Name: Yamasen Japanese Restaurant
Contact: Tank Hill Road; 0707 808010;
Neighbourhood: Muyenga
Yamasen Japanese restaurant is a “farm to table” restaurant that prides itself in making authentic Japanese food in Kampala. They purchase their ingredients from local farmers which is a brilliant idea that supports local farmers and businesses.
The Space
The restaurant sits in a brilliant Japanese style building that also houses a few shops and Endiro Coffee Shop located adjacent to Yamasen. The restaurant space is well designed with an emphasis on minimalism as is the norm with Japanese architecture and also has two private dining rooms for those that prefer some privacy.
Improvement Tip: Dimmer lights would give the place a warmer and more intimate vibe.
Ambience & Service
The service is excellent with several well trained servers on standby willing to serve you as soon as you make eye contact. They are very responsive and offer quick service.
Improvement Tip: They should assign one server per table/section as we found it quite confusing having to order from several different servers and wasn’t sure who we were leaving the tip for.
Food
The food is served in small portions and is meant to be ordered in various plates and shared. We ordered sushi and a number of items on the menu including the chicken platter. The sushi pieces were large and there's a large selection on the menu to choose from.
Improvement Tip: Too much MSG? The food was weirdly too filling even before we had consumed half of our meals and we went there REALLY hungry. We only realized later that it was perhaps laced with a lot of MSG which is common in asian restaurants hence the explanation for our “too full after a few bites but hungry an hour later” condition.
*Update*: Yamasen reached out to Blogkla claiming that they don't use MSG to prepare their food and We acknowledge their claim. However, we still maintain that we were unusually satiated quicker than normal on that particular visit.
Drink
The neatly laid out, well stocked bar has a wide array of drinks ranging from cocktails, beers, sakes to wines and other spirits.
Would we go back?: Definitely Yes! Yamasen is the perfect restaurant for a quiet dinner or private function where you can reserve one of the private dining rooms for an intimate affair. The food is great and the service is superb.
Rating: * * * * /5