Yellowtail Japanese Bistro

The sushi here is poor quality. We had great service though. We tried a fried chicken appetizer that was too dry to eat. The Gyoza was good.
No reason to come back.

Food and service was great. Looooved the Ninja No Make roll. All the rolls were beautifully made and presented. Sasha was our server and really made our night fantastic.

Being the first time there, we weren’t too impressed. Most of the wine selections were out of stock. Took a few try until we decided to order something random. As for the sushi, it was just okay, and the service was slow. Nothing stood out from the experience that I would make me want to come back.

Great place for sushi, appetizers, meals, or sake bombs. Service was good. They have big tables for large groups and the prices are reasonable. I would go there again.

This is not a good place if you have allergies. I ordered lunch combo (can’t actually recall which since this was a couple weeks back) and was careful to pick something that didn’t have shrimp (which I am allergic to) in it.
When my food came, two of the three rolls contained shrimp, meaning I couldn’t eat them. :(I’m pretty relaxed about food mix-​ups in the kitchen, so when I saw the shrimp, I told my server that I am allergic and asked if I could order something else. She was kind of strange about this part and acted like I should have known about the unlisted shrimp. Then, instead of bringing the menu so I could pick something new, she shuffled away and brought back a new mystery roll. I wish I could even say that was good, but it was kind of not-​in-​a-​good-​way-​fishy.
I really had high hopes for this place since I love sushi and it is near my office, but not knowing how to deal with a common allergy means I won’t be returning.

I never expected to find good sushi while in SLC (we’re landlocked!!!) so I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon Yellowtail. My friends and I actually wanted to check out Takashi because everyone was raving about that place, but when the hostess said it would be a 45 minute wait, we turned to Unilocal and found Yellowtail right across the street!
We ordered the following:
— Spicy Kara Age (Japanese fried chicken) $ 8 — it was a good sized portion of dark meat fried chicken. I personally didn’t care for the spicy sauce; it was a cross between buffalo (tangy and vinegar-​like) and chili sauce. The flavor was intense and it was pretty spicy (and I have high spice tolerance) but I was just expecting something different.
— 8 piece Omakase (chef choice of nigiri) $ 14 — the cuts were great! we had 7 different types of fish, some cooked (unagi and ebi) and most were raw. The salmon and hamachi were my faves! The price is also awesome for the size of the pieces!
— Fire Cracker (soft shell crab, spicy tuna, avocado) $ 12 — it’s a spider roll + spicy tuna! Delicious with the right amount of kick from the spicy tuna!
— Dragon roll (shrimp tempura, unagi, avocado, tobiko) $ 13 — unagi (eel) is always a good choice! it’s sweet with the unagi/​soy sauce drizzle on top of the roll. Decent size portions of unagi and the crispy tempura is a great combo!
— Snowbird (shrimp tempura, tuna, salmon, avocado) $ 13 — my personal favorite! I love salmon and this roll literally has 3 different types of fish that perfectly complement each other. There is a sweet sauce drizzle that I really liked with the sushi.
The sushi quality was pretty good! I have high standards when it comes to sashimi (grew up in Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest where we have access to fresh fish and I’ve had the real deal in Japan!) so while I can’t say Yellowtail was amazing, I would definitely recommend this place to others and come back! Atmosphere is nice and cozy. Service was superb!

Hello, new Shogun!
Sadly, the two menu items I was stoked to try weren’t available.
Of course, udon is usually only served for lunch. bummer. Also saw many pictures of the grilled squid and that wasn’t anywhere on the menu. We even asked but our server told us they didn’t have it.
Fine. We went with fried calamari instead ($ 9). Small portion for $ 9. It came with a cream sauce for dipping which was good. Probably wouldn’t care to get it again. We also ordered the Spicy Kara Age (Japanese fried chicken $ 8). Almost like boneless buffalo wings in small pieces. Meh, also wouldn’t care to try this again. For sushi, we got the Dragon ($ 13), Firecracker ($ 12), Ninja ($ 12) and Samurai ($ 13). Dragon was okay. Firecracker was good. Samurai was also okay. But the Ninja was my favorite. It was also smoked which gave it a nice flavor.
Service was okay. Pricing was a little higher but the quality of fish goes with it. Maybe i’ll stop here to try the lunch menu but i’ll pass on dinner.

