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Had lunch with Mitsu - who took over since Yasuda's departure for Japan. The essence of simplicity, freshness and warmth of the chef. While the prices are high, the quality is higher. Servers all had smiles and did all to please. If you love sushi, give yourself a well needed break and go! Amities Gourmandes, ally's dad p.s. The hot tea powder flashed prawns and the saki black cod are knockouts

I've eaten at Yasuda a few times and always found the food to be good but the service poor - the reservationists are incredibly rude and it doesn't get much better once you arrive. Today, we got to the restaurant 5 minutes late for our lunch reservation, only to find they'd given our table away. They claimed we were 10 minutes late and that was unacceptable. After arguing with me about this for five minutes, the maitre d showed me his watch to prove me wrong - and it STILL wouldn't have put us arriving 10 minutes late! So basically, they gave away our table after THREE minutes. Unheard of at any good restaurant in NY and even worse as I was on a business lunch. When we requested logical solutions like putting together two tables to accomodate us, they were having none of it. Eventually, he said 'I'm not talking to you anymore. You won't eat lunch here today. I will not serve you' and stood silently like a child even though we were respectful and trying to be constructive the whole time. This restaurant should be seriously embarrassed at the rudeness of its staff. The best food in the world would not make up for the experience of giving away a table after three minutes and then acting like it's the customer's fault.

I´ve been a sushichef for nearly 10 years, I´ve had my share of sushi, and have eaten at some of the best in Japan. This just didnt cut it. The technique was flawless, the pieces where uniquely made, but the fish didnt cut it, nor in temperature wise or taste. The taste of the rice was good, it got a very tokyo style sting to it, though the rice was not properly prepared. It was starchy. Atmosphere at Yasuda is flawless and you can see the sushi chefs have their own personalities as you can see some of them laugh, and some of them just stare grin at you. I think that the reason Yasuda has such a pretty high rating is the personality of the chefs and how the restaurant handles its nazi style reservation system. It was simply put not the grade of sushi I was looking for from such a well rumored restaurant.

Ate here for the first time since Yasuda's departure. In fact he left this am for Japan. His hand picked protege was at the head chef's station and handled his responsibilities perfectly. While noone had Yasuda's dry Japanese wit coming across in English, or his scary memory, the young man was solicitous, knowlegable and his prparation would make the master proud. Sushi Yasuda has not lost a step and if your wallet can take it, see what still seems to be controlled like a deux ex machina by the master. Amities Gourmandes, ally's dad

The only thing better than sushi here is going to the fish market in Tokyo. Ask to sit in front of Mr. Yasuda and let him serve you whatever he wants. It's completely amazing. Unfortunately, Mr. Yasuda is starting a new restaurant in Japan, so you best act quick to sit with him. If you do, you won't be sorry. One more thing. Ignore the bad reviews on this site. Some people obviously don't recognize good food when it's put in front of them.

The luxury of sitting at the sushi counter is to be able to communicate with the sushi chefs and hear interesting stories about what you put in your mouth. Sushi Yasuda did have pretty good selection of fish including some that I had not heard of even in Japan. Must have been unconventional sushi materials. So I was very interested and wanted to know about them but our sushi-chef was very non-interesting, non-entertaining one and all he said was "it's good" or "would taste like mackerel" when asked questions. No, the language was not the issue as the chef and I are both Japanese and we were speaking in our native language. And no, it wasn't so busy that he couldn't stop his hand for 5 seconds to have a little talk. Of course chef's 1st priority is not to chat with customers, but to make a good food, which he did an okay job of, except when he put too much sea salt or brushed too much soy sauce on sushi pieces. But the real good sushi chefs i know would be able to give you information on what they are serving with some interesting stories without being chatty. In general the people work there seem to be dead inside or something. They are doing their jobs, but just don't seem to care much. The quality of the food - Okay. It's not bad for the price (2 of us had belly full of sushi, 2 appetizers, beer and carafes of sake for $230 before tip) but nothing was remarkable either. I would rather pay a little more and go somewhere better because we do not eat sushi often and I want it to be a good experience each time...

Yes, the restaurant is indeed beautiful and the service is amazing, but the food is just not worth the price. While it's a few dollars cheaper than some of the other sushi places around here, you do not receive the same amount of sushi for the price.