Yoo Mae Japanese Cuisine and Sushi

We gave this place a shot to try something different. Best sushi we have had in the springs. Very fresh. Staff a little odd but highly recommend!

When I think of sushi I, like many folks I know, think two things… formal and expensive. Yoo Mae is refreshingly neither of these.
1. Value — Good to generous portions, at extremely reasonable prices. You’re getting very high quality food and you aren’t handed the bill you expect (and would gladly pay).
2. Service — Spot on. Fast and efficient, but never intrusive. Helpful and polite without exhibiting the knack some servers have of showing up to ask you how things are somehow in the middle of *every* mouthful.
3. Food — 50 rolls named for the 50 states. I haven’t had all of them, but every one I try is unique and delicious. I prefer rolls that are sized properly as these are, just a one or two bite affair, rather than some gargantuan thing you cannot figure out how to eat. I love the spring rolls and the pot stickers. The miso is mild, but never bland. Edamame, seaweed salad, Yakisoba noodles, tempura… everything I’ve had is great.
4. Presentation — pleasantly peasant until you get to the sushi rolls. They are exceptionally beautiful, made with skill and love. I had Udon on one occasion, and it was quite nicely presented as well in a big iron bowl.
5. Atmosphere — I love how relaxed it is. It’s simple and clean. I wouldn’t go as far as to say elegant. But that doesn’t seem to be the point of the place, it also isn’t necessary in my opinion.
I can’t find enough good to say about Yoo Mae. It’s consistent, affordable, and we have (and will continue) to visit for lunch and dinner. We no longer care about the fancy, more expensive sushi places in town. We have one very close to us that’s just fine, yet we now just pass it by and make the trip downtown to Yoo Mae instead.

In my years of having worked every position in the front of the house, it isn’t hard to find a hiccup in any restaurant. But my 2 experiences here have been Perfect in every way! Beautiful and delectable food, attentive and friendly spot on service, great price, great atmosphere. No complaints and will be a staple in my rotation! Absolutely love this place!

We went here the night before thanksgiving after a long day of traveling. Had a great time. Small place but staff was accommodating and attentive! The menu is just fun to read. A roll for every state. So we represented with Indiana, Alaska, Colorado, Utah, California and we took their #1 roll Kansas even tho know was from there! Hands down alaska was our favorite with crap and salmon. Must get the green budda beer!

My friends and I are sushi connoisseurs, so I can tell you from A LOT of experience with the Colorado Springs sushi scene that this is THEE BEST in Springs. Must try!

Food is great. Service is… awkward. Uncomfortable too. The restaurant was entirely empty when we arrived. Myself and my fiancé. I asked for a 4 seat table so I could sit next to her instead of across from her. I was swiftly denied and told that «it’s not an option».
The server was attentive. Overly so, in fact. In 45 minutes he came to the table at least 23 times to «see how it’s goin’, man». He smelled like weed. Good weed, but still, come on!
Food was good, but this place gives me the heebee jeebees. 2 stars.

Yoo Mae is my new favorite sushi/​Japanese restaurant in Colorado Springs! From start to finish our meal was fantastic. I love the «50 State Rolls» — we tried the Kansas, Louisiana, and Michigan. Prices are reasonable for sushi and you won’t be disappointed! The inside isn’t anything fancy but that didn’t have any impact on the deliciousness of the sushi. :) This is the place to go if you want really good Japanese food in the Springs.

This place is the lunch-​time dream. The lunchtime specials are incredible, I personally recommend the bento-​box. The staff is very friendly with a happy to serve attitude. My first time here, our waiter, Shane, helped modify my order to suit my dietary needs, and volunteered ingredients in the miso soup to prevent me from having exposure to fish oil. Their talented sushi chef was willing to modify every roll to be vegetarian just for me. That’s not something that any sushi place is willing to do, so it speaks volumes of about the value they place on customer satisfaction.
The environment is a no-​frills, super casual feel. It’s small, basic, and clean. I haven’t had any sense of the «weird smell» that other reviewers have mentioned.
The take reservations and are able to accommodate large parties despite their small space.
I will absolutely be back, many many times.

