Yamato Restaurant

There is quite a variety to order from the all you can eat menu. The pork katsu was crispy and had a sweet sauce on top. The steamed gyoza, miso soup, and sashimi were pretty standard. Most of the rolls were filled with shrimp tempura and had less fillings than usual. The spicy salmon hand roll was mainly just rice.Service was a bit slow even though the restaurant was quite empty for a Monday dinner. There is a small koi pond inside the place, which was pretty cute!

We came here pretty late on a Friday night and the place was still packed. Luckily we got seated right away.They have an all you can eat sushi bar & kitchen special which is what we got. Be prepared to leave stuffed!They give you two pieces of paper for you to check off the things you want to order. We ordered a variety of different things from the fried calamari to eel to vegetable fried rice to shrimp tempura rolls. I enjoyed all of them very much. Also the fried ice cream was so good. I will say the service was quite slow, and a few of the things we ordered never made it to our table. We had to order the same dish a couple of times in order to receive it. It was also quite difficult to get a servers attention. However it was packed and they seemed understaffed so we had patience. Overall the food was great so this made up for the service.

We came in pretty close to closing time, but we got our food very quickly. Food was amazing! We had the dinner boxes, and it's definitely a good value with how much food you're getting.

I had visited the Yamato 2 location in Back Bay before I came to the original Yamato in Brighton. My family and I came here on a Thursday evening (around 5:30pm) and we were pleased to find free street parking close to the restaurant and we were one of the only diners there. Just like Yamato 2, you fill out a AYCE menu and select the sushi and entrees you want. Food came out super fast.. like almost too fast. The rolls we got first tasted a little old, so we were a little concerned about the rest of the food items we ordered, but everything else that came out were fresh and tasty. We loved how we could order appetizers all the way to dessert for a very reasonable price for any buffet/AYCE.It's not a fancy restaurant by no means, but large groups can also be accommodated, which is a huge plus!

Yamato is decent AYCE sushi with appetizers, entrees, and dessert. Since it's a buffet, don't expect the best quality. I usually go here for their dinner service and order mostly sashimi, especially the tuna, white tuna, salmon, and mackerel. For appetizers, I love their shumai (fried or steamed), crab rangoon, agedashi tofu, and fried tempera. I would skip the fried calamari and spring rolls since they are frozen supermarket quality. I would also pass on their soups (udon and ramen). I like their salmon teriyaki and steak. For rolls, the rainbow, dragon, yellowtail & scallion, salmon & avocado, philly, and spicy salmon are some of my favorites. For dessert, I would pass on the fried banana and get the fried ice cream (only comes in vanilla) and regular ice cream (comes in green tea, red bean, or vanilla). The sashimi is good quality for a buffet. Their sushi rolls are padded with a fair amount of rice so I wouldn't order too many.I recommend ordering the most with the first round because they tend to drop items or give you less pieces with future rounds. I've also noticed that the food takes longer to come after the first two rounds so re-order early. The service is typical for an Asian restaurant and you will need to flag your server down from time to time.As fast as food waste goes, as long as it's reasonable, you won't be charged, but I have seen them charge items a la carta pricing if alot of sashimi or rolls are left uneaten. There is a 2 hour seating limit after you sit down. Currently, lunch (till 3pm) is $23.00 M-F and $26 on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays. Dinner is $31.99 Sunday to Thursday and $33.99 on Friday, Saturday, and holidays. There are some dinner exclusive items such as sashimi, sushi combos, dessert, and a few entree items.

