YamaSho

I’ve been here twice now and have had a great night both times. I came once with a group of 15 and another time with a group of almost 30.
The staff at YamaSho were very nice and attentive. Once your party arrives, you sign the contract and they lead you to your room which is either downstairs for smaller parties or upstairs for larger parties. The time starts when you start your first song and ends once you turn in the iPad at the front desk.
The song selection was pretty extensive. We didn’t have any problems finding the songs we wanted by using the iPad. Lots of old-​school songs and boy band classics, as well as current top 100 songs. One minor complaint was that the iPad was super laggy and we had to restart it a couple times.
Definitely pregame before coming here because it isn’t BYOB and the drinks are ridiculously expensive. $ 18 for a pitcher of beer is not that bad, but if you want sake or other cocktails, you could easily spend twice as much on drinks than you do on karaōke itself (which is probably their business model). Careful about sneaking in drinks, they claim to charge a $ 100 fine if you are caught. There’s a handy phone on the wall so that you can call the front desk and have food/​drinks delivered without having to stop the fun.
A typical night here (~2 hours of karaōke) will run you around $ 25 – 30 with drinks if you have a large enough party. Without drinks, you could be looking at a mere $ 10 per person.
Overall, the restaurant and karaōke rooms are clean and classy. Definitely a step above the grungy, sketch karaōke rooms of undergrad past.
TL;DR: Good song selection, decent price for karaōke room rental. They really gouge you on food/​alcohol.

This is my go-​to place for Karaōke with private rooms in SF. The staff are polite and helpful and the rooms and bathrooms are clean. Good prices during happy hour specials. The iPad song ordering system is easy, they have a ton of songs (new songs too), the sound is generally good (although a couple of times we had one microphone that would cut in & out), so nice to order food and drinks directly to the room, and service is great. I’ll be baaaaaack!

This review is for karaōke. I immediately liked the place as soon as I walked in because it had a legit Asian/​Japanese feel to it, not to mention the old school Asian posters.
We came here because Pandora is closed on Monday nights. Amazingly, a group of about ten people all didn’t figure out to do the smart thing and check Unilocal beforehand so we arrived at Pandora to great disappointment. Luckily, we found Yamasho nearby.
Getting your karaōke fix sorted is important.
The rooms are named after different cities but mostly Japanese cities. We got Kyoto.
PROS:
–Song selection was amazing. They had both very obscure and popular artists. They also have a great variety of songs from each artist. I was surprised to find a good selection of HY songs, one of my favorite Japanese bands. They also have plenty of Chinese songs and of course, English songs.
–Prices were decent. My group drank and ate a lot and it only worked out to about $ 30 a person.
CONS:
–Most English songs don’t have music videos accompanying them.
–It seemed the words were too fast for the actual song.
Overall, I like the intimate atmosphere and song selection and most of all, I like turning karaōke virgins into pros.

What’s not to love about Japanese style karaōke bars?
Restaurant upstairs with the karaōke bar downstairs, it appeals to all appetites.
Highlights include:
–The karaōke bar has sound proof, private rooms so that you may enjoy hours of Tom Foolery with friends without the fear of other bar patrons viewing your shenanigans.
— Rooms are large with lots of seating and fans to cool off when your singing gets too intense.
— Every song you can possible think of singing, from any decade.
— You can order food, wine, beer and sake directly from your room.
— Fast and friendly service upon ordering.
— Variety of yummy choices that are to die for. Our party of 13 enjoyed many different items but my favorites were the potstickers and chicken teriyaki.
It was a blast– can’t wait to come back!

I’ve been a few times, for food and for karaōke. Place is great. Good food, nice friendly atmosphere in my opinion. Front desk seems to be understaffed sometimes for some reason but they’re always busy when I’m there. If I had to name something I feel could use attention it would be the karaōke rooms are too stuffy, especially with a group of people-​all having a good time, even with the fan in there it’s unfortunately hot and stuffy in the rooms. Other than that I’m a big fan of this place and I always recommend.

Come here often for weekend fun with my bf and his crew.
First off… prices are really high for private rooms. I go to karaōke spots all the time and numerous cities and the hourly rate here is on the high side.
They have 3 levels of private rooms. Also another down fall… the hours here are not favorable… They close at 2am and other rooms I have been too closes at 6pm, but maybe not in SF.
Regardless… this is our go to in the city for karaōke. Love that they have a ipad to enter songs.
Parking is a problem so über/​lyft.