Had to re-​enroll with Unilocal just to make sure I passed on my experience. Sort of ate there last evening. Saturday night, early. One other group in restaurant. Two of us sat at the bar. Restaurant is a bit dingy, with an «old building» type of smell. We were greeted quickly and sat. Beer and wine came quickly, as did the house salad. Beer, wine and salad were fine.
As I do at all new (for me) sushi places, I order a chef selection of sashimi. This gives me an idea of the general quality of the product, as well as how much care is placed in preparation. In this case we ordered the 12 piece, and requested no white tuna. The plate came out fairly quickly, with albacore, tuna, snapper and salmon all cut as expected for the various species. When the plate was set down, both my wife and I looked at each other with the peculiar look that goes along with, «do you smell what I smell?». I took a piece of albacore and smelled it. No odor and the subsequent taste was fresh and firm. Followed with the tuna, and came up with the same result.
Then came the salmon. As I brought it toward my nose, I already knew I had found the culprit. This piece of fish smelled like, well, ass. When questioned about the plate we told the server and chef that the salmon was off. Only responses were, «well, it’s fresh», and, «it’s Scottish».
We got our check immediately… no adjustment for only eating two pieces of twelve, or our clear issues with the freshness of their product. No visit from management/​owner/​??? Paid and left.
So, if the Scottish truly do eat their fresh sashimi grade salmon smelling of a full diaper, please accept my apologies, as clearly I’m lacking in cultural awareness. Otherwise, please stop pushing old, or poorly cared for fish as sashimi worthy.

This place was a huge disappointment. Their specialty rolls named after the 50 states all had mayonnaise or another ingredients that did not sound appetizing with sushi, so we stuck to the regular rolls. We ordered yellow tail, salmon, eel and a couple others. But it turned out that it didn’t matter what we ordered, it all tasted the same because the pieces of sushi were so tiny. When we left I was full… of rice. Maybe we ordered the wrong things but I’m not willing to give this place a second chance.
The best sushi I’ve had in Colorado Springs is at the Sushi Ring at 1861 South Nevada. If you don’t want to leave downtown for sushi then just stick with Fujiyama

Best sushi in Colorado Springs; however, I’d stick to dining at sushi bar to avoid a pretentious wait staff.

Very good sushi. Had a spicy California roll with eel and eel sauce on top. Had never had that before and it was great. Appropriate prices and very fresh fish for sashimi. I’d go back.

Good service for starters. Ambience is pleasant without the loud music that you encounter in many restaurants. A good lunch crowd is always a good sign too. Miso is definitely authentic and quite tasty. Sushi is one of the best in town. Arizona Roll is a great choice as well as the Lamborghini Diablo (be prepared for some spicy crawfish!)
Beef Bento box was good and meat was very tender. Tempura was pipping hot! Overall… good place to eat.

FOOD:
Sushi: OK
Miso: Pretty standard with sufficient tofu and some seaweed
Bento: Tempura could have fried a touch longer. Salad and dressing were weird and the standard iceberg & carrots type. Gyoza were ok. Chicken was ok.
First Impression: Weird smell when walking in, dusty and some spider webs, counters cluttered, floor and sushi bar not 100% clean, needs an update on the paint and décor.
Staff: Friendly, but bored. (Only 2 tables occupied on a Saturday evening)
Bathroom: Ladies — needed overall THOROUGH cleaning and linoleum tiles were cracked/​missing, door was DIRTY! Men’s — bit shabby, but clean (according to the husband)
OVERALL: Not going to go here again.

Awesome place… I was born and raised in Hawaii I worked in the seafood for 12 years, This place has really good quality Sushi… Great Japanese style food.

Another disappointing sushi experience in Colorado Springs…
It is a small, quaint restaurant in a great downtown location. But, sadly that’s were the positive attributes end.
This place is charging pretty standard prices for very mediocre sushi.
The state roll menu is a bit cheesy, but I guess everyone has there thing…
Mine happens to be sashimi. Which can only be ordered in 1 fish, 7 pieces for about $ 15 or a large chef’s choice platter. Problem with chef’s choice is it’s never our choice. Why can’t the al a carte menu offer the choice of nigiri or sashimi style? As many sushi restaurants do.
So, we ordered nigiri… I will say the amount of rice used was good (so many places use way too much rice). However, there was no wasabi between the rice and fish, as is customary and the rice was not very sticky and completely fell apart when you tried to pick it up. The one roll we ordered was not rolled very tight and fell apart, as well. I wish I took a picture of the spicy scallops we ordered. Way to much ‘sauce’ which overpowered the delicate scallops and created a soupy mess.
But honestly, the worst part of the experience was the service. The sushi chef was constantly yelling for his waiter. Where was the waiter? It got old fast listening to his name being yelled across the restaurant. Also, the sushi chef was answering his cell phone while filling orders. Should I even point out how germy cell phones are…
The waiter was nice and meant well, but really wasn’t to attentive. We were served soup with no utensils. And he couldn’t be bothered to bus any dishes away. Even at the end when out check came we sat there with a table of dishes waiting to pay.
And why did we have to eat our sushi off tea saucers? You know the little plates with a circle in the middle for the tea cup. Do they not have any cute sushi plates?
In summary, the green tea and beer were good. Otherwise, save your time and $. There must be a decent sushi place in this city.

