YummyTori

We were lured in by the ‘2 dine for £20′ chef’s set menu offer that YummyTori is running through the end of February. It seemed like a good offer and a great reason to try someplace different, and it would have been had the food been more exciting.
The meal started strong: the cabbage with miso sauce was delicious. The edamame were fine. (It went downhill from there.) The tempura vegetables were kind of blah. The okonomiyaki was lackluster. The wasabi prawns were bland. The yaki soba was ok, but not good enough to order again. The ninniku cha-​han (garlic fried rice) was surprisingly tasty, definitely my second-​favorite dish after the cabbage. Overall the meal felt like a bunch of heavy, greasy, not particularly interesting dishes. If you’re going to be heavy and greasy, you better be making my tastebuds dance.
I was wavering between two and three stars on this place. If it was always as affordable as this evening was, it would get three, but as the usual price is twice what we paid, it’s a two. Either way, we probably won’t be back.

I really enjoy having Japanese food when out to dine — I generally find it light but very filling, and YummyTori lives up to my experiences so far.
The menu lends itself to basically eating tapas style, so I find the best thing to do is order a selection of dishes between the table and dig in. The yakitori (stuff on sticks) is very pleasing — an especial favourite of mine is Buttabara (pork belly). Oh, and the asparagus. From the ‘tapas’ menu I was especially pleased with the tempura last time — it seemed to be a mixture of vegetables that had been shredded/​julienned and then fried in the tempura batter, and I found it a delicious and crispy change from bigger pieces of veg that seem to be the norm.
You might find it expensive to order your fill of dishes, although I always find I don’t need to order quite as much as I always think need to.
Oh, and on my last visit I decided to try one of their Scottish ciders from Thistly Cross. Damn that went down well — I may have found a new favourite cider! Well done YummyTori for stocking these.

We heard about this place from a Guardian list of top cheap eats in Edinburgh, so stopped in for a quick lunch after a morning of walking. Not too busy when they first opened on Saturday, but I think they get very busy in the evenings.
We both wanted noodle soup, but felt we had to try the yakitori, as that is their speciality. So we started by sharing the Tsukune, which were amazing chicken meatballs. One order gave us each one little skewer of three, so we got a good taste. The sauce that glazed them was homemade, and really unique. Made us want to go home and google it and try to figure out the recipe! Then we each got ramen, mine with gyoza dumplings and his with tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet). I preferred the dumplings, as the pork had a sauce on it that I didn’t think worked well with the broth. Other than that, the dish reminded me a lot of Wagamama only better — lots of yummy seaweed and abundant vegetables like carrots and leeks. One soft egg in each bowl, and lots of curly ramen noodles. £10 for a bowl, so not the cheapest, but the ramen is great quality and felt very authentic). It’s a casual but sleek little place, a little too cold in there though! Very convenient location for a meal after doing touristy things all day. Definitely don’t miss out on the meatballs!

I like the food and haven’t ever experienced bad service. There’s plenty of options and while I’ve yet to try their cocktails they sound amazing.
Using a premium benefits card (through work) I get 20% off the total bill so that includes drinks. At this price I really enjoy a meal here but the menu prices are a bit steep otherwise. The deals and sets aren’t very clearly explained

The food here is delicious! It’s not your typical sushi Japanese place as it has no sushi! This place specializes in yakitori, which is Japanese for grilled/​bbqed skewers!
They also have loads of other great dishes. Everything I’ve ever had the pleasure of trying was tasty. I also love that the dishes offer generous servings. You can truly share what you are ordering. This gives you the option to try many different dishes! and the prices are spot on!
Really good food for a great price, what else could you ask for?! I know, amazing drinks to go with your delicious food! Do not forget to check out the drinks menu! I had a mocktail to die for, the kiwi & elderflower refresher. OMG total amazingness.
Definitely one of my go to places when I’m craving Japanese!

I’ve eaten here a good few times and I have generally really enjoyed it. The BEnto boxes are what I’d normally get and they really are excellent value for money, especially for lunch. Lots of rice and a nice selection of skewers things which really did help out with the massive hunger I generally have on.
Healthy tasty and fairly rapid. Only negatives are that the service while incredibly friendly always seems slightly slower than I’d like.
Come here for a nice wee chillax and decent feed. Don’t just expect sushi, expect japanese yum.

Went to Yummy Tori for lunch & wasn’t disappointed– service was good, food was nice (especially the miso soup). The menu hasn’t got a great deal of choice for the small plates, if you’re a vegetarian for example, you’ll probably struggle to find much. Most dishes were izakaya type food, I had okonomiyaki, takoyaki, Gyoza & miso soup. They do a version of onigiri on a stick which I didn’t try. They were making up bento boxes for takeaway lunches which I thought was really handy– a healthy takeaway lunch. I’d go again, it wasn’t too pricey for a Japanese food fix!

