A note on the words: a shichirin is the small charcoal brazier you grill over at your own table, and hamayaki means seafood cooked on it. Uni is sea urchin roe. Yukke is the Japanese take on Korean yukhoe — here raw tuna, dressed with a sweet sauce and an egg yolk. Ume-shiso is a thin sushi roll of sour pickled-plum paste and shiso leaf. A lemon sour is shochu, a distilled spirit, with soda and lemon. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
Shichirin Hamayaki to Sushi Banya Yoichi, Ueno on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
I want something good to eat today too. This is Hangover Meshi. So: I was working my way around the bars of Ueno when someone said it was about time for sashimi, and what came to mind was Banya Yoichi. I used to come here all the time! I thought — and then I arrived to find the place gone. It had turned into a conveyor-belt sushi shop called Oedo! But look closer and the second floor says Shichirin Hamayaki to Sushi Banya Yoichi. I see. So they turned the ground floor into a different restaurant, or sold it.
Well, never mind. If it is here, it is here. Straight up to the second floor.
Ah, this feeling takes me back!
The second floor has not changed much. Get the shichirin going and the place fills with smoke.
Feeling nostalgic about all that, we decided to just order as we went and eat.
A lemon sour! The drinking is starting to catch up with me.
How to put it — the dish and the portion have both got smaller. But it looks fresh and very good indeed, does it not?
It looks considerably better than last time. Last time there was sea urchin; now it is salmon roe.
Actually eating it: yes. Properly good. Say what you like, the fact that the seafood is seriously good is what makes this place.
A roll of just the right size for picking at. Everyone can share this one.
Pickled plum and shiso. The plum paste restaurants use is so sour and so salty! I wonder where you buy this stuff. I would like to get some and put it on everything at home. A restaurant-supply supermarket like Gyomu Super or Hanamasa would probably have it.
Tuna yukke! Egg yolk, a sweet sauce, lean tuna and spring onion.
There was less sashimi in the platter than I expected, so I ordered two. (This photograph is the second one.)
Missing the sea urchin that was not in the fisherman’s platter, I ordered some on the side.
Now, of course it is nothing like genuinely fresh raw uni. That goes without saying, and there is a faint alum note to it — but that is fine, is it not? I have been round several bars already and I am fairly drunk, so eating something with a bit of sea urchin about it while I drink is enough to lift the mood. And it is properly tasty. Good enough. Very good.
So: Banya Yoichi after all this time was good. Half of it may be gone, but the quality is the same as ever, if anything slightly better. Which is to say — I had better come more often, or what is left of this place will shrink or disappear too, and that would be a problem! So next time I am in Ueno I shall make a point of stopping in and doing my bit.
Shichirin Hamayaki to Sushi Banya Yoichi, Ueno (Sushi / Keisei-Ueno Station, Ueno-okachimachi Station, Ueno-hirokoji Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
