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Yo! Sushi in Fairfield

melkor

By melkor
in California: Dining

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melkor

melkor

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outside.jpg

Let me preface this by saying that I would have likely lived out the rest of my days without eating discount sushi from a converted burger shack had it not been for Carolyn Tillie spending a year trying to convince me to go.

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Tuesday night a few of us (Carolyn & her better half, Rancho Gordo, MsMelkor and I) got together for dinner at Yo! Sushi in Fairfield. Ordering is done at the cash register with a highlighter on a take-out style paper menu. For help deciding what to eat they have a long row of photos with descriptions for each item on the menu. The menu items range from standard lower-end sashimi, tempura, teriyaki, and udon to bizarre fusion rolls (the caption under the strange photo of the angry lion king reads: California Roll topped with Salmon & house special sauce - baked. Topped with crab meat & tobiko).

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Eating here is cheap - we ended up spending $10/person for dinner. Some of our food showed up on plates, some showed up on a bridge, some in a boat. By far the best items from the menu are the cooked rolls. While they taste much more like something you'd get at a generic American Chinese restaurant than something from a sushi place, they at least were fairly good. The tuna roll, which for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to order, was in my mind in a three-way tie with the salmon sashimi, and gritty green tea icecream for the worst dish of the night. The tuna roll had a gummy texture and an off taste. The salmon sashimi was apparently pre-cut and then frozen and defrosted for service, as the piece I had was not only stringy, but it was still slightly frozen in the center. The green tea ice cream left the unusual texture of sand in my mouth.

The general theme at Yo! Sushi seems to be to mix as many things in each roll as possible to avoid focusing on any one ingredient. There are several Asian restaurants in the same general area serving food better than the cooked dishes at Yo! and the raw dishes aren't worth their meager asking price. Besides, there's an In and Out Burger a block away. If you're going to eat poorly prepared fast food its hard to beat In and Out and it's half the price.

On the bright side, the whole experience reminded me of the Al Sharpton's Casa De Sushi Saturday Night Live sketch, no one got sick, and I got the chance to buy more Rancho Gordo beans without having to trek up to the farmers market during tomato season.

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jschyun

jschyun

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Holy cow, this is exactly the kind of restaurant my better half would like. Come to think of it, Carolyn Tillie and he have almost identical food likes and dislikes. It's eerie. It was through him that I learned that California rolls are not necessarily evil (esp if they have real crab, and you're eating them in Maui, but I digress)

Is there already a thread on converted shacks/chains/whatever turned into other restaurants? If no, then I'd like to mention here that I know of at least 1 Taco Bell that was converted into a Korean restaurant. It even still has that bell tower thing. Haru Bang (grandpa's room) in I think Buena Park.

I love cold Dinty Moore beef stew. It is like dog food! And I am like a dog.

--NeroW

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rancho_gordo

rancho_gordo

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I think good company and "trying something new" made it a worthwhile meal. Plus it was kooky fun. I didn't know what to expect, I didn't quite understand what I was eating and still, I'd go again in a heartbeat should La Tillie and Sean (Shawn?) invite me.

Visit beautiful Rancho Gordo!

Twitter @RanchoGordo

"How do you say 'Yum-o' in Swedish? Or is it Swiss? What do they speak in Switzerland?"- Rachel Ray

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pim

pim

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It was through him that I learned that California rolls are not necessarily evil.

you poor, misguided baby, you.

I do hope he has other redeeming qualities...Just don't let him pick your restaurants from now on and you'll be all set. :)

chez pim

not an arbiter of taste

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Carolyn Tillie

Carolyn Tillie

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I'm not sure if Melkor is the best person in the world to review such an establishment (as he said, he would have never tried it had I not badgered him into it). Yeah, I'm the first to admit it is not a premium-quality sushi joint with a sit-down sushi chef at hand. However, I don't believe the items are at all pre-cut and frozen as I always watched Joe (one of the owners) cut and prepare all our rolls.

