Yashima - Covina

E: I discovered this small Japanese restaurant on Yelp. It's on a street I often drive on, and the restaurant is across from Golden Bowl, a beloved chicken teriyaki fast food shop. Yelpers raved about it. I was instantly curious and also a bit skeptical.

E: We started with an order of nigiri - salmon, yellowtail, albacore and bass. I had never tried (or even seen) bass nigiri before. Every piece, except for the albacore, was bland. The salmon didn't have its usual full flavor and creaminess. The yellowtail had the slightest hint of flavor, and the bass was forgettable. The albacore, on the other hand, was excellent. It was extremely soft, fresh and had excellent flavor. YUM.
R: The sushi was unremarkable, and it was hard to taste the difference between the different types of fish.

R: The meat used in the chicken teriyaki wasn't the best quality. The sauce was flavorless and watery.

E: We ended the meal with a rainbow roll, which was topped with salmon, tuna, shrimp and a white fish. The fish was all right, nothing special. But the roll and the crab mix was very tasty. The avocado was perfectly ripe and the crab mix had a deliciously fatty taste. Mmmm... Mayonnaise.
R: The roll was the best item we ordered.

E: Update! A few nights later, we returned to Yashima, and it was such a disappointing experience. On our second trip, R ordered the oyako-don, one of his favorite dishes, but was sorely disappointed. The egg omelette included foreign objects (zucchini, mushrooms, fish cake) and the sauce was spare and bland.

We also had a different waitress who was brusque, not very friendly, and didn't seem to be interested in our questions. I had asked her to check on the price of one of their items, and tell me before she placed our order. She never turned. Fortunately, the dish was the price I thought it was when we received the check, but she left us wondering for the longest time.

It was such a contrast from our first visit; our waitress (one of the owners, we think) was very friendly, very attentive and liked to chat with us! She told us that she is a first-generation Japanese and her husband, originally from the Bay Area, is a third-generation Japanese American.

R: I have no interest in returning to Yashima. The hospitality at our first visit was very good, but the reason you return to a restaurant is for the food. Since both of our visits didn't have very good food and only one visit had good service, we won't be going back any time soon.

Yashima
236 E Rowland St
Covina, CA 91723