Sushi Yama (https://www.facebook.com/p/sushiyamaOrlando-61554754973187/) is one of a handful of all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants in Orlando. I used to love Mikado Japanese Sushi Buffet in Altamonte Springs, but nobody else ever wants to go there with me, and I fully admit it isn’t as good as it once was.
More recently, I took my wife to another all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, but one where you order off a menu and everything is brought fresh to your table, rather than grabbing premade sushi rolls and nigiri off a buffet. That was a truly horrendous experience, to the point where it almost seemed like a prank or a comedy sketch — terrible food and cartoonishly inept service. I love sushi, but that was the first time I ever “hate-ate” anything (similar to hate-watching a movie or TV show out of bewildered fascination or the hope that it might improve). I never reviewed that place because I had nothing nice to say about it, but to nobody’s surprise, it did not last.
As a result of that execrable experience at a completely different restaurant, when I discovered Sushi Yama and wanted to try it, my wife wanted nothing to do with it. I ended up going by myself for lunch, after checking in at the wonderful Gods & Monsters comic book and collectible store on International Drive. Well, I had a grand time, and I will be happy to go back anytime, for any of my friends and acquaintances who also like sushi and good deals.
I had a good feeling when I was greeted by a human-sized maneki neko (lucky cat) at the entrance.
Here are photos of the menu. At the time I visited, the all-you-can-eat lunch was $20.95 (the price of two to three rolls at most regular Japanese restaurants), and you can choose from so many great options.
In addition to the sushi on the previous page, lunch also includes hot, fresh appetizers, soups, fried tempura dishes, fried rice and noodles, and even teriyaki, all prepared fresh in the kitchen. If you’re the least bit curious about going but don’t actually like sushi or have friends or family who don’t, there is plenty for you folks to choose from as well.
I was told that the kitchen would be faster than the sushi chefs, so I might want to order something from the kitchen to tide myself over. Instead of ordering the vegetable tempura (with broccoli, zucchini, sweet potato, and an onion ring), since it was all one price for the lunch, I asked if I could just get onion rings, and that was totally cool. Ring the Alarm! Leave it to me to go out for all-you-can-eat sushi and still end up with onion rings. But they were terrific, and the tempura batter was a perfect consistency and stayed in place.
I love ornate rolls with multiple contrasting ingredients (sorry, sushi purists!), so I ordered several Chef’s Special rolls, and they all came on this gorgeous platter, arranged beautifully.
This assortment included:
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- Rainbow roll – a California roll topped with tuna, salmon, whitefish, and avocado
- Salmon run roll -a roll containing eel and spicy krab, topped with salmon, masago fish eggs, and eel sauce
- Baby tiger roll – a roll containing spicy tuna and cucumber, topped with salmon, avocado, masago fish eggs, and tempura crunch
- SnowMan roll – a roll containing spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, and avocado, topped with snow krab, masago fish eggs, tempura crunch, and and eel sauce
- Spicy tuna roll (done as a hand roll, in the bottom left corner above)
Here they are again from a different angle. Beautiful!
I also got three pieces of nigiri: smoked salmon, red snapper (tai), and eel unago), which were all fresh and tasty. 
I should note that you get a penalty for ordering a bunch of food and not finishing it (including the rice that is part of nigiri sushi), as you should, because I consider wasting food a shanda. For the carb-conscious among us, Sushi Yama charges more at dinnertime, but you can also get sashimi — just the slices of fresh, raw fish without the rice underneath.
It’s too bad Sushi Yama is across town on the north end of International Drive, or I would go there quite often. As it is, I will return whenever I can, which won’t be often enough. But whenever I have a chance to stop by Gods & Monsters, I will make it a point to arrive hungry and head straight there afterwards. I’ll try to go for dinner in the future to take advantage of that sashimi, too!
The Saboscrivner 