Yokoso Nippon

such an easy place to go.
16 pc avocado roll for 3.50. cant go wrong here!!!
gooonee… now its gone.
where?
anyone know?

Walking by here today saw the windows were covered and a sign was posted saying the restaurant is closed. Could this be the end of sushi rolls as big as burritos? Where you bring your own drinks in a bag from the liquor store down the street? Where it’s so cheap the quality is irrelevant?
Say it ain’t so…

There’s a reason why they don’t have a sign up in this place.
The sushi here is ass.
Who puts carrots and onions in miso soup?
Just because the people making the sushi look Asian, doesn’t mean they are Japanese and more importantly, it doesn’t mean they know how to make good sushi.

I’ve been wanting to Unilocal «no name sushi» for a while, but I did not know the name, so I could not find it to Unilocal it. Low and behold, I found it.
I don’t get the bad reviews on this place. Cheep, easy, decent sushi, and you bring your own brown bag of booze in. Done and done.

Cheap and mediocre sushi. Here’s the catch– the bathroom is about the size of my poo when i’m constipated and trying hard to squeeze ‘em out. The place smells like poo. But when you’re really craving sushi, and you haven’t gotten paid yet, this is the place to go.
Yes yes, as everyone raves, you can bring your own booze!!! News flash for the fucking decade!

Point the first: the name of this place is no more Yokoso Nippon than it is «No-​name Sushi.» Its true Christian name is «Brown Bag Sushi.» One guess why. Yup, bring your own booze (Safeway down the street, or the liquor store next door).
Think about how much money you spend on booze at a restaurant, think about how much that increases your bill, think about how paying that increased bill makes your wallet die a little — not so true at Brown Bag, no, no. Not so true when you walk in sober, and walk out drunk, having spent less than $ 7 for more sushi than any one man should consume.
I love Brown Bag and I hope you do too.

Why no name?
If I ruled the world, I would name this place something jazzy like, «Banana Hammock» or «Kittens Katsu» or more aptly, «The Worst Sushi You’ll Ever Eat».
But, they let you bring your own hooch in.
And no, I don’t mean alcohol.

I THINK I KNOW WHY THEY HAVE NO SIGN… (and why, therefore, they go by the moniker «No Name Sushi»)
IT IS BECAUSE…
This place is so bad that just thinking about having eaten here makes me want to vomit the thawed out fish-​flesh this place passes off as sushi all over a pair of hipster high-​tops (retail $ 119.99). Also, how do you fuck up miso soup? Honestly! I saw onions and celery in my miso soup; I think it was vegetable stock with tofu and veggies.
This place is good for people with severe burns to the mouth and stomach who cannot discern the difference between rat poison and fruity pebbles.

No name sushi only means trouble. Great experience, I must say! So I’m the BF that JR is talking about and we were very intrigued to go to a place that has a bathroom smaller than a box of a trapped mime.
Miso was too much «party in my mouth» for me.
I like cheap sushi, I can’t complain.
Again, go for the experience. Nothing says «hole in the wall» sushi like this place.
Cheers!

Ok, so everyone talks about no-​name sushi. Most people talk about how great it is. I think maybe I’ve talked about how great it is (i.e. for the price). Hadn’t been there in about 5 years till last night. I think that every time I’ve been there before last night I’ve been drunk.
This place should be closed down by the god damn health department. Food honestly isn’t so bad, but sitting there amongst all of the filth & the icky, icky, FLIES (i.e. bugs) makes you want to vomit a little bit. If you think about all of the little flies swarming around all of that raw fish… good god! The horror!
Maybe take out is a much better option? I just can’t get past all of the flies…

Hands down, the worst sushi I have ever eaten. Just go buy some from a grocery store and save your cash if you like cheap sushi. The fact that this cash-​only establishment doesn’t serve alcohol wasn’t the biggest annoyance… it was that the whole place is sticky. Blech!
There really isn’t such a thing as horrible pizza, a horrible hamburger or horrible sex… it’s still pretty tasty. But sushi has to look vibrant, have no smell other than it’s fresh ingredients, and the establishment needs to be clean… especially if the chef is preparing your food with his hands. I think one of the posters here is right… why they are still in business is due to the first-​time, unsuspecting customers.
What kind of sushi have you 5 star people been eating??? Please, try Kiss. You will know the difference and be grateful.

