Yama Sushi

Ya for Yama Sushi! This dive-​y delish sushi restaurant needs your support!
Just go straight for the ever affordable «all you can eat» table service, and you won’t be disappointed. The staff is amiable, and do try the «Victor Roll», by Chef Victor. We devoured lots of different decadent rolls; just make sure to come here with an appetite.
My friends and I loved this place so much while were were visiting a friend for the weekend in Reno — that we went twice! Yama would be great for big groups, offering quick service.
It also appears that the place is an ‘eatery by day, and nightclub by night’! We went at opening (11am) one day and noticed the crew clearing speakers in the back area, and hear from our friend that the restaurant converts into a hip-​hop club after dining hours… interesting.
Yes, Yama tends to be a bit on the slow side, which is why more Renoites and tourists should discover this casual yet sushi-​satinal spot!

This place is fine. I order take-​out sushi from here occasionally because I use
coupons. The food is okay — I stay away from the fried stuff here — always tastes like they need to change the oil. I have only ever order long rolls and usually the cheaper/​boring ones (ex/​california roll, spicy tuna roll). The fish is fine and the rolls are decent sized without excessive amounts of rice.
I would not eat in the restaurant however because it is a bit dingy inside and usually smells of bad oil.

DONT COME HERE! So our group initially wanted to hit up one of the mom & pop diners along South Virginia, but the wait was horrendous for a group for 19. We slowly piled back towards our cars — decided to give Yama Sushi a try. It was definitely a BIG DISAPPOINTMENT.
We walk in and there’s absolutely no business, its prime time for lunch. Some of us order the ALL-​YOU-​CAN-​EAT sushi — which can decently fill you up. However for those who ordered A LA CARTE, the prices of our food came up to near the same price. If you have no choice, stick to the ALL-​YOU-​CAN-​EAT cuz at least it’ll fill you up and you get a variety of sushi rolls.
I ordered the Beef Teriyaki and California Roll.
Beef Teriyaki — beef was either frozen/​old + overcooked, super dry, not made for humans to consume.
California Roll — the imitation crab was the stick you buy at the frozen aisle, this was literally something i can make myself .
They were also very short staffed for our group of 19, and the portion of our group that got ALL-​YOU-​CAN-​EAT received better service than the A-​LA-​CARTE table.
I bet that we were the biggest business/​clients of the day.

The food was ok and I would have been willing to go again, but then we got the bill. I had ordered a plate of vegetable tempura and it ended up costing me $ 16, which is more than the shrimp tempura. It wasn’t even good tempura (over battered.) The teri chicken was pretty good and the udon soup was good. Overall though, the veggie tempura jacked up the bill to being unreasonable. I didn’t order any sushi so I can’t tell you how the sushi is. The food wasn’t spectacular and the prices were unreasonable. I expect this place to go out of bussiness.
Good service saves an extra star. The other extra star is saved because the food was not a terrible experience.

Went to Yama at 4:40pm on a Tuesday we were the only ones in the place, there were 2 Sushi chefs behind the bar, we had 5 people in our group one in a wheel chair so we sat a a table. Now I know that you get slower service when you are at a table rather than right there at the bar but WOW! it took about 20 min. for us to get our first round of rolls for the table, again we were the only ones in the whole place! One chef was working on our order wile the rest of the staff were leaning on the bar talking to each other … And the rolls when they did come were missing something, can’t put my finger on it but I’m thinking there wasn’t enough rice wine vinegar on the rice. So long story short I will not be returning to this place they were more than willing to fill my water glass but I didn’t pay $ 19.95 for water!

Always on the lookout for a new sushi place to enjoy, I noticed a new place behind the Black Bear Diner on South Virginia Street. But the lights were out? What is that all about? I sent the wife in to the Black Bear to meet our party while I took a stroll across the parking lot to this place declaring itself Yama Sushi. I saw people inside but could tell they were working on getting the place ready for opening. I just had to know when they opened so I knocked.
They open the following Monday… darn it. I wont be able to make it until later in the week. Probably a good thing. Let them get some of the kinks out of the system before I hit the place.
Well Friday rolls around and the wife and I head out for some new sushi! Yay! We got Sushi… how «new» it was, could be argued. Nothing groundbreaking in the rolls. Some hit the spot and some were just ok. Nothing was fishy or inappropriately temperatured. Victor was our Chef and he did a good job taking care of us.
The one thing that stands out for me from Yama is that they seemed eager to make a good impression. They took care of the kids very well and seemed happy to have them there.
The prices are pretty much standard for Reno All-​You-​Can-​Eat.
12.95 for lunch
19.95 for dinner
All Ratings are based on a scale of 1 – 10. 10 being the best.
Atmosphere — 6.5. Again they were just newly opened so it should improve over the next few weeks. Right now it’s not really a «fancy date» destination. However they do have some nice rock work behind the bar. Also my son noted that this one has a «low» bar with regular height seats.
Cleanliness — 10 Keep in mind though this reflects the newness of the place.
Variety — 7 Good selection of rolls but not an amazingly large selection. Again this may change in time
Food Quality — 8 The food quality was fine.
Service — 9 Victor did a good job of trying to please as did the rest of the staff in filling drink orders and giving us a pleasurable experience.
Overall 8
In all. This is NOT a place to avoid. I will not hesitate to go here in the future. If for nothing but the friendly service that we got the first time. Also has a good proximity to the Park Lane Movie theaters.
P. S. It seems that the owners have come down from the lake to try their hand in the ultra competitive market in Reno. So if you know the lake and it’s sushi places… you might recognize at least a few faces here.

Yama just opened a few weeks ago and is located in the Orchard Plaza Shopping Center where El Pollo Loco is. Very friendly, not very busy for lunch hour, but for the most part food was very good. Most of us had the all you can eat for $ 15.00. A couple of the rolls were sort of plain and just OK. Everything seemed to be very fresh, service was excellent the restaurant is big and light on furnishings and décor making you feel like you’re out in the open on display. Average, but certainly nothing to be afraid of.