The most recent mega-chain to come to the bright lights of Belfast City is Yo! Sushi. Basically a westerner’s wet dream of a Japanese restaurant, although, having never been to Japan I can’t comment on its authenticity.
The Belfast branch is situated on the outer section of Victoria Square and occupies a long thin floor-space that allows the long sushi train to wind its way between the booths and the preparation area. We attended with a baby and I have to say the staff could not have been better (Aimee was our main server), they were helpful, informative and accommodating.
The way the restaurant works is that you either grab the wee coloured plates as they go by on the train or you order hot stuff and specifics from your server. The colour of the dish lets you know how much it costs, so a blue plate might be £1.90 while an orange plate might be £4.30. We ordered a mega bowl of Katsu curry, some chicken noodles and chicken dumplings. There could be a tendency to compare this place to Wagamama, a place I don’t enjoy dining in although I do enjoy their Katsu curry, but that would be wrong. This place is more about the experience, for instance if you want to call your waitress you push a button (like calling an air hostess) and a Japanese woman screams “Table Number 12” and then repeats this in Japanese. There are little water dispensers on the table that supply still and sparkling filtered water (it’s £1.10 for an unlimited supply) and visually the place is more arresting with bright colours as J-pop and K-Pop assault your ears.
For the most part, they use chicken thigh over breast, which makes the chicken dishes more tasty and is something that I really enjoyed. Our server advised us that the mega bowl was quite large and probably best to share at lunch, an honest observation that proved correct (and saved us some money) but for dinner would probably be a good size. The sweet soy based dipping sauce that came with the delicious chicken dumplings was a real hit. Also my chicken noodles (the name of which eludes me) were phenomenal, a bit sticky, tangy and hot all at the same time.
I’ll definitely be back to Yo! Sushi as I feel it makes for perfect casual dining, and a trip can be as quick as 10 minutes or you can sit in a wee booth for hours sampling lots of different sushi while Japanese ladies scream table numbers long into the night.
