Kara & Michael’s Blog

Yomato Sushi, located at 959 Ritchie Highway in Arnold, MD, is nestled unassumingly in the middle of a plain shopping center. The restaurant’s humble appearance might lead a prospective diner to expect a less-than-stellar dining experience. That prospective diner would be correct.

Last weekend was the second time we’ve eaten at Yomato Sushi, and the second time we’ve vowed never to return. Frankly, we should have listened to ourselves the first time, but we returned because we had purchased a certificate from restaurant.com entitling us to $25 off a $35 purchase. Good deal, no?

Upon arriving, our party expressed a desire to dine in and were pointed at a booth. I do actually mean pointed. I sat at the booth, dropping the folded restaurant.com certificate in front of me. A server arrived at the booth and, without saying a word, reached across the booth and plucked the certificate from in front of me. She unfolded it and eyed it with a scowl before asking for our drink orders. I explained that we were not ready to order drinks as one member of our party was in the washroom. “If you want to order this way,” she growled, “you need to order some drinks.” She also told me there would be a $40 minimum food purchase. Neither of these requirements affected our plans, but it was interesting nonetheless that they directly contradicted the very specific fine print on the certificate we had purchased.

I suppose I should talk about the food. The sushi rolls were adequate, though I’ve had better closer to home. The unagi that Kara and I ordered was the worst I’ve ever had. The miso soup is fine, though it’s hard to screw up miso soup. The star of the meal was the Yomato tofu, a $6 appetizer of breaded and fried tofu cubes in a sweet soy sauce. It was attractively topped with shards of tofu skin that wriggled in the air like something alive. Should every other restaurant in my area suddenly close, I will definitely return for the Yomato tofu.

Overall, the food was not good, but it was really overpowered by the incredibly abrupt and in some instances downright rude nature of the service. We were treated like criminals who had exploited an obscure loophole to obtain a cheap meal, despite the fact that our bill for 3 people ran to $40 after the discount. When it came time to pay, my American Express card was rejected by the server despite the presence of the Amex logo on the door, the cash register, and the credit card folder I was handed by the server (!). When I mentioned the logo on the folder, the server ignored me, pointing instead to the hint of green visible in my wallet and saying, “You have cash?”. It was, in fact, a $1 bill, but by this point I didn’t care to go into specifics. We finally managed to pay with a different credit card and escape Yomato Sushi. (We would not have left a generous tip if it hadn’t been included in our bill for us. To their credit, I guess they saw us cheapskates coming.)

Yomato Sushi is, in terms of overall quality, the worst restaurant in which I have ever set foot. If you enjoy adequate sushi at an adequate price, try the takeout. Otherwise stay far, far away.

Also, “Yomato” isn’t even a word. Literally the only Google results are for this restaurant or misspellings of “Yamato.” I expect my sushi restaurants to at least have decent made-up-Japanese names, like Fuji or Sakura or Hana.

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