Yuzen

Good Japanese sushi, roles, noodles and fish. Sea Bass is excellent. I am a fan of the islander and the kari Kari roll. unfortunately slow service, but after all sushi is rather labor intensive to prepare. I think this place is underrated, a lot of people don’t give it a fair chance. Expect higher prices, but the fish is fresh and all the food I have had here, I love.

So far living on the island has been a great experience. Yuzen is a nice place, so far the only place I’ve been able to reliably get Mirugai. The sushi is very good. I wish they had a few Japanese restaurant staples, but can’t have everything in life eh? Close to home, good food, fair price.

Start off with the spinach and mushroom appetizer. It’s delicious and healthy. Very good service. Fresh fish and veggies. It’s nice to know I can enjoy Japanese food when I’m in mercer island.

Let’s say that I arrive at your restaurant and offer to give you some money in exchange for some sushi. I’m willing to wait. I’m willing to pay extra since you’re located on Mercer Island. Oh, you’re not taking to-​go orders? To get some sushi I need to be seated? This isn’t your policy all the time, just randomly? Yeah, your sushi is a resounding ‘ok’ and your customer service is fishy.
After 3 – 4 times of this no-​take-​outs-​now response, I’ve learned the reliably good Sushi is reliably available at Sushi Joa.

If you live on the south end of Mercer Island, it’s great to have a healthy Japanese option nearby. The service is always very friendly although sometimes can be slow since it’s a small space and everything is prepared to order as far as I can tell. If it’s crowded, be prepared to wait. The best time to go is early, before the dinner rush. The kids love the Japanese sodas with marble caps inside the bottle neck that they pop into the drink to open. My go-​to favorite is the sushi and sashimi plate for about $ 25 that includes miso soup, salad, and a plate full of california roll, nigri sushi and very fresh-​tasting sashimi.

Sushi here was pretty good, but I’ve definitely had better. But if you don’t want to leave Mercer Island to get some sushi, then I would definitely come here. Sushi options werethe standard rolls in used to seeing plus a couple specialty rolls. Served me well but nothing super out of the ordinary. I lived at the opposite tip of Mercer Island when I came here but really… how can you complain about distance? Mercer Island isn’t THAT big.

Stay away. We’ve giving it a few times and the fish is NEVER fresh. It’s worth the drive to go to Sushi Joa. Trust me.

Southern Mercer Island residents are pretty much hostages to Yuzen if they want convenient local Japanese/​Sushi and Yuzen knows it.
It’s a pleasant atmosphere although they’ve packed the tables in so tight, they’ve put mesh screen dividers up between some of them. Great for eavesdropping.
I was there on a Saturday night and the place was half full, almost exactly half I’m guessing. Their menu prices are a bit on the high side, as to be expected for Mercer Island, with the exception of the $ 1 sushi. That’s $ 1 per piece for about 7 or 8 of the basic fish (Salmon, Mackerel, Albacore, Surf Clam, White Fish, etc. Tuna excluded) That’s conveyor prices people or better! The pieces were normal size to slightly below normal sushi restaurant size, they don’t skimp. They were particularly generous on the size of the salmon and strangely stingy on the size of the white fish (which was seared and kind of gross) The quality of the fish was average (no different than your average place including conveyor). Based on the décor and location, I expected it to be better. But they did have a lot of stuff on the board like Aji. Ironically, the one item I ate that wasn’t on the $ 1 list (Hamachi/​Yellow Tail) they DID skimp on the size of the fish pieces! Go figure.
The Chicken Yakisoba was okay, nothing fantastic. Okay portion size for $ 14.50 with a good amount of chicken.
The most disappointing thing about this place was the service. Yes there was one large group of 9, but other than that the place WAS NO MORE THAN HALF FULL. Service was painfully SLOWWWWWW. When we ordered more sushi and they said it would take 20 minutes they never came back once during that time to ask if we wanted more tea or drink refills. DO NOT EAT HERE IF THE DINING ROOM IS MORE THAN HALF FULL. I can only think it has to be the local residents that keep coming back, too lazy to drive anywhere else, that has not given this place the incentive to fix their efficiency/​capacity issue with their food preparation. Of course if you figure, it’s probably net break even on time to drive to a place with faster service. LOL.
With a bit better service and some better consistency on their sushi, this place could easily be 4 star. If I was more sensitive about service I probably would have given it 2 stars.

High quality sushi and a nice brown rice tea. Unfortunately, the high price per portion size and extremely long wait take the experience down a notch or two.
Give it a try if you love quality sushi but I don’t advise making a habit of it.