Went here after spotting a Groupon and fancied giving it a go. Being GF, I’d decided to go groupon (cheaper) so that if it wasn’t great for gluten free then I hadn’t lost much.
There are gluten free options — they do tend not to come with sauce which might be an issue for some. It was pretty quiet when we were in so service was pretty efficient.
Foodwise we ordered both gluten free and non gluten free options — staff will advise what can be adapted. Loved the calamari (complete with gf batter) with wasabi mayo — I’d probably order 3 portions of this if I went again and be perfectly happy. My friend ordered some battered prawns and a pork dish and pronounced it amazing (non gf) and a salmon dish which came with onions instead of noodles was delish. There were other bits and pieces too — no disrespect to the food here, it was just exhaustion that I couldn’t remember what we ordered, even as it arrived at the table!
So — there are GF options, though the whole no sauce thing does make you feel like you are missing out. If this was a groupon again I’d go, but I wouldn’t necessarily go and pay full price…

YummyTori is one of my fav places but was sadly let down last Friday evening through very very very slow service. Food as ever was yes yummy (bento box set meal is a great deal) but c’mon you guys can do better!

Good food and fast. Taste ok but not extraordinary.

I am erring on the side of generous and giving this place 3 stars. if I could do 2.5. I would…
Had dinner here tonight out of curiosity and convenience due to proximity to D’s new office.
We were seated promptly, given menus… then… pretty much left to our own devices for about 10 mins… they then took our food and drink order… and about 5 mins later our first dish appeared… (yeay!) then more food… although they failed to clear the empty plates away. or would take away one empty plate when there were three on the table… whisky.tango.foxtrot. is all that about??? Then, about three quarters of the way through our meal, we finally got our drinks…
Even when I blatantly got my water bottle out of my bag and started drinking from it, noone came over to offer us water or make any apology that we didn’t have any drinks…
The food isn’t bad. all pretty tasty… nothing overly spectacular. (the prawn wrapped in seaweed, wrapped in bacon skewer was a fairly strange flavour combo…) but the service was absolutely abysmal…
For the price point, I think I’d rather go to wagamama down the road.
Summary: Food — good, service — terrible, drinks — ok. Not in any hurry to go back.

Really thought a fabulous place. The food and prices superb.
I was a little disgruntled that we were never given menus. A blip by buser that seated us. So we took menus off next newly set table. A different buser set this table and never asked if we were ok. We would have said «we’ve no menu. «
It wasn’t busy yet. Mmmmm
Once our waitress came in a red apron all was brilliant. Sincere friendly fast and dead efficient.
One more thing. Tin music. Awful. Thought I was inside a bad oriental disco. And too loud.
But I enjoyed my tofu and the other dish of mushroom.
I’ll get lichen juice next time.
I’ll definitely return.

We went here on the Amazon Local Voucher deal.
This is a Yakatori Japanese food restaurant and no sushi insight!
We choose several dishes and a sake flight.
I cannot recall all the names of the wonderful tasty dishes, but remember that I had prawn tempura, some prawns on a stick wrapped in seaweed. Garlic rice. Oh and 2 helpings of edamame — very very nice indeed.
In fact we had ordered so many dishes that we had to move to a bigger table.
The service is really good, efficient and friendly.
I think I need to go back and take better stock of what we had and try one of those Bento boxes too.
They have free WiFi too boot.
Recommended!

My boyfriend and I were there for dinner last Thursday for a quick dinner. — The staff were friendly, the service was quick, comfortable and trendy dining room, and the food was nicely presented. However all our dishes lacked flavour, except for the salad which was overloaded with strong wasabi dressing. The dishes were also expensive for the servicing size. … Lost potential at the moment. I suggest bringing in an experienced Japanese chef.

fantastic food full of flavour, beautiful mocktails, and very attentive staff. Highly recomended

A nice idea but doesn’t quite convert on flavour.
Came here thanks to the itison deal, hoping for some tasty Japanese food. The dumplings were amazing. We ordered more. Everything else was pretty average. Given the choice of tasty dumpling places, I doubt I’ll come here again but you could do worse! fairly cheap if i recall

As a die hard wagamama fan I was reluctant to try something else, especially when you know what you’re getting at wagas! I’m really glad I did!
Yummytori has a really friendly vibe to it, you’re welcomed by the chefs and staff when you arrive and waved goodbye when you leave, a nice touch, but were here for the food, right, so lets get to it!
There’s a few yummy Japanese dishes on the menu, but I found that it’s really hard to pin them down as the menu is quite hard to decipher. My advise would be to do the un British thing and get the waitress to explain the dishes to you!
I went for a bento box, with chicken skewers, sweet potato tempura, chicken mince balls, and salad, followed by a desert, all in for around a tenner.
The food was tasty, and the miso soup was one of the best I’ve tasted. I did feel a little underwhelmed by the salad in terms of the offer, and the dressing had a strong wasabi taste to it. This isn’t a problem if you love the stuff, but it seems to knock my breath away, so I steer clear.
My partner had a chicken udon which was a little on the bland side, but still tasty enough. The portion size was really big so we struggled to finish it.
Atmosphere wise, a little quiet for our taste, possibly due to the weather, but it mean that the food was out really quickly, which in our fast food world, is a plus, for me anyway!
My advice — get the waitress to explain the menu, order a bento and enjoy the japanese atmosphere.
I’d certainly give this place another try and possibly up those stars!

