YOU would think somewhere called Yo! Sushi would be a terrible place to take your beloved who doesn’t care for fish or Japanese food.
Even more so when you add into the mix the youngest member of the family who isn’t the most adventurous diner.
But this is where the beauty of Yo! comes in, because there’s more to it than just raw fish and seaweed – a lot more.
It doesn’t hurt, of course, that it comes wrapped in some of the funkiest marketing you’ll find.
A Tokyo-style neon food bar in the middle of Aberdeen, complete with a conveyor belt of never-ending food, techno tunes and a help button that speaks to you in Japanese? Yeah, that’s cool.
It’s buzzing and vibrant, with staff who have clearly been to the “never stop smiling, not even once” service school.
Our party of three landed a comfy booth, although perching bar-style can be fun too.
Now, there are two ways to get your food ... grab what you fancy as it nips past or order from the menu.
The former is fun and our wee one certainly enjoyed watching the conveyer belt and asking if I wanted this one ... or this one ...
In the end I had that one – a plate of four dainty cucumber maki, the veg rolled in rice and nori (that’ll be the seaweed then).
I won’t deny my selection was driven by frugality. The prices are colour-coded by dish and this was green, the cheapest available at £1.70 – the eight options go all the way up to £6.
It was fresh and delicious and started a plate-grabbing frenzy that took in crispy salmon skin rolls that were divine, a roll of salmon, cucumber, rice and nori that was melt-in-the-mouth delicious, a mixed ngiri (morsels on rice blocks) of prawn, tuna and salmon, and a California roll of crab stick and avocado.
All of it was just superb.
But I stretched out of my sushi comfort zone and tried a spicy chicken, ginger and garlic salad to share with Mrs B. It was worth the trip to Yo! on its own. A beef tataki dish of thinly-sliced meat in a coriander sauce matched it.
All this, plus a never-emptying bowl of miso soup and I was happy.
But what of the girls? Mrs B busied herself with the alternative ordering method – choosing from the menu and having it freshly prepared.
On this occasion she sang the praises of the spicy chicken katsu curry and sticky rice, as well as the chicken yakisoba noodles, with its mildly spiced tangy sauce. The wee one liked that too – but minus the tangy sauce, prepared without fuss, just a smile.
They also loved the chicken gyoza dumplings, with their crispy shells and soft mashed-up meat.
It wasn’t all plain sailing though. A duck udon was ordered and sent back. The spicy broth was fine, but the duck (pictured in the menu as slices of breast) was just grim skin and gristle. The waiter’s smile didn’t dim a watt as he apologised profusely and happily whisked it away.
That meant we didn’t pay for it, as your bill involves totting up all the dishes on your table at the end.
And totting up was called for. By now, we were all stuffed – not even the circling chocolate dessert could tempt us. But next time I might have that one ... or that one.