UPDATE
THIS PLACE CAUGHT ON FIRE AND IS CLOSED. I went by the other day to eat and say the windows were all covered with white paper. When I looked up I saw the upstairs fire damage, which looked pretty serious. To the owner, you have my condolences, hope you manage to pull things back together.
Onto my OLD REVIEW.
In a nutshell, this is not top notch sushi. The quality is above average but not top notch. The sushi is great for the price. Low prices, big servings. Place is pretty run down, but then again, you get what you pay for.
On to the details.
Tonight they were playing Mexican music which I found annoying. I know most of the employees are Mexicans, I have no problem with that. But when I go to a Japanese place I like to listen to Japanese music of some sort. I listen to Mexican music all the time… but not when I am eating Japanese food. The futo maki did remind me of a burrito which I didn’t mind because it was huge. It was incredibly good.
The graffiti artist ORFN put his tag on the front window with a chemical that etches permanently into the glass. At least he put the tag in the corner, not the center. Lots of tags with scribers on the front glass. This place doesn’t have a sign on the front so taggers walking by in the middle of the night probably think the place isn’t ever open.
The tablecloths on the tables were those red and white picnic ones, but very worn out and sticky. Menus are kind of trashed and sticky but the items on the menu are great. Lots of authentic Japanese items I don’t see at other Japanese restaurants in the same price range.
There were some fruit flies or gnats flying around that kept trying to attack my food. That annoyed me, but I have to say that most Japanese places I eat at these days have that problem. Why they don’t buy some bug zapper lights and turn them on inside during the night when the shop is closed I don’t know.
The waitress didn’t speak hardly any English and didn’t know how to say ‘thank you’ in English. She just said «Thhhha…» and then ran away the three times she tried to say ‘thank you’. She managed to get my order perfect, so who cares. The employees behind the counter (two Mexicans, two Asians) spoke even less English than the waitress. It adds to the charm I guess. They work hard and I can respect that.

After all is said and done, I would go there again. They have some unique menu items that you might like. Price is low, portions are big. If I become rich one day, I would never go here again. but in the meantime, I will go once in awhile.
They are now open 7 days a week and they open daily at 12 noon.
UPDATE:
Went there again and I got the Chirashi raw fish special. I think it was $ 8.50. It was really nice. I didn’t care for the miso soup, too much onion I guess and the broth didn’t taste so good. Normally I love miso everytime I have it. The Mexican chefs gave me some free sweet vegetable, I think it was potato with some sort of sauce on it and it was really good. I would still give them 5 stars because it’s a value and I left full.
Both times I went the tea wasn’t as hot as I would like it to be. It was totally drinkable, I just prefer it hotter.

After nearly a year of telling the story of «that horrible sushi place i went to whose name I can’t remember», a friend of mine was kind enough to point out that Yokoso Nippon was, in fact, that place.
We were pointed in this direction while wandering around the Castro one day, probably about a year ago. She ordered some kind of Spicy Tuna roll, and i ordered an asparagus roll. I can’t remember all the details of her food, as I didn’t taste it, but she still complains about the amount of mayo used in it. What I remember is the brown, bitter, limp asparagus in my roll, as well as the (alleged) instant rice, and powdered tea mix. Blech!
Maybe we just ordered the wrong things, as there seem to be a lot of people who swear by this place. Maybe we just went on a bad day. Maybe things have improved in the past year. Who knows?
I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we are now much more hesitant to eat at sushi places we’ve never heard of.

