Yuraku

Plaudits: None
Neighborhood: Germantown

The Setup

Hungover like nobody's business, more than anything I needed food in my stomach. Luckily, Official Friends of DCWD G and Baboon had planned a road trip to Germantown's Yuraku, home of an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet. I dragged myself, with the help of Official Friend of DCWD HR Intern, to get up there.

The Vibe

Yuraku is set in a strip mall, and is apparently the most well known best-kept secret, in that I had never heard of it, but apparently everyone else in Maryland had, since even on this lazy Sunday, there was a sizable wait outside the restaurant. The inside is sparse, decorated like a Japanese house with the square paper windows in wooden frames, except that they're covered by Polaroids of customers dating back four years. In the back of the restaurant is the buffet, a mish mash of various Japanese stir-fries, salads, and tempuras, and of course, sushi.

Seating is composed of a six-seat sushi bar, and mostly two-tops pushed in various combinations, except for two long tables where our group of nine sat for dinner.

The Food

How do you describe a menu that has basically every kind of sushi imaginable? There's a menu that you can order from, but the preferred method is just to run through the buffet line where an ever-changing, ever-refilling series of trays are brought out and devoured.

There's a good diversity of rolls as well, from the simple sashimi to complex rolls the size of a baseball. Like many sushi buffets, there's a penalty if you leave food on your plate, in an attempt to discourage people from dismantling their rolls and eating only the fish. Unlike many buffets, the quality of the sushi was commendable, in particular the ratio of fish to rice, which was like a normal sushi restaurant, not one built for quantity.

People who know me know I live for otoro (fatty tuna), and here is where there was a little gap in quality. The otoro was fairly tendon-y which made it chewy instead of melt-in-your-mouth. But the other sushi and sides, including the very nice fried banana (yum), were pretty on point.

The Verdict

If this place were in the city, I'd probably be there every week. At $13 a head for a buffet and decent sushi, a pretty great stop.

Food Rating: *** (out of 5)
Date Rating: 2.5 Hearts (out of 5)
Dress Code: Casual
Bar Rating: N/A
Vibe: Chatty
Cost: $$ (out of 5) ($25-$50 for two)
Pairing: If you're going to be driving out that far anyway, why not make it a whole day trip and go skydiving? Check out Sky Diving Orange (recommended by a friend) in VA. Probably should do it before lunch though...