Yang's Teppanyaki and Sushi is located in Vaughan at 3255 Rutherford Road, just east of the Highway 400 exit in a large outdoor mall. Disposable chopsticks are used unfortunately which I found strange, but I always bring my own when I can. Old school paper templates are used for ordering. AYCD pop is $3. The interior is very nice modern with white booths; all seating is these booths except for the teppanyaki tables. Yang's has a professional atmosphere, with nice classical, light jazz instrumental and new-age music suitable for a business lunch, austere yet elegant. Soy sauce at table was slightly salty and a bit old; the waiter indicated it was already low-sodium but it didn't really taste that way, but wasn't bad. Ginger is not dyed pink. There were no other customers when I arrived but several more arrived throughout, totaling about a dozen which was good. They did get the teppanyaki table going while I was there, which was nice to watch.
Miso soup was excellent and savory. Green salad was excellent fresh with shredded carrot and red cabbage, not just lettuce, and an excellent dressing. Shrimp tempura was excellent, flaky, not oily, light and with very good sauce. Chicken teriyaki was excellent with large pieces of good thick chicken, good sauce, winy notes and not too sweet... loved it. Chicken cutlet/katsu was very good, the sauce was excellent, not oily and a good balance of flavors. Chicken skewers were very good, not dry and the sauce was the same teriyaki as the chicken teriyaki itself. Beef skewers were similarly very good and in the same sauce, in fact they were on the same plate. Spring rolls were very good and not oily. Crab/surimi nigiri sushi was excellent and fresh. Salmon red snapper white tuna and salmon nigiri were all immaculately fresh and with a very good rice consistency. Crispy spicy salmon maki roll was excellent and had just the right amount of heat and spice.
Avocado/cucumber maki roll was also excellent with the avocado at perfect ripeness. Kani (aka surimi imitation crab… this is the second establishment I have seen with it named accurately) salad was excellent, subtle, and well balanced. The coconut shrimp was fantastic with large tasty pieces of shredded coconut in the breading, the first place that got it right. Pineapple fried rice was wonderfully smoky with a light wakame shredded garnish; it got even better when I added a light drizzle of soy sauce.
Ice creams are the only desserts. Green tea was less sweet than many others with more tea flavor. Vanilla chocolate and mango ice creams were all fresh and good though the flavors did not leap out as much as they did at some other places (such as the recently reviewed Sushi Kui) though.
Service was very fast and attentive. Like Sushi Kui's, though it does have both the all-beef skewers and shrimp tempura, Yang's menu is smaller than most other AYCE's, the trade-off being that I had no complaints or shortcomings about anything on that smaller menu. Weekday lunch is $19.99, it is $20.99 on weekends. However the dinner price is $31.99, which may explain the lower-than-expected rating for Yang's on online sites. However, at the lunch price for when I was there, I enjoyed every item without exception, though it was pricey for a weekday when factoring in the $3.00 pop on top of it. It was still a good value for the quality of the offerings.
Rating: 8.5/10