My boyfriend and I come here pretty often, AT LEAST once a month. Service is good. Food is good. It’s kind of pricey but what do you expect? It’s sushi!

I think this place is more for the karaōke aspect (not the food). It wasn’t terrible for a late night snack, I guess. We just got out of a movie two blocks down at AMC Van Ness and wanted to grab dinner before heading home. And this was one of the few places that was open on a late Monday night.
We ordered the rainbow roll and bento box (beef teriyaki and tempura). The sushi roll was okay, not too flavorful. And the beef wasn’t cooked all the way, so we didn’t eat it. The tempura was okay tho.
If you wanted to check this place out, I’d say do it for the karaōke room. Go with a few friends — drink, sing and eat. Even though I didn’t try karaōke, it seems like it’ll be fun since you can get your own private room. And karaōke is usually always fun. But I wouldn’t recommend coming here just for the food.

Food is overpriced and the quality is not great! The only thing you’re really paying for is the experience in the private karaōke rooms.
We went here for my brother in law’s surprise birthday on a Saturday night. They opened at 5:30pm, but their doors were open already by 5:15pm. We obviously got there early since we were there for a surprise birthday dinner with some karaōke, and when we checked in, the hostess told us we were still early… well duh! I asked her if we can go downstairs to the karaōke room already, but she wouldn’t let us, so we literally waited in their «lobby» area until it hit 5:30pm. Then she said we can check in, but had to use my ID and credit card to «hold» in case the service wasn’t paid for. Ok whatever, I handed her my cards and signed a waiver form.
My sister told me they would be there around 5:45pm, so we had 15 mins to decorate. It seemed kinda weird when our hostess was leading us downstairs; she had us go down the elevator and when we got down to the bottom floor, it looked like we were in a brothel. lol! We were seated in the Tokyo room — there was a tv and karaōke system. We were given an iPad and a remote control that also came with a song book. Surprisingly there were A LOT of newer songs on the list, songs that play on the radio. Kinda funny too when you actually sing it on karaōke. Haha!
Anyways, we had two 13 year olds in our group, and since they’re minors, they don’t allow us to drink alcohol in the karaōke room. So we literally had to go back upstairs to drink our bottles of saki. We ordered the lychee saki and took them as shots — it was pretty good! It tasted like juice! We also ordered our food upstairs and paid for it, then they told us they would take our food to our karaōke room.
I ordered the chicken teriyaki and shrimp tempura plate, along with an order of tekka maki and ikura (my favorites). When the food arrived, they looked «ok». The chicken teriyaki didn’t look fully cooked, even though it was — but it didn’t look appetizing at all. I was starving by the time our food came, so I ate it anyway. Their tempura was pretty good, however the ikura and tekka maki didn’t taste very fresh, but it was fine. I’ve definitely had better Japanese food at other places. But like I said, you’re pretty much just paying for the experience of being in a private karaōke room.
It probably would have been a better experience had we been able to drink in the karaōke room too. So I guess if we do come back here, we’ll make sure not to bring anyone under the age of 21.

Good quality and variety of food
Good for party and groups
Themed karaōke rooms are cool !!

Food [3/​5]: Average Japanese food
Karaōke [4/​5]: So fun! Huge song collection, decent sound system
Came here for a team event, we ate so much that i can’t exactly document the food that i ate. Overall, most of the food we ordered are average at best. Nothing really over the top but probably better than the Safeway sushi options.
The have a good selection of Japanese liquor. Absolutely love their nigori and the yuzu alcohol. Super yummy!
My favorite part of this visit was the Karaōke session. It is part of the restaurant which is awesome, we could bring food and drinks down to the karaōke rooms so we can eat and sing at the same time.
A small lift at the back of the restaurant brings you down to the basement where they have several private karaōke room. We were in the San Francisco room, which fit 8 – 9 people comfortably.
The décor and tough furniture isn’t the nicest but it does the job. They have a disco ball spinning in the ceiling, definitely got us in the mood to groove.
They have these thick old school folders with a huge long list of songs, one ordered the songs by artists and another by song title.
Perhaps the only annoying and frustrating bit was the WIRED mircophones. When our divas get grooving and moving, there were a couple of instances where the wires would knock over our cups. We were all in good cheer so that didn’t damper our spirits but they could really do with WIRELESS MICS. PLEASE!
Overall, was an extremely fun and crazy night. Had an awesome time. Looking forward to the next Karaōke night!

