A Yaso Spice in Sheffield

Purchased a voucher for a gift however rang 4 times to book no answer messages left.....finally got annoyed and rang in the evening explaining how many times I had left a message to contact me. The attitude from the lady was you're too late read the small print bookings only took on the 5 th oct only then invalid how rude..... Contacted living social to complain to be told voucher has now expired ......be careful that if you see this offer that you don't get mislead like us ..... Never will I book here dissapointed and embarrassed because I purchased for a gift Outrageous food might be ok never got chance to choose or book sorry

Another cheap Sunday night out courtesy of Living Social and another really interesting experience. The decor inside A Yaso doesn't quite live up to the promise of the exciting looking exterior but it's clean and tidy with some attractive Caribbean trinkets and pictures. The main issue with A Yaso was that it looked and felt more like a takeaway with some spare tables as opposed to a restaurant. There was no partition between the takeaway guests and the tables and the door was sometimes left open on a draughty Sheffield night. That said our table for six was nicely laid out. There are some really good points to this place. They make their own (really) rich and tasty drinks including ginger beer, milk stout and fruit punch. They also make their own super looking cakes although we didn't try these as we were too full from our meal. The service was far from silver but the waitress (who also doubled as the assistant cook) had a really nice way with her which made up for the slowish and slightly disjointed service. I suppose the service summed up the restaurant; some really strong points but rather disorganised. For starters we had salt fish fritters, dumplings and fried plantain. It was not spectacular but pleasant enough. For mains we had jerk chicken, fried chicken, red bean stew and two mutton curries. It was all served with rice and peas (where the peas are kidney beans) which was mildly flavoured, filling and not at all sloppy as I had feared. The quality of the chicken was really high. The jerk chicken was modestly flavoured but tasty and succulent. The fried chicken was pretty similar to KFC but better with all the flavour but none of the grease. It was served with a side of spicy-ish gravy with all the bits of chicken and veg from the bottom of the roasting pan, just as it should be. My daughter also enjoyed her veggie red bean stew which had a hint of coconut about it. However, the eleven out of ten highlight was the mutton curry. It was mutton (and I think it was sheep mutton rather than goat) on the bone cooked for hours if not days until it was all falling apart in a rich, fairly mildly spiced, thick sauce. It was a delight, like going back to winter 1975 when your Mum had run out of money and bought a cheap cut of lamb that she stewed for hours. You'd get the stew, wolf it down and then spend the next twenty minutes trying to suck the remaining bits of meat and marrow from what was left of the bones. Funnily enough, they also did oxtail, another 70's butcher's favourite. It's a style of cooking that we don't seem to do in this country any more and I now realise how I miss it. So, despite A Yaso's shortcomings, most notably the take away / kebab shop feel, it's worth a visit for some of the lovely food on offer. I suppose that if you don't fancy the restaurant, you could always pop in for a takeaway. I wish them the best of luck with it and, with a bit more organisation, it may well work!