With a hubby who lived in Japan for 10 years, and then in Japantown (SF) for another year, we need to pick a decent Japanese restaurant or he’s unhappy. He liked the authentic Japanese pop music, he liked conversing in Japanese with the staff, he liked the food (which is a big hurdle.)
For hungry, ungourmet kids, the $ 1 sushi cannot be beat. My kids love the bento box. I swoon with my single uni order.
Is it the best we’ve ever had? Of course not. Certainly, it is the better Japanese restaurant on the Island. The other one seems overpriced for somewhat mealy tasting seafood.
I prefer going here for lunch when the service is consistently decent. It is a bit uneven at crowded dinnertime. A little drafty in the winter.

In my heart, I want to say Yuzen is five stars. But…
As expected, each and every dish JP, Penny and myself had last night was delicious. Our favorite dish was the ribeye steak-​wrapped asparagus. Loved the jelly sauce upon which the asparagus rolls rested. The Tako Salad (cucumber and octopus), curry soup, calamari tempura and panko oysters were all flawless.
The broth in the tofu soup, adorned with very thinly sliced green onion, was out-​of-​this-​world delicious. We also had a spider roll (the soft-​shell crab was exceptionally fresh and tasty) as well as another nicely presented sushi roll. Sadly, the luscious crab croquettes had been scratched off the menu with a Magic Marker.
This was the first time JP and I had martinis here. They were well-​prepared and only $ 8.50 each. I say «only», because compared to some of the other martini prices we’ve seen in the area recently, these were a bargain. Penny had a very good fizzy saki drink that came in a bottle.
The staff were working so hard — the waitresses were a whir of efficient energy — and we correctly received each of the items we ordered. The restaurant was crowded with a wait for a table.
But the problem is, you see, the staff was short-​handed. It’s possible the kitchen was backed up too. From the time we placed our orders to when we paid our bill, it was 2.5 hours. That’s too long. Also, dirty dishes were never removed from our table, making for a cluttery mess. We also wanted to order dessert, but received the check before we had the opportunity to ask for dessert. Again, I do not blame the waitstaff because they were working frantically; Yuzen just needs more people on duty.
Despite the slow and incomplete service, we all agreed we do want to come back, because the food at Yuzen is consistently delicious, with a lot of options. The staff is always very nice too.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I kinda hate giving this place 3 stars…
It’s my favorite sushi spot in town. But for a few reasons I cannot give a higher rating than that.
Let’s start with the stuff that gets this place a «thumbs up»:
1.) Happy Hour on the weekends! Wine gets a generous pour, and for a good price
2.) The $ 1 sushi menu (priced per piece) is an outrageous deal. Salmon is ALWAYS on it, and Salmon nigiri is usually the bulk of my sushi order any time I eat it. I haven’t ever been in when there have been less than 6 choices on this list.
3.) The tuna dynamite roll is STELLAR! It’s a shrimp tempura roll (I think… my memory is failing me at the moment) with large chunks of fresh tuna piled on top with daikon and sprouts, drizzled in a spicy sauce. It’s SO GOOD. And a great presentation
4.) It’s close to home — I live just down Island Crest
5.) Portions are generous and the food is always fresh and delicious on the whole
Here are the points that have cause me to dock this place a couple stars, despite being my favorite sushi spot in town:
1.) Service SUCKS. It’s a small restaurant, but there are still a good number of tables, plus the seats at the bar. There is usually only one… MAYBE two servers cashing out to go orders and serving all 15 or so tables in the restaurant. It doesn’t cut it. My glass of water is usually empty and I’ve had to ask several times on more than one occasion for a refill, I’ve waited longer than it took me to eat my dinner to get cashed out once I got a servers attention to bring the bill… it goes on. They are working hard here, and the graciousness of the staff goes far with me in combo with the food they are serving, but it still falls short on most visits here.
2.) It can be really cramped and loud. It’s a small, family friendly establishment. The tables are pushed really close together. And when the place is full, I can hardly hear the person sitting next to me and the servers clearly have a hard time getting between the chairs to get to everyone
3.) This is a simple thing, and perhaps a sticking point for me because I’m from the South. But the iced tea that’s served here tastes like it’s from a powdered mix or bottle. I like to drink iced tea when I eat out. I’ve worked in restaurants — it’s not rocket science to brew or, I imagine, that expensive to get the right equipment to brew actual tea. It’s got a fake lemony taste. Yuck!
Usually poor service is enough to keep me away; especially if it happens twice. That says A LOT about the freshness, portion size and price of the food at Yuzen. I will keep going back, but am prepared to be patient and have appropriate expectations about dining in here.

