Popular Yard House Menu Items Ranked From Worst To Best

You wanna know a sure-fire way to disappoint your appetite right from the get-go? Show up to a restaurant that has a menu with limited options. Now that's immediately going to put your belly beast in a frustrated mood. Your appetite doesn't want to glance over a measly few options that might look appealing. It wants page after page of potential choices because it's starving, and you do not want to let it down. You can definitely find a lot of places that offer a solid selection of cuisine, but not many of them hold a candle to Yard House.

Not only does Yard House offer a ton of food options, but it has over 100 draft beers on tap, so you'll have some suds to knock back with your meal. You can't go wrong with a situation like that. However, the last thing you want to do is find yourself presented with an array of options and choose one that doesn't hit your palate to perfection. Customers beware, not everything on the Yard House menu is worth exploring. So, keep this list in mind the next time you're craving a night out. Your belly beast will thank you afterward.

Any sushi enthusiast's eyes immediately hone in on the word "sashimi" on a menu, even if the spot they're dining at isn't known for Japanese food. It's so hard to resist the temptation to order it anyway and see how it fares on your palate. Yard House definitely isn't hailed as a place that slings top-tier sashimi, but it does have Blackened Ahi Sashimi on its menu as an appetizer. Your appetite might be too curious to pass it up but trust us, