Yama Japanese Cuisine

I lived in Japan for a year and I like the real thing. This place has it. Generous portions of sashimi with very smooth hamachi, my favorite. Also the best soft shell crab I’ve had. My friend had the Chilean Sea Bass – not traditional Japanese but very good. My only complaint is that Yama is hard to find. Not good sinage and if my friend hadn’t taken me to it on the 3rd floor of the Galleria I wouldn’t have know it was there. The Eastside has a winner!

I would like to first call out that the fourth star is purely for service and presentation. While I’ve had better sushi, at better prices, the service was really outstanding for this location.

The portions were also good, however the quality of the fish was somehow lacking. I can’t put my finger on it exactly but it was perhaps tougher than it should have been. We ordered the sushi combination plates, a gyoza, toro sashimi, and spider roll. The toro, while good was tough and less buttery than I was expecting, flavorful but timid. There was a great selection in combination plates but the same texture problem also was evident in those pieces. The tuna was bland, while the salmon was pretty good. Squid and Taka not too chewy, for a bonus. The spider roll was also good, my friend who was always perplexed why I ate them finally understood their potential.

I would go back here, but on an expense account.

The fish was pretty fresh, though a bit pricey for what you get in my opinion (though I think it is comparable to a lot of the pricier sushi restaurants around). The atmosphere feels something like Wasabi Bistro – upscale. It’s a good atmosphere, and the other good thing is they are open late unlike a lot of restaurants in Bellevue.

Pretty good selection of wines and sakes as well. Good location, and validation for your parking in the Galleria garage below! I like this place better than Flo which is also in Bellevue.

cuisine: Asian Fusion Cuisine / Sushi & Sake Bar
ordered: spicy tuna salad with frieg noodles on top
food: fresh, nicely arranged.
price: surprisingly unexpensive!
ambiente: nice interior, calm
staff: polite
other: during lunch hours well visited, had to wait for 15 minutes: no minors

We had our chef, (Kris) decide for us, he made several rolls, some not on the menu that were absolutely fabulous! It was so good that we don’t want to get sushi anywhere else and look forward to going and seems like we always take someone new with us, (mainly so we can impress them with our new hang out)! The rock shrimp fondue was excellent also! In our world we prefer do let Chef Kris do the deciding for us and we just sit back and enjoy! Thanks KK