I took the mom and pops here for Mother’s Day. It wasn’t that busy at all but for some reason the food came out pretty slow. I ordered the blue plate, nigiri with rolls. The fish was fresh and it tasted pretty good. What I don’t like about this place is that they do not serve the standard complimentary Green Tea, they don’t serve rice with the Tempura and the specials on the blackboard are hard to see from your seat. Also they don’t have a Makunochi Bento there. What’s up with that? They don’t skimp on the portions here which was nice but I don’t know this place seems kinda off to me. I rather stick to Izumi or Miyabi.

After trying many different kinds of sushi and meals, I finally found something I really like. The beef udon entrée was fantastic! So glad I found this. Most of the other meals I found were just so-​so, you know, nothing to write home about.
Service is good, but be prepared that of its around dinner time, it can be very slow. The last time I was here, a couple came in and I overheard the waiter telling them that they could get a table but that they were so busy that they probably wouldn’t get there dinner for at least an hour… the couple ended up leaving. Definitely a popular spot with the locals!

After seeing the 4-​star Unilocal review, I thought that we would be in for a treat at dinner last night. Definitely not the case… hopefully this was a one-​off experience. Here’s what hit us:
Golden California Roll — they used real crab meat, but the crab was mixture was dry. The worst offense was how they used soggy, chewy nori seaweed in their rolls.
Spider Roll — the crab was okay… but again, chewy seaweed strikes again.
Hamachi Sashimi — five thinly-​sliced pieces that tasted fishy = NOT fresh. And to top it off, my brother found a lovely fish scale on his sashimi. Yum.
Prawn Tempura — the batter was way too thick and dense. At least it was crispy…
Gyu-​Niku Steak — lacked beef flavor, or actually any real flavor at all. Yeah, there was a little sweet/​salty in the sauce, but it was so forgettably bland. And the steak had so much tendon running through the meat that it was like trying to chew through stale gum. And what’s up with the sour grilled vegetables? The best part of this dish was the plain brown rice.
Chicken Katsu — chicken breast meat was okay, but erring on the dry side. At least it wasn’t too heavily battered. Though, that side salad was drowning in an overwhelming amount of salty dressing that seemed to incorporate sesame flavors into the mixture.
Service was reasonable as the server was prompt in taking our orders. The food also came out in a relatively timely manner (but we started eating before 6pm.)
Oh, and I was sitting on an extremely wobbly chair… so try not to move too much while you’re eating.

Our oldest child wanted to try sushi so we picked Yuzen over the other MI options. And while it turns out that said child does not care for sushi, his younger sibling was raving about the Savory Chicken (chicken teriyaki).
We ordered the Blue Belt sushi combination and hamachi sashimi — both good and fresh. We had a few other rolls and all tasty. The tempura veggies were right out of the fryer and very hot — as one would expect.
Regarding the busyness of the place and service — we arrived before 6p and it was dead but almost full by 6:20p. I noticed that all the staff was working on making sure that everyone was taken care of so I think they took the comment about slow service seriously.
We’ll be back.

Definitely the best restaurant to get sushi on the island. Sushi joa… meh…Haruko’s…pass. Yuzen, the real deal. And did I tell you their amazing $ 1.00 menu sushi… sshhh…little hidden gem? Salmon, mackeral, white tuna, etc… seriously? Love it!

I really like this family owned sushi place~ it’s been a favorite sushi place of mine. For the price, you get better sushi than Kisaku. My friends and I drive from Seattle to eat at Yuzen when we can.
The fish is fresh and you can taste the grains of the rice properly without it falling apart with your chopsticks. The problem is, they often run out of the good stuff early!
Besides their sushi, I really like their spinach and mushroom dish. I think for a restaurant that has a number of dishes, they present each of the dishes well and they taste really good.

Though I am a sushi noob, I am no stranger to Seattle’s Asian cuisine. After a year of living on Mercer Island, Yuzen has become one of my boyfriend’s go-​to dinner spots and I’m pretty pleased that I had the chance to find this gem outside the Metro area.
From my experience so far I would have to rank Yuzen as a favorite, basically tying Mashiko and only because I a) didn’t try Yuzen’s sushi mostly because b) I don’t think they are as focused on providing sustainable options. Although I prefer vegetarian sushi I also appreciate a respectable mission when it comes to food-​sourcing. Enough preaching though…
The salads are delicious — the house salad has an addictively tangy dressing and the grilled vegetable salad is nothing to scoff at, though a floppy piece of eggplant kind of weirded me out. Miso soup seems standard but does not disappoint, but the vegetable tempura’s zucchini pieces were a bit too large for my taste.
The Chicken Yakisoba dish has been one of my favorites in the city, and I’d honestly drive over from West Seattle to get it. It’s big and easily sharable.
What they lack in ambiance/​location they make up in quality, but as noted in other reviews, service can be hit or miss — I wouldn’t go if you’re in a hurry to get anywhere fast, and definitely don’t go on Mondays because they’re closed.