Eating here is an adventure.
That being said, not all adventures are good.
Before a party, I was craving sushi. A friend of mine told me about this place and I decided to check it out. We got there, was ordered to a table, and we took in the… ambiance. It was interesting. That is the most polite way I can say it. But I thought in my head «it can’t be that bad… there are hardly any empty tables». HA!
We ordered, and that is when the adventure gets deeper. The waitress coughed. A lot. And not those polite coughs that are quiet, but it was like an I’ve been smoking for 30 years non-​stop kind of cough. Sexy.
Then we observed the technique. Um… interesting. Get a piece of fish from the depths of the unknown, fondle rice, slap it in the fish, plunk it on the plate, then discuss what you did. My dining partner summed up their conversation in the best way: «I made that sushi my bitch!».
I am still a little weary, but I don’t write it off yet because I know that the best places I have ever gone were a little on the sketchy side.
OK. On to the food.
We get miso soup. Not bad. Hearty. Warm. Hopefully not coughed on. The sushi. Didn’t taste bad. Not the best sushi that I have ever had. The tea was good.
We then saw the waitress go to the sushi prep area and blow her nose. I was like «check, please!». At this point, the «sushi chefs» were laughing either at me or with me. I am thinking at.
So we leave and say that we hope that we don’t die of food poisoning or tuberculosis. Then he said that booze would kill all the germs of the food, so he suggested we start drinking heavily when we got to the party. I can roll with that.
No less than two drinks in, I start to feel horrible. Almost like I got kicked in the stomach. Hard. I then proceeded to lose my sushi. It was not fun. I spent the rest of the party in bed, with the chills. I still feel like shit right now.
So, to recap:
Cheap sushi, waitress with questionable health, I will never go here again.

The sushi is cheap and not the freshest it can be. The place is cramped. The windows fog up when it’s a bit nipply out. They only take cash. The décor is nonexistent. (At least since the last time I was there, probably in the fall of 2006.)
So then, why three stars?
This place isn’t trying to be the best sushi spot in town. That’s obvious. If you heard that No Name was good, great, blah blah, you probably heard it from someone who is aware that it is a sub-​par sushi place for a cheap dinner, who expects just ordinary sushi and a bill for two for under $ 30, and who likes brown-​bagging their bottles of Asahi, Kirin, or Sapporo once in a while.
It’s like occasionally going to McDonald’s or Jack in the Box when you crave that specific fast food taste — the desire in this case, instead, is for tiny pieces of fish rather than a burger.
That said, No Name is an average and decent spot for a restaurant of this caliber and at this level.

everyone loves this place so much especially the hipsters because they can brown bag their forties here and shit and feel all rad about it.
But lets keep it real for a second.
No Name is not stellar food, what it is though is cheap as hell. So for the littlest amount possible you get the worlds most humongous portions. Which is fine, which is cool, but the quality of the fish is not that good. The presentation of it as well is shoddy, no beautiful creativity you may find at another sushi house. the miso soup may be the saltiest and crappiest miso you may ever have. The staff is unfriendly, the waitress basically pays no attention to you. the décor leaves a lot to be desired, i feel like im in a crappy diner.
they are strictly cash only, which is a pet peeve of mine.
so do yourself a favor, stop lying to yourself that this place is all that good and just admit you go here because it’s cheap and you can stuff yourself silly, or that you like looking hip with your brown bags.

ZERO STARS. When is Unilocal going to let us give zero stars? This place SUCKS SO BAD!!!
This story did not happen to me, but it has ruined a friend of ours to all sushi…
He ordered a roll, picked up the first piece only to see a long curly hair dangling out of it. Vomit!!!
I ate here once. This was obviously before the hair story.
I was disappointed. I was not able to actually finish eating anything that was put in front of me by the surly woman who ignored me for a long time and then barked at me to hurry up and decide. Everything tasted like they had pulled it out of the garbage. NASTY. If you think this is «the best sushi in SF», I urge you to get some professional help.
This place needs a food safety investigation.