I had a blast here with some of my friends this past weekend! They have private karaōke rooms, as most of you know, and that is ideal to get very comfortable and reveal your inner diva with friends. Their song selections are up to date as well, along with all the classics.
Service was fast and friendly. It’s very convenient to place an order from your room via a telephone. I can’t comment much on the food, but the rolls and French fries were good! Cold Sapporo on tap is always a win too.
I’d also suggest coming in early for happy hour prices on the rooms and food/​drinks.
Reservations highly recommended!

Sushi was okay, nothing special. Customer service was horrible. Bring your own water bottle because they don’t refill it. I wouldn’t recommend this place. There are many sushi places in SF DONT COME HERE.
My sushi looked old too

They have soup noodles with shirataki
Dengnaku boiled eggplant
Beef Bristle with konnyaku
Spinach with peanut sauce
all were really gourmet
Awesome service
Fun Karaōke — smart business idea

I didn’t have any food at YamaSho, but my coworkers and I came here for the private karaōke rooms — they’d been here before and swear by YamaSho for a good karaōke experience, so I had high hopes coming here for the first time. Luckily it didn’t disappoint; we ended up getting the Tokyo room (the different karaōke rooms are named after different Japanese cities and the obviously non-​Japanese city of San Francisco), which was the perfect amount of space for 16 adults, all of us squished into the horseshoe-​shaped seating in the room.
There’s quite a lot of music to choose from here, and there’s also a lot of up to date, contemporary songs. You can use the phone in the room to order food and drinks, and some of my coworkers ordered some rolls and beer. The hostesses were very prompt in bringing our orders and clearing away empty dishes, though they could’ve been a lot more pleasant. One of our party members baked cookies and brought them into the room, and we were sharply told they needed to disappear. Given how much we spent on the food, drinks, and the hourly rate of the room, we felt perfectly comfortable leaving the cookies where they were on the table.
YamaSho is a great place for a karaōke get-​together. It’s pricey, though; I’m not exactly sure how much the hourly rate was, and we were there for around four hours, nor am I sure of the price of the food and drinks, but when it came time to split the tab equally, we each had to come out of pocket around $ 23 – 25 each. It was worth it though, and I’d be happy to come back here for our next karaōke party. Very good, diverse music selection, the people who ate the food said it was good, and the rooms and machine/​mics were well-​maintained.

Sadly this might be the best karaōke in SF (better ones in the South Bay). Been there several times in the past 1.5 years, and the experience never improved. The rooms are okay, volumes can only be adjusted at the machine and the order system is by punching song numbers on a keypad and an outdated iPad (iOS6 look) with slow navigation. One time I came with about 15 coworkers in a 20-​person big room, there were only two microphones and neither could reach to the back of the room where a third of the group were sitting.
There are nearly no music videos English songs, however surprisingly almost all Chinese songs have official MVs — great for Chinese singing groups.
They serve food and drinks at karaōke as well, still good times.

The birthday invitation said there would be 50 people singing karaōke. I thought, «How on earth are we going to fit 50 people into a dinky karaōke booth?» YamaSho turned out to be the answer. They have an upstairs loft that they can turn into a private karaōke room fitting up to 70 guests. How awesome is that in the middle of San Francisco?
For me, that translated to plenty of audience members as I pridefully sang Baby Got Back. Oh yes. Favorite karaōke song. Several platters of sushi and bottles of sake were ordered and placed in the back of the room for everyone to grab buffet-​style. The food itself was mediocre, but I wouldn’t expect incredible sushi at a karaōke bar anyways.
The karaōke experience was awesome, except for some technical difficulties with a microphone at first. There is an app that you can have your guests download to see which songs are available. It lists the song number that you can input into the tablet that queues up on the karaōke machine. Seamless birthday celebration. Will definitely be keeping YamaSho on my list of places good for large group dinners and some much-​needed musical therapy.

Came here on a late night after the Bryson Tiller concert. It was one of the few places open late on a weeknight. Nice place with traditional japanese décor and lovely paintings on the wall. It was pretty empty in the restaurant, but you can definitely hear the music from the karaōke bar downstairs.
The service was slow for how empty it was, but still very friendly. One of the waitresses couldn’t name the sushi rolls on the big plate. That was slightly entertaining. The wakame salad was on the salty side. The sushi was alright, not worth the $ 15.00 each specialty roll though! Then we waited for another ~10 minutes for our frozen green tea mochi which was hard as rock! It was good to end our meal with, but I didn’t understand the wait when it’s just from the freezer.
I wouldn’t knock this place off my list completely, but if you want fresh, good sushi, there are tons of other places to go.

