Critic's Review
Tucked away in a corner of the new Pubilx complex is Yakuza; which has different names depending on where you look. They first started with Japanese Tapas and Robatas and Japanese and Robata. Another site has them as Modern Japanese and Thai. It's not good to start out with an identity crisis (Robatayaki aka Robata is a BBQ-like style of cooking).
The only parking available is in the Publix garage, which is a complete disaster. This is a very large publix store, and the garage is wholly inadequate. Plus there's a multitude of handicapped parking spots that make life miserable for anyone without a handicapped parking sticker. After circling through 3 or 4 times I landed a spot.
You can walk through the garage towards the front and turn right to find the restaurant. They have a nice patio that didn't seem to interest anyone; it's nice to eat outside but the Atlantic Ave ambiance isn't too appealing.
Inside is a handsome restaurant with a very focal wall mural. "Sit anywhere" offered the hostess/server woman.
I ordered an iced tea, which most of these sushi places that are smart have on the menu despite their lack of Japanese origin. I say this for a reason, to be explained later. I also ordered a "grilled salmon bento box" which was $14 as a lunch special
There's a sushi bar; but you hardly ever see anyone at a sushi bar at lunch these days. I don't really need to watch the guy make my food.
The lunch items include soup or salad; the typical Miso or salad with dressing you won't like choice. I opt'd for the soup even though a bowl of musty broth isn't usually something I enjoy. I like ginger dressing even less.
Mood music plays here; a way to escape the ASCAP fees I suppose. It could be a lot worse. The public wifi requires an email and/or facebook login, but a fake email worked just fine.
The iced tea came out with lemon; I didn't ask for extra today. The soup looked way too brown for me. But I was determined to try it anyway.
Pond water. Dirty pond water, really. I was trying to imagine how anyone with taste buds from the same species as me would think that this tasted good? I mean I nearly spit it out all over the table. It was that foul.
Now here's my complaint. These types of restaurants accommodate us American folk by putting things like Iced Tea on the menu, so why can't they offer something other than Miso soup? How about chicken broth? They have Wonton soup, so if you're too cheap to give me a scaled down wonton soup how about an egg drop? Something EDIBLE please.
Ok, so I pushed the bowl of soup over to the end of the table to show my disgust; she didn't ask why I left 99.9999% of it in the bowl when she took it away.
The Bento was put in front of me in 2 pieces.
The first thing that caught my eye was the "grilled salmon". Could they spare it?
What's this, like 1 oz of salmon; maybe 50 cents worth? Plus it was overcooked, because how can you not overcook such a tiny piece of fish? Don't order the grilled salmon here.
The Edamane was raw with just a small amount of salt; if they were steamed they weren't steamed long enough. There was no salt on the table. I'm not really into raw Edaname. Oh for 2.
As for the sashimi, the tuna was quite small compared, and the white fish was seared, which is odd for sashimi. Is it still sashimi if it's seared? The tuna and salmon was good quality but the white fish was a nothing burger.
The roll was quite good, although the Nigiri were small and the rice didn't taste like sushi rice.
The menu says that the bento box comes with a "Jumbo Shrimp Shumai", so I was excited to bite into the dumpling.
Bah. Does this look like a jumbo shrimp to you? I've never had a chicken dumpling before. Maybe it was pork, but it was bland, boring and taste more like something you'd get at TGI Fridays than a Japanese restaurant.
By now I was the only one in the restaurant, finishing off my less than inspiring meal. I was able to flag down a server and get my check without too much of a wait.
Conclusion
This is a pretty nice restaurant. but I feel they cheated me on ingredients by subbing out the shrimp dumpling, the little finger of salmon and only 1 choice of dishwater broth (I got hot and sour soup at Coco Bistro). Nothing really jumped out at me as outstanding. Next time I'll go to a buffet for $3 less and get food that's just as good; and a lot more of it.