi. It tasted alright, but the problem just seemed to be it tasting 'alright' -- perhaps too safe and ordinary to be considered 'wonderful'. The 太刀魚 was next. We spotted the small pile of pickled ginger atop thin slices white-fleshed fish. The ginger was the weirdest tasting pickled ginger I've ever tasted, with a somewhat salt-laden pungency you wouldn't expect from pickled ginger, in fact not even ginger soaked in brine. The fish here tasted rather bland, and certainly the ginger didn't help either. It was so feathery light in a way that you could barely feel the fish being there. The pickled ginger (from a jar on the sushi belt) was also no comparison to the ones served elsewhere. This one looked dry and tasted exactly what their appearance suggested.

The Uni was one of the good ones, and it clearly was a no-mistake specialty at Yuyu. Thick, plump flakes of uni in the shade of a darker saffron glow rested upon a lump of rice, surrounded by crispy nori. The uni was sweet and flavorful, and lacking that faint but unpleasant metallic taste you often get even at some reputable joints. The Salmon Roe was a So-so choice, despite plump roes resembling miniature crimson bubbles filled with essence of the sea piled upon the rice, the mixture was too salty and the nori in this one has gotten limp and tough. The Soft-Shell Crab Avocado Roll was a major disappointment. The soft shell crab was ice-cold and soggy, and failed to remind me it was crab at all. The avocado, despite being jade-green in the roll, was so hard (unripe) that made me wonder if the fruit should stay on the tree for another couple weeks to begin with.

By then we were looking over to see the sushi chef shucking the ark shell clam, revealing its rosy flesh (and its bloody slaughtering process -- not nearly as appetizing as the meat itself). After the reddish goo has been cleaned up, we expected our sushi to arrive promptly. It didn't, not for another 15 minutes until we decided it's time to cancel our order. Note: There were occasions where the sushi can be reached over the counter from the chef preparing them, this one, was nowhere to be found. When we requested of its 'status', the staff didn't seem to hear us. When it finally arrived, we were impressed -- Ark Shell Clam has such a delicate taste to it, and the now rusty orange flesh, with a crisscrossed-knife work pattern across the top, was cool and crunchy with an emphasis of freshness in every bite. It may be worth the wait, but not exactly for the scowling expressions we saw on the staff's face...

Service seems to be a problem here at Yuyu Sushi. The hostess at the front was very pleasant, but the moment you arrive you could expect no more than the ordinary acknowledgement of your attendance. The empty teacups needed to be reminded a few times to get it filled; lost orders needed to be asked about for at least every 10 minutes to make sure the fish will end up on our plate and not lost at sea; And please note that if you intend to get the bill, do it early, it's another absurdly long wait. So much for delayed gratification though, the food was just above par and that applied only to particular choices on the menu. Lunch options are ok, and if you can look past the bad service and choose carefully you are likely to have a relatively good meal here with the discount they're doing now. Other than that, I would hold the craving and opt for a rotating sushi meal in CWB (and in that, the long wait would be worth it.)

I went to this restaurant with 2 of my colleagues for lunch 3 weeks before. Not having started our meal, one of their waitresses poured whole cup of hot tea right on my back. It was so unexpected that I could not escape. I immediately suffered from sharp searing hot pain and all of my clothes were wet. It was the most awful moment in my life.

Immediately, I went to the nearby hospital with one of the restaurant staff and got the treatment. That afternoon I could not report on duty. After all, I found my back very uncomfortable!

It has been 3 weeks after the incident, none of the restaurant staff followed up this issue. I am really disappointed that they did not take positive action which they should be liable for my suffer.

I believe customer service is one of the most important things for a restaurant. I suffered from this issue and I didn't see they care about their customer!

Went here with the family last week.

It is a rotating sushi bar, but also has a sit-down area too. The sushi quality is fresh and the rice is not too cold -- the rice falls apart slightly when dipped for too long in soy sauce but it is definitely not one big cold lump of prechilled rice which the cheap places do..

While there are the normal kinds of sushi, robatayaki (grilled skewers) and various teriyaki and other items on offer, I was impressed by the new (fusion?) style of sushi.

I highly recommend the foie gras sushi and the oyster sushi. Both were very good. I also enjoyed the uni and salmon sashimi.

In particular, the oyster sushi sounds a bit funny, but the salty cold oyster went very well with the rice and soy sauce and wasabi. The foie gras sushi is warmer and melts in your mouth.

I'll definitely be back!

oh my gosh. i've never had such bad sushi in my life.

went there for lunch today... ordered the set lunch with udon... the sushi was warm and tasted like plastic. really nasty.

as a side, i also ordered the spicy tuna roll... can't believe it came as a bloody roll... they squirt tabasco on the tuna roll to make it a 'spicy tuna roll'. the seaweed wrapped around it wasnt crispy at all (we waited for half an hour for it). i could only eat one... really felt like puking after eating that.

We haven’t been to the Boat Street for a while ever since it was renovated. There are a lot of new restaurants and we tried this Japanese sushi place. The décor looks v. modern and the seat around the sushi bar is quite spacious. We ordered some usual sushi such as scallop, sea urchin, tuna, salmon roe, a few white fish etc. The only thing to highlight is that the egg roll was v. soft and tasted good. Other than that, nothing is very impressive and the price is quite expensive for an ordinary sushi bar e.g. Japanese green pea costs around HKD30+ but it is usually around HKD20 in most of the Japanese places.

It’s okay for a trial as the price is not cheap and not much of variety on food. It’s mainly a place for westerners who hang out around that area.