Like all good restaurant experiences, the longer you wait, the better the food will taste. That’s not true unless you are going to the outback and the food is a tray full of deep fried mushrooms and cheese fries.
Friday night 6:50pm:
I had only been to Yuki Hana once before during the lunch hour on a weekday, so a Friday night was quite a bit busier. I arrived 10 minutes early and thought surely we would get a table soon. The hostess told me it would only be about 5 minutes. After my friends, Alexis and Cheryl, arrived, the hostess told me 5 more minutes. After she repeated that phrase 2 more time during the next 25 minutes I started to wonder if, “It will only be about 5 more minutes.” Is the only sentence this woman knew how to speak in English.
Alexis: “The night was a test of patience.”
7:30pm:
The time we waited didn’t seem too long since all three of us were chit-chatting, but after waiting for around 40 minutes watching people who came after us being seated and served, a waiter finally came to seat us. We needed time to look over the menu and decide what we should try. After we told the waiter we needed a minute I was suspicious what his definition of a minute was. I was correct in assuming it was about the same length as what the hostess thought.
Everything else happened between 8:00pm and 9:45pm:
We finally ordered and started off the meal with miso soup. Apparently miso soup is made with soy beans. It really should be called “essence of soy bean” because it’s not much of anything. Maybe that’s what miso means.
Cheryl: “I want ice cream!”
Cheryl’s strong sense of smell was working extra hard that night. She liked the smell of the restaurant, could smell the soy sauce, wasabi, and couldn’t stand the smell of the ginger… When the first part of our food came, there was ginger on the edge of the plate. It had been soaked in something. The waiter told us that it was to cleanse the palette. One is supposed to rub it on the roof of their mouth and either swallow it or spit it out. I tried it once and…spit it out. For me, a swig of water works just as well to “cleanse the palette.” Alexis and Cheryl each ordered California rolls. I ordered the spicy California roll. They were good.
Alexis and I also ordered Octopus sushi. It was a piece of octopus tied on top of a cube of rice. I didn’t think it tasted like much, but Alexis had a more opinionated comment of the taste.
Alexis: “It tastes like fishy asparagus lobster.”
We waited what seemed like an eternity before our short-armed waiter came to our table to see how we were doing. We informed him that we had only gotten half of our order. During the night we repeated our order to the waiter about 5 times, and he wrote it down 4 of those times.
Alexis: “The experience was an emotional roller coaster.”
Cheryl and Alexis were served their final rolls. Cheryl got a spicy shrimp roll, which I helped her eat.
Cheryl: “I’m gonna try this roll and if I don’t like it I’m gonna spit it out of my mouth.”
Alexis got a salmon roll that she enjoyed. She said it was “slimy but good.”
Alexis: “ I’m so full I feel like I’m going to die!”
And that was Yuki Hana in Fargo. Just don’t get the waiter with the midget arms or you’ll be there all night long.
Me: “Can’t see my, can’t see my, no you can’t see my sushi face, so fishy fishy fishy!”
