Get ‘fancy restaurant’ quality food for an affordable price at this downtown Pocatello hibachi counter
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POCATELLO – Dude’s Public Market, a downtown food court, has four different vendors for customers to choose from. One of these vendors is Yoimi Sushi & Hibachi Express.
The way the owner of this location puts it, customers get high quality food at a price they can afford.
“Our steak, honestly, is much better than a fancy restaurant. We can compete with a fancy restaurant with this steak, chicken and everything because we order from the same company,” said Fandris Firdaus, owner of the Pocatello Yoimi location, with a bit of a chuckle. “Our price is convenient for the student. People can save money because you pay (for) lunch, you get (a) dinner portion.”
The Yoimi Pocatello location opened last year in Dude’s Public Market, which is located at 240 South Main Street. The restaurant serves a variety of hibachi dishes, and Firdaus sat down with EastIdahoNews.com to let us sample three of them.
We began with a dish of Cantonese-style noodles.
To prepare the dish, Firdaus said they add oil to the noodles after they’re done boiling and drying to prevent them from sticking together, creating a dish of light, free-flowing noodles.
After that, the noodles are stir-fried with a special teriyaki sauce.
“Our teriyaki actually is really good for vegan (diets),” Firdaus said. “We use black soybeans to make the teriyaki.”
Next, we sampled a shrimp fried rice dish.
For fried rice dishes, Yoimi also serves them with chicken and beef. The fried rice is served with cabbage, carrots, white onions and green onions.
Firdaus said this dish, particularly the chicken fried rice, is affordable for students, and allows them to split it into two meals because of how big the portions are.
“We try to provide some good food to the customer, to the people (and) the community,” Firdaus said.
The final dish EastIdahoNews.com sampled was the steak hibachi.
This dish is served with an eight ounce New York strip-style steak, cut up into bite-sized pieces. On the side, it’s served with fried rice and grilled vegetables.
And with this dish, as with the other two, it’s served with Yum Yum sauce on the side, which customers can dip their food in, or pour it over the top.
Firdaus said that even this steak dish is more affordable than other restaurants that serve steak.
“If you order from another place, they’re gonna charge you probably $25. And here, it’s $14.90 something,” Firdaus said.
And for people who come to Dude’s Public Market, Firdaus said they can organize meetings or gatherings, or they might happen to stumble upon a community event.
“People can arrange a gathering here. … Sometimes people can arrange music (events) here, and then (we have) the Art Walk in here every Friday,” Firdaus said.
Yoimi is open on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and then on Monday through Friday and on Sunday, it’s open from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and then 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.