Yamato in Brighton is one of the few ayce sushi restaurants in the Boston area. I went the other day for ayce and it costs around $31-$33 per person. When we were sat down they told us last call us 9:00 but they still let us order past night and were seating people after 9:00 which was a little confusing and stressful trying to place orders without ordering too much before last call. We got shrimp tempura/vegetable tempura, spicy scallop roll (costs extra), then spicy salmon/tuna roll, tuna avo/salmon avo, salmon nigiri, then the yaki udon. There were also some other basic rolls we ordered but I forget which ones. Shrimp tempura and vegetable tempura was surprisingly really good but it was pretty gross to see that they do not devein their shrimp. Spicy scallop roll was okay but loaded with mayo which was also kind of gross. The spicy rolls were good but the rolls with tuna and avocado were terrible quality and chewy. The fish was pretty low quality and when the salmon nigiri came out there was some little black speck on it like a bug or dirt. Yaki udon was probably a waste of space even though it tasted decent because it was so greasy and heavy and we didn't want to get charged for not finishing. After eating 7 rolls, shrimp tempura, and yaki udon between two people we were extremely full. I really wanted to get all you can eat sushi but I feel like forcing yourself to eat mediocre sushi to get your moneys worth is not always worth it. It wasn't great but wasn't extremely terrible so I probably will not be back anytime soon.

While I normally go to Yamato 2, I decided to try the original Yamato this time for the sushi buffet on a rainy Saturday evening. The Brighton location has a few advantages over the Boston one:1. Parking - while it can be tough to find street parking in general, Brighton definitely had more availability than downtown.2. Price - dinner on Saturday night here was 33.99, while it is 36.99 at the downtown. The lunch and weekday prices also have a similar discount at the Brighton location3. Crowd - I imagine that it's pretty busy for college students in general since it's near BC, but on this rainy evening there were plenty of open seats and the food came much faster than I've experienced at the Boston locationHOWEVER, the actual restaurant itself does feel a bit more run down. The carpet was a bit dirty, the table was chipped, and the seats looked very old and worn. But I don't come to all you can eat sushi restaurants for the ambiance, so that can easily be overlooked.In general, the actual fish quality here was probably also a little lower than the downtown location. I am not sure if it is because or turnover or another reason, but the cuts didn't taste as fresh, though they certainly weren't bad and were still very tasty. I may be imagining it as well, but it felt like they gave less rice in the nigiri, which is always a good thing. Overall:Salmon sashimi - huge pieces, but the quality ranged from great to decent. Some had nice fatty lines while the others were chunks of orange. Not bad though!Tuna sashimi - huge pieces as well! Same comment on quality too - we had some very red and fresh looking pieces, but also some that didn't have as great color. The taste was still fine though.Spicy salmon roll - they used full pieces of salmon instead of minced salmon, which makes this roll taste a lot fresher and less greasy than other sushi restaurants. Very good!Eel nigiri - good ratio of fish to rice here, and the eel sauce was nice and sweet. Tamago (egg) nigiri (not pictured) - the perfect last bite. With less rice than I'm used to, this was great!Fried ice cream (not pictured) - this is always a great and sweet way to end the meal. It was a nice vanilla scoop battered and deep fried with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Yum!All in all, I'd say the quality is slightly lower than the downtown location, which I gave a 5. Still, there are plusses to this Brighton location, and I will definitely be back here if I'm traveling by car!

Amazing selection for all you can eat! Has never disappointed. It's not nobu but if you want great unlimited sushi and appetizers, you cannot go wrong with this! 100% recommend, especially during lunch! Location is great, local to students in the area. Service is always good and quick!

While I was planning to visit Boston, one of my Boston friends told me to check this place out. The mixture of All You Can Eat Sushi and a decently affordable price was the perfect combo to bring me in. It was initially hard to find at first since it's below street level, but I walked into a spacious restaurant with lots of seating and friendly staff.Unfortunately this was a meal for one since I couldn't convince any of my friends to go, but that wasn't going to stop me from their AYCE menu. I had to be conscious not to overorder and pay for leftovers, but everything was decently portioned and still better than a gas station.Obviously I wasn't expecting top quality sushi, but I definitely got what I paid for which is as much average sushi and Japanese dishes that I wanted to eat for a reasonable price. The presentation was also nice considering they could just slap everything onto a plate and hand it to me. I also had to pay a little extra for their specialty rolls not included in AYCE, but it was still worth the small up-charge.Cheaper than what's available in California, quality was about average for the local Japanese cuisine available in Boston, but still an experience I enjoyed for what it was.

Always enjoy coming to Yamato for the broad selection of quality food and the attentive service. Highly recommend it the Mackrel and the Spider Roll!