Yama Sushi Bar

Sorry, no pictures for this review - we're still moving in and were in a rush and I completely forgot.

I love sushi - one of the best things about living in Hawai'i for so long was the availability of good, cheap sushi. My oldest shares my love, and was asking when we would start trying to find a good sushi place here in Virginia. Last night we were invited to watch a choir singing at a Christmas preview sale nearby, so C and I decided to try Yama Sushi, which just happens to be right down the street, on our way to the event.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a true Japanese style sushi bar, with all the employees obviously Japanese. The menu was extensive, and not as cheap as we're used to. It includes many other Japanese foods other than sushi. They also give a small bowl of fresh cucumber tsukemono with the drinks, which was nice. The green tea was hot and good, but no refills were offered.

C and I overordered in our enthusiasm to try several different specialties. The endamame appetizer was hot, salty, and good, but the shrimp tempura appetizer was just OK - I've had better. For some reason, they gave us a specialty roll on the house - a Volcano roll. It was actually pretty good - some kind of tuna inside-out roll that was battered and deep fried.

We ordered two rolls off their spicy roll list, but were disappointed in the lack of spicyness. They were good, but barely spicy to our palates. The specialty roll we ordered, the Earthquake, was supposed to be spicy as well, but was actually sweet in taste, something I've never had in sushi before. I'm not sure if I liked it. C ate it all, though, mostly because she loves sushi so much. Love ya, C!

I did order a piece of of salmon sashimi, which was thick, fresh, and delicious.

We will probably go there again, mostly due to the close location, but we will continue to search the area for a really, really good sushi bar.