Updated 3÷24÷08: I give up on this restaurant.
For the 2^nd time I tried to go and their hours changed and they were closed. They told me they dont’ have a phone so I can’t call to see if it’s actually open before I come. On ³⁄₂₀ I showed up for lunch and as I was looking at the sign that said they only open for dinner, a woman (maybe the owner?) came up and asked if I needed help. I told her «you guys are closed again!» and she said yeah we are closed indeterminately due to construction. So even though the sign says open for dinner, they are not. Anyway, it’s really not good enough for me to venture across town but thought I’d try it again as I was in the area. Previous hours were M-​W 3pm to 10pm; Thur — Sat 12pm –10pm, Sunday closed.
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Updated 8÷1÷07 to 3 stars from 4 stars (that’s 4 stars for restaurants of it’s class — i.e. inexpensive sushi joints).
Dined in last week… When I dine here I feel like the food is 3 stars. When I do take out and have the sushi at home with a bottle of sparkling wine, it turns it into a 4 star experience. Although the place wasn’t as grungy as I remembered, the atmosphere kind of downgrades my sushi experience.
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Previous review:
I’ve had so many good memories of the Saba and Hamachi sashimi that I will give it 4 stars just because of that. They don’t have much variety, but the fish they do have is always fresh and their rolls are tasty. The Golden California roll is delicious.
My husband and I almost always do take out because this place just isn’t that comfy inside. It’s is a dive, small, and somewhat dingy inside.
Some people get the willies from looking at this place b/​c like I said it’s a dive, they don’t have a sign in front but instead some ratty chairs for customers waiting for a table (oh, it’s aka «No Name Sushi»), and the prices are suspiciously cheap. If you can look pass all that, you’re in for a treat. Well, that is as long as you don’t compare it to more mid to upscale sushi restaurants otherwise you’ll be disappointed.
My hubby and I always order the same thing when we go and our routine for picking up sushi goes like this:
My husband drops me off at Nippon. There’s no parking so he waits in the car and I go in and order + pay (They don’t take phone orders… not sure if they have a phone.) I come back in 10 mins to pick up my order or the waitress brings it out to me. We go home, open up a bottle of sparkling wine and enjoy our cheap sushi.
We always get:
18 piece Saba sashimi
18 piece Hamachi sashimi
1 Unagi Futomaki
and another special roll
All for about $ 40.
We’ve been going here for a few years now and prices have gone up but not by much. I think their food is cheap b/​c they have limited selection, no frills, and the restaurant is pretty ugly inside. The service staff/​chef, etc don’t speak much English so don’t expect much service when you dine inside. I’ve never been disappointed and I almost always order the same thing… the Saba and Hamachi. Sometimes I order more of one or the other based on what the chef recommends that day.

Oh thank the culinary gods!!! No Name sushi is BACK!!!
The food is still fresh and cheap. Plus, you can still BYOB. I love eating here. The service is… well…you’ve seen her… you know what I mean. The rolls are delightful and the prices are a screaming deal.

I am withdrawing my review of Yokoso because I was actually writing of another no-​name sushi restaurant, Hama-​Ko.
To the Unilocal staff, though, please don’t delete my review. Now I’ll have to actually visit Yokoso to tell you what I really think, and isn’t that the point of Unilocal?Encouraging people to patronize local businesses? In the meanwhile I’m giving it three stars, based on two observations.
First, it will slightly improve their average but not much, so I am not being unfair.
Second, other than Yoshi’s and Blowfish (places that deserve kudos for a lot of reasons but certainly not for the quality of the food) I have never had bad sushi in San Francisco. So in the same way that all girls are beautiful, even the ugly ones — I’m not making any sense here am I? — all sushi is good in spirit if not experience.
I mean, a fish died and civilizations formed for your meal. Please don’t insult.