I seriously bookmarked this place a year or so ago, never thinking I’d have a chance to go… but the menu on the website was total eye-​candy. I would never have spotted it, being tucked away in a clustered shopping center in the corner of Island Crest Way on Mercer Island. Go find it! There’s a reason everyone on this rock seems to eat here.
The service was kind of to-​and-​fro, but I didn’t really mind… I don’t like being rushed when a menu takes awhile to digest– especially when I am eating with my Jewish dad, who is finicky, asks a bajillion questions, and who is a sushi novice (which can both fluster and slow me down… oh but how i love him!). He has been a good non-​Kosher Jew to let me steer him along, though!
We moved to the bar (which is much roomier than most sushi bars) from a table. I was told by an older, vanilla and rich-​looking couple who reportedly ate there every day to order the calamari tempura. This usually sounds too contemporary, but they looked very no-​bullsh-​t, so I told my dad we should do it. I also ordered the dynamite scallops, since I’ve never tried this dish before, and figured it was a safe option for him and something this place would do well. I wanted to eat a lot of sashimi, but I figured ordering a few of the $ 1 nigiri would be enough for my dad adventure-​and-​budget wise– so we did 2 pieces each of the white (sea) eel and white tuna. Oh, and i ordered a piece of uni for dessert… i had to! It was from the East Coast (ooooo, fancy…*shrug*).
Verdict:
Calamari tempura: Dad loved it! I really liked it! I would have liked to see tiny whole baby bodies (dad, not so much)…but the nice, thick meaty legs were mixed with huge rings, and coated in enough batter that didn’t compete with the chewy meat. It didn’t melt away or get soggy, but stood up to the garlic aioli and the wasabi aioli (which we didn’t use much, since the calamari tasted great on its own).
Scallop dynamite: good stuff… i am glad we ordered rice with it. But we nibbled on this secondary to the other items, since the cream sauce sort overwhelmed the dish’s featuring the shellfish. I think this is better 2 am post-​club snack food!
$ 1 sushi: big, perfect temperature, nothing like the conveyor-​belt stuff i have been living off of (and enjoying anyway)!
I have NEVER been a fan of anago… but this sea eel was so tasty! It was as big as my middle finger, not dry, not rusty-​tasting like last time I had anago. My dad loved it, too! The thing stayed on my rice when I flipped it over to dab it into my soy. I have such a bloody time with this everywhere else.
White tuna: yum, holy crap! It was more rich than I expected from $ 1 sushi, and my dad made those noises that gross you out and make people turn around and stare at you and you hide your face. Then he wagged his finger at the server like my Jewish grandma used to do at the Red Lobster, saying, «EX-​EXCUSE ME… EH – EH – EXCUSE MEEEE??» (and now i am turning burgundy) and ordered two more.
We were almost done, but he insisted I order dessert, and there was room for only one thing: a piece of uni. It came out as big as a smooshed golfball, as orange in color as 3-​star Unilocal review, but as amazing in taste as a 5-​star! It was sweet and lingering like veal liver custard. I did not want anything else ruining the flavor in my mouth after. I did not chew for about 30 seconds… I let it roll around in my mouth and let it hit every part of my tongue, teeth, mandibles, and throat until I was forced to chew and swallow from that annoying automatic reflex.
The uni was $ 4.95 I think. I didn’t see the bill. I don’t think I want to. Pops and I took a walk around the nearby Luther Burbank Park afterward to let the calories melt away, and to have a good father-​daughter post-​dinner meltdown. (The park has off-​leash areas for dogs, in case you have one waiting restless in the car.)
I have about 95 239 572 357.6756 things to try here still. Now I just need to get on a Mercer Island salary if I want to eat more than the $ 1 nigiri…
*joy
p. s. I had called ahead and asked if we needed reservations for 2 at 7:30…the hostess said, «No, we’re totally dead…»
Well, I don’t know how long she’s worked there, but when I arrived at 7, the place was pretty busy. Busy enough to keep people waiting for timely service. So you need to be insistent on the phone even if the hostess shrugs off a reservation recommendation.