I went back and forth on coming here because I read through a lot of the bad reviews and they seemed really bad. This was one of two sushi restaurants that we were debating on going to, and since we’d been to the other one and didn’t like it much, we decided to just give this place a try.
It was very good. They’ve definitely earned their high overall rating. I think it’s unfortunate that people have had bad experiences here and I’d encourage them to give it another try.
Sushi is typically not the best choice when you’ve been really active all day and have a huge appetite, but we did it anyway. My friend ordered two sushi rolls and my husband and I got the same, plus some yakisoba and gyoza to split. We were all very happy with our meals. The yakisoba was very good; the noodles weren’t over cooked, it wasn’t insanely salty, and there was a good bit of veggies in the dish instead of just a bunch of noodles. I can’t remember which rolls we all got, but we were happy with them. The fish tasted fresh, it was cold, and the rice wasn’t over– or under-​cooked. The gyoza threw me off at first because they’re kinda teeny, but I ended up kinda liking their bite-​size-​ed-​ness.
Price wise I thought it was pretty typical for Springs sushi places. I feel like all of the sushi around here is very overpriced for what you get (a small roll as compared to the huge, meal-​sized rolls I’m used to getting in AK for the same price) but that’s a problem at all the restaurants around here have, not just this one. All of their non-​standard rolls are named after one of the US states and they have some specials which are named after international countries. It’s a creative, slightly goofy way of doing things.
It’s definitely worth coming here, at least to try, and this will probably be our go-​to sushi place from now on.

This is one of my favorite sushi places in town. its small, low key but good solid sushi. The waiter was no frills, but efficient. He was quick with the drinks and got our order in place. My colleague got a platter and I got orders of maki rolls (tuna). Everything was great!
Its way less crowded than Fujiyama down the street and is much better in my opinion.
Give it a shot, you will enjoy it!

I’m a fan, but I’ve only been once. There are other places I like the Springs that have better fish for less. So, I haven’t been back.
Food: It’s good fish. No doubt. Better than most places in town. I got some sashimi. And my husband had a few rolls. I was going to try a roll, but honestly that menu was so huge I just kind of gave up. My husband liked his rolls. There was more rice than some places we go to. And their sizes vary. Some of them are the width of a baseball. No way you’re fitting that in your mouth in one bite. But overall lots of options. Too many for my taste.
Service: Our server was nice. Nothing great. Nothing bad.
Ambiance: Small, authentic little place in down town. It’s nice though. Clean.
They are closed on Sundays though.

I tried to come here a while back and unfortunately it was closed (sundays I believe). But I finally got my foot in the door and I’m so glad that I did. Yoo Mae is fantastic! They have a pretty extensive menu of rolls dedicated to each state. They are so unique and delicious that I might have to try every one before I leave this city. The fish here is sooo fresh that I thought I might be on the coast somewhere. The Yellow Tail was probably some of the freshest I’ve ever had anywhere else.
The size of the rolls vary in size drastically. The rolls dedicated to the states tend to be quite large and fancy, but the generic rolls such as Yellow Tail, Spicy Tuna etc, are usually of a medium size. The rice to fish ratio is perfect and not over the top on either ingredient which can be a problem for some places. They have a nice little selection of Asian beer and Sake that compliment the sushi perfectly. I love their unfiltered Sake; the freshness and sweetness was very refreshing after gorging myself on multiple rolls.
If sushi isn’t your thing than you can order some Japanese cuisine to satisfy the less adventurous tastes of inlanders. I haven’t tried any of it but it looked quite tasty. This is the place I will be eating at every time I’m downtown whether I’m alone or with friends. I just wish it didn’t take me so many years to find this hidden gem. I’m disappointed in myself for wasting so much money at Fujiyama.