Hands down the benefit of Yo is the diversity of their menu and incredible prices. Being impoverished while living near Fairfield, it was a joy to get good quality Japanese food for under $10 a person. I hazard to guess that Ms. Melkor and R. Gordo enjoyed the evening far more than Sir Melkor did, as he grumbled through the entire meal! :hmmm:

Jschyun, you let me know when next you guys are in the neighborhood! I'll treat and we'll bring along Rancho with us!

I love Yo. :wub:

I MAKE FOOD JEWELRY!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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jschyun

jschyun

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Jschyun, you let me know when next you guys are in the neighborhood! I'll treat and we'll bring along Rancho with us!

I love Yo. :wub:

Aw, group hug.

Well, I have to attend one of the dreaded family barbecues eventually, so I guess I'll be up that way sometime in the next couple of months.

--save me from the family barbecue!

Edited by jschyun (log)

I love cold Dinty Moore beef stew. It is like dog food! And I am like a dog.

--NeroW

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jschyun

jschyun

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It was through him that I learned that California rolls are not necessarily evil.

you poor, misguided baby, you.

I do hope he has other redeeming qualities...Just don't let him pick your restaurants from now on and you'll be all set. :)

:laugh:

I know it's love because I think it's funny, not alarming, that he would eat Pasta Roni every day if he could. Before I met him, I didn't think that people actually ate that stuff. But now, I sometimes eat Pasta Roni too. AAAAHHH! hehe.

I also had Cambell's chicken soup recently. My God that stuff is nasty, but in a strangely comforting way.... actually, no, it's just nasty.

I love cold Dinty Moore beef stew. It is like dog food! And I am like a dog.

--NeroW

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jschyun

jschyun

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Besides, there's an In and Out Burger a block away.  If you're going to eat poorly prepared fast food its hard to beat In and Out and it's half the price.

Alright I'll bite. Where does one get well-prepared fast food?

--damn i must really like this thread

Edited by jschyun (log)

I love cold Dinty Moore beef stew. It is like dog food! And I am like a dog.

--NeroW

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melkor

melkor

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Besides, there's an In and Out Burger a block away.  If you're going to eat poorly prepared fast food its hard to beat In and Out and it's half the price.

Alright I'll bite. Where does one get well-prepared fast food?

--damn i must really like this thread

Where do I get well-prepared food fast? First Sqeeze in Napa, Cha-Am in Vallejo, Pho 84 in Oakland, the Canyon Cafe in American Canyon, I like In and Out Burger - but it would be hard to call their food carefully prepared.

Good sushi is all about spectacular ingredients being properly prepared - Yo! has lower quality fish than you can buy at Safeway, and to say anything there is properly prepared is a joke. I'm more than willing to eat on the cheap, but bad sushi is just bad food - cheap or not.

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melkor

melkor

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I'm not sure if Melkor is the best person in the world to review such an establishment (as he said, he would have never tried it had I not badgered him into it). Yeah, I'm the first to admit it is not a premium-quality sushi joint with a sit-down sushi chef at hand. However, I don't believe the items are at all pre-cut and frozen as I always watched Joe (one of the owners) cut and prepare all our rolls.

Check out this thread - I'm hardly by myself in thinking that eating bad sushi is a bad idea. The fish from the rolls may not have been frozen pre-cut, but I have no other explanation for how the center of the salmon sashimi I tried was frozen and all of the outside edges weren't.

Discount Sushi is crap, it being cheap isn't anything close to a redeeming quality - good ingredients cost money.

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MsMelkor

MsMelkor

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On the plus side...

- It was fun

- It was very different from the sushi places I've been to before

- It was super cheap - if you've seen the 707 Taco Truck thread you know I like to find good cheap food. I think it's more of a challenge than finding good food at say, the French Laundry (where the real challenge is getting the reservation and then paying for dinner!)

- The staff was very nice - since Carolyn and her better half go there frequently, they gave us a couple of complimentary dishes

On the minus side...

- While I do enjoy cheap eats, there are some things that are just expensive to make, as Melkor points out above. Sushi-grade fish and skilled sushi chefs are expensive. Cabeza burritos are not. So I think I'll choose to splurge on sushi and find low-priced chow elsewhere.

But hey, it was an adventure. And I'm always up for something new.

allison

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