So I rarely give one star to a restaurant and honestly, I REALLY wanted to like this place. But after giving Yellowtail a few chances and being disappointed every time, I’d rather give my business elsewhere.
It’s such a shame because after being renovated from the old Shogun, I had really high hopes for this place. The interior is beautiful and it’s in a killer location. I’m convinced that’s the only reason people are still going here (or they are tourists and don’t know any better).
On each occasion that I’ve been here the service has been slow, and less than enthusiastic. That’s your first problem. I hate bad service. Second, their menu had very few rolls and nothing exciting on it. The rolls I did have were seriously lacking creativity and flavor. To make matters worse, they somewhat recently downsized their already crappy menu! So now there are a handful of rolls, a few appetizers and sashimi/​nigiri. So boring! And most of the appetizers are in the $ 12-​$ 15 range which is COMPLETELY not worth it for what they are serving up. Next time I’ll definitely head half a block west and go to Takashi.
Unless Yellowtail makes some serious changes to the menu and service, I can’t see this place lasting much longer unfortunately. Good luck with all that Yellowtail.

I’ve been here both for lunch and dinner, and I definitely prefer lunch. The menu is more expansive, has a lot of combo options, and very well priced. It was decently busy but service was still great and timely. I have only dined in for lunch, but they also do take out, which I will definitely take advantage of next time I’m short on time.
We also went for dinner on a Saturday night and the restaurant was very empty. That kind of detracts from the experience in my opinion, but we got over it quickly. We sat at the sushi bar in front of the head sushi chef and got a lot of attention and even a free dish to try, as he was testing it out as a new menu item. The rolls were very good, but I thought lacked some innovation and the menu was fairly small. They only seemed to have the staple items in the sushi bar — salmon, tuna, yellowtail, etc. Nothing new or exciting, but maybe that was just out of sight. I might give it some time before I come back for dinner…
I of course Unilocaled the restaurant before going, and noticed a lot of photos of hamachi kama and grilled squid. We were very excited for both, but didn’t see either on the menu. When we asked the server about it, they just said «no, we don’t have that». Kind of confusing and I totally understand if they don’t serve it regularly, but she kind of made me feel stupid for asking… like no, it’s not on the menu so of course we don’t have it. Strange. I almost whipped out my phone to show her photos but refrained :)

Yellowtail is awesome. But expect to pay a price for that awesomeness. We paid $ 50 bucks for a simple dinner for two — 2 appetizers, 1 roll, and an order of nigiri. That price doesn’t even include any booze. The vibe is hip, the service is fast (else were in an out in 30 minutes) and the fish is quality.

Went here with 5 of my girlfriends for dinner on a Sat eve. Restaraunt was EMPTY at 9:00 for starters, but had a good atmosphere so we stayed.
Food was was ok, nothing to write home about. I did have some friends who ordered the Agedashi Tofu and raved about it. Miso was decent and rolls were just OK but on the smaller size.
Now onto the service… a straight D-​. We placed our order and waited for over an hour to get our food in an empty restaurant. Our server was quiet and sweet, but just seemed awfully confused. After an hour of waiting she had forgot to entirely put in two of the rolls we ordered. She did comp a glass of wine for my friend which was very nice. However at the end of the meal she handed me a post it note and told me to write down what we individually had ordered! I mean one can only laugh at that one. Service is terribly lacking here. Sadly, we won’t be back

Very slow service in spite of a light crowd – took us 25 mins to get our check and pay. Sushi was decent: we ordered the Dragon, Red Samurai, and Spicy Tuna rolls.