A reunion brought me to Yamasho. We were looking for dinner and karaōke. Luckily, Yamasho offers both! I made a same day reservation for a party of 6 on Thursday, November 19^th at 8pm through OpenTable for the dinner portion.
We all shared a House Hot Sake: Shochikubai Junmai ($ 7.50 large) and one of my girlfriends got the House Wine Red ($ 7). The hot sake and tea paired well with dinner. The wine wasn’t anything impressive. Just a decent table red.
#24 Gyoza ($ 5.75)
#45 Agedashi tofu ($ 5.50)
#55 Ika ring fry: squid ($ 8.75)
#63 Ton katsu: pork ($ 9)
The apps were pretty good. I got the gyoza. It came with 6 pieces which were perfect for sharing. The agedashi tofu was crispy and the broth flavorful. The ika fry was good, but the piece I ate didn’t stay together. The squid separated from the batter with my first bite. I didn’t try the tonkotsu so I can’t comment on that. I also ordered a Miso soup ($ 1.75) with was a great way to start off my meal.
My dinner consisted of a bunch of nigiri. Each order came with 2pcs: Hamachi: yellowtail ($ 5.75), Amaebi: sweet shrimp ($ 8), Ankimo: monkfish ($ 5.50), Uni: sea urchin ($ 8.50). I love it went they have ankimo nigiri. I can’t eat a whole appetizer portion, so 2 pieces are perfect. Each piece had a good amount of ankimo and was nice and creamy. I also enjoyed the hamachi & uni. I’d skip the amaebi here as the shrimp didn’t really have much flavor. The bodies didn’t have a sweetness to them and the heads were bland. Where were the delicious head flavors?!
Our table also ordered the following, but I didn’t try any of it. Everyone seemed happy with their meals. The Osaka Set didn’t seem to have Geso although that was in the menu description. Instead it came with Ebi.
*Combination Dinners: Salmon teriyaki & Tempura: with Rice, Soup and Salad ($ 21) & Chicken Teriyaki & Tempura: with Rice, Soup and Salad ($ 21)
*Rolls: Tekka: tuna ($ 5.75); Spider: soft shell crab & avocado ($ 10) & Dragon (shrimp tempura): w/​Eel & avocado on top ($ 14.75)
*Osaka Set ($ 23.50): 1 Tekka (tuna roll), 1pc each: Geso (squid legs), Salmon roe, Yellowtail, Tuna, Salmon, White fish and Eel
I had a lot of fun in the karaōke rooms. After dinner, we rented the Yokohama room ($ 39 per hour): max 8 people. You can also order food and drinks in the room. We got the Yellow Tail Shiraz: Australia ($ 8 glass) for my gf and another hot sake to share downstairs.
I love private rooms. To me it’s more fun as it’s more intimate. Yamasho offers two ways to select songs. You can use the iPad they give you to search the directory or you can use their books. Yamasho has a pretty good English song selection, but my friends were bummed when they found out there were no tagalog songs. For me, I tried using the iPad to search chinese songs, but I couldn’t figure it out as I couldn’t punch in chinese characters. So if you want to sing other languages, I suggest grabbing the actual books.
I believe Yamasho prorates each room to the nearest minute which is great since you don’t have to worry about using a full hour if you go into the next hour. We got charged for 100 minutes.
Great place for karaōke and decent place for Japanese food. I’d give the restaurant 3 stars and the karaōke 5.

Even though we were in Japan Town yesterday, we decided to trek to this location as it was highly reviewed more than most of the restaurants in Japan Town. So after about a half a mile walk we landed at YamaSho.
What this place really has going for it is the ambiance and atmosphere. It really feels like a classy joint and looks quite nice. The menu is HUGE. You’ll find most of the Japanese basics for any good Japanese restaurant here. Prices aren’t that great. A little bit too high for the quality of food you will receive. The sushi rolls I had, were very basic and the flavor wasn’t all that special. In a nutshell. Bland sushi.
However, the udon soup was fantastic and they have a huge alcohol section for those who enjoy a drink here and there. Service left a lot to be desired though. Much slower than you would think, even though it wasn’t that busy.
So food was OK, service was horrible, but ambiance was fantastic. Probably won’t come again.