YO! Sushi, London Waterloo – Review

London Waterloo has recently undergone some development in the build-up to this year`s Olympics and this means more restaurants, cafes and shops can be found on the new upper level. However, I was lucky enough to be invited along to one of my favourite restaurant chains and try out their new addition to Waterloo – YO! Sushi. Even though this YO! is only new, it had all of the great hallmarks which you expect from the brand.

Regarding the recent development, I had a good chat with Alex (General Manager) about the development of this particular YO! and it was really interesting to hear that it only took 3 weeks to put together! This is quite a feat when you realise that it was the only restaurant on this level to be ready in time for the launch and over 10 of the other outlets on this level weren`t ready either. Even though it was only 3 weeks in the making, it has all of the relaxed, clean cut style, which is typical of the brand`s restaurants. Complete with stainless steel and the typical sushi belt, I really felt oddly at home here – this must be why I spent a good 90 minutes there, and that`s a lot of sushi!

On the whole, the YO! staff team was a great unit, especially when you consider that the restaurant is in its infancy. Only a single member of staff seemed to be lacking a little bit of confidence and a little timid, but everyone else seemed really in their game and were very helpful.

But let`s not waste any more time, to the food!

For those of you who have never been to YO! Sushi before, you obtain your food by taking if off a built which moves throughout the entire restaurant. The belt is filled full of Japanese treats and the plates are colour coded, in order to make pricing easy to understand. For example, the green plates are £1.80 and the top plates are yellow, but £6.

So what exactly can you find on these colourful dishes – well let me tell you!

To begin with, I dived straight the Salmon selection at £5 a go. It included wonderful sashimi, a super high-quality and extremely tasty fresh fish treat, as well as Salmon Maki (rice filled rolls wrapped in seaweed) and Salmon Nigri (sticky rice topped with salmon). This was a fantastic journey through the fantastically tasty flavoursome Salmon and I would certainly recommend this to anyone. Also, it only comes in at measly 215 calories, so it`s healthy too! I also enjoyed some of my typical favourites, such as the YO! Roll and Duck Gyoza.

But my personal favourite was the Hairy Prawns. Now, although strangely named, these plates combine beautiful king prawns wrapped in a kadaifi pastry with wasabi mayonnaise. This dish was gorgeous, as the crispy, rich pastry gave way to a delicate prawn flavour – seriously tasty.

Hand rolls, soups and a selection of desert are also on the menu. All of this food was welcomingly washed down with an ice cold bottle of Asahi Super Dry – perfect.

The food, as usual for YO! was stunning, fresh and flavoursome. This place deserves to be busier and as soon as people realise it`s there, I am sure it will be!