West Mobile’s Yum Yum Sushi, open at 8155 Cottage Hill Road since September 2011, has built its reputation around sushi prepared at a bar that sits front and center in the dining room.
Co-owner Yu Zhu, a chemical engineering major at the University of South Alabama before opening the restaurant, put considerable work into updating the location with a sushi bar, decorations, air conditioning and flat-screen televisions. Though the restaurant sits near a gas station, the small dining area is inviting for dine-in customers.
A Chef With Japanese Training
Head sushi chef Chi Chi Soun, a longtime friend of Zhu, trained under a second-generation Japanese sushi chef and has worked under two Japanese sushi masters. Guests at the counter can watch their food prepared, and adventurous diners can let the chef choose the dish — potentially a specialty roll that is not even on the menu. One example is the popular “fantasy roll,” combining shrimp tempura, cream cheese and scallops, fried and topped with crab meat. Soun creates new specialty rolls every day.
Fresh Fish and Expansion Plans
Unlike many area restaurants that also serve Chinese or hibachi dishes, Yum Yum Sushi focuses on sushi as a main course, though a fried menu offers catfish and shrimp for diners who prefer cooked food. Zhu said fish is shipped in fresh regularly, because fresh product is very important for raw preparations.
“All of our product is high quality. We don’t use any low quality fish. Higher quality fish tastes better, and I would rather the customer have something that tastes good,” Zhu said.
Zhu planned to add a liquor license in August 2012, allowing the restaurant to offer sake and other alcoholic beverages, and considered an outdoor patio that could feature live music. The restaurant’s own plans were to be detailed on a website then under construction. Its Facebook page had more than 400 likes by mid-2012.
“We want to build a place that is unique and different, not the same thing you can get anywhere else,” Zhu said.
Yum Yum Sushi is at 8155 Cottage Hill Road in Mobile, Alabama. Hours were Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.