We went to YummyTori last night for dinner and got it on a Itison deal for less than £10 for
two people. We had the option of 2 from set menu A and 5 from set menu. Menu B. Menu B only consisited only of chicken and pork, so not so great if you are a veggie, but im sure they must have a veggie option somewhere!!, i just couldnt see it. I was early so i decided to try a cocktail. I thought cherry blossom Margirita sounded lush, and even although they did not have any cherries, they made it with raspberries, so you could say i just had a raspberry margirita! however in all fairness it was still a very good cocktail !
The food was nicely presented, and was tasty !! we thought that we may leave hungry but we didnt.
The waitresses were friendly and very attentive.
The only reason I am not giving it 4 stars is that I have been to nicer Japanese restaurants and would probably not reccommend here for a saturday night, but definatley for dinner mid week. I dont think id pay full pirce for it.
I think its very hard to find some really good Japanese Restaurants in Edinburgh, if you manage to get a deal on, definaltey go !!

Complicated menu /​set deals and I asked our waitress to talk us through the options as it was our first time there, «just have what you want» was the response. Not exactly helpful.
Cheap ingredients used like long life tofu rather than the fresh stuff left us under whelmed, didn’t even stay for desert. At no point did anyone ask how our food was?
Best bit about it was the Japanese beer.
Won’t be going back.

Yummy yummy in my tummy, Yummy Tori. Yup.
I came to YummyTori with the itison voucher that was doing the rounds — 7 options from Set Menu C, and two cocktails. We stuck to this, without the need to order much else, but I’d love to return and order whatever tickles my fancy. Like the Moo Moo Noodles (I love the name).
So, what was on Set Menu C? Some chicken balls, and chicken skewers, and potatos wrapped in pork, and asparagus wrapped in pork, and a cherry blossom margarita. Yep you read that right.
I love that with Japanese food, the small plates of food come out one by one, so you can begin eating and enjoy good conversation over the tasty food without scoffing it all at once. Even though each plate was small, and shared between two, after 7 I felt comfortably full and really didn’t need anything else (apart from a white russian from Lebowskis round the corner after. But that’s for the sake of a white russian.)
The meat was freshly grilled and had that lovely charcoal taste. The pork wrapped (or ‘rolled’ as it says on the menu) nibbles like potato and asparagus were really delicious, although quite salty. The sauce the raw cabbage came with was really tasty too, still trying to work out exactly what was in it. And the cocktails were actually really well made, not something you’d expect from somewhere that isn’t dedicated to good mixology.
On a Tuesday night it was only ¹⁄₃ full and as quite a big restaurant, I would say the lack of bustle and busy-​ness, coupled with the bizarre mix of Britney Spears, Eurythmics and Fleetwood Mac on the stereo, led to a slightly quieter ambience than perhaps suits the place. I was very happy in my own wee conversation and table, but as a whole I think I’d enjoy it here more on a Friday night when it’s busier.
So I think I’ll be back, I’ll try more food and then I’ll probably be upping those stars.

I pass this place on my walk to and from work every day, so i was very happy to see it open last week. A colleague of mine (who is also a food blogger) visited earlier in the week and was raving about it, so this just reinforced my desire to visit. Then this morning i saw a great offer on itison so i bought that but didn’t use it on my visit today.
I was meeting a friend for dinner and so they randomly took me there. First impressions were good. Lovely staff and they couldn’t apologise enough for the fact that their cards machines weren’t working yet and so they were only accepting cash, and also they had no alcohol license yet.
Before you order they bring out a dish of raw cabbage with the most delicious dipping sauce. I could have just eaten plate after plate of this! We ordered and opted for the tapas set menu. About £19.50 for a set of 6 dishes if i remember correctly. Honestly, i couldn’t fault any of the dishes. Succulent beef, huge king prawns, and calamari to name a few.
I also had a mocktail to drink, a passion fruit ice tea. It was very tasty and so i can’t wait to have a cocktail when i go back with my itison voucher.
The bill came to just over £30 and they even offered us a little complimentary orange sorbet which was a nice touch.
One thing i’m not sure about YummyTori is the view out of the restaurant, looking across the road at the strippers, Bottoms Up, and the «Sauna» above it. I know they can’t help that but maybe another location cold have been better.
Overall, the food spoke for itself and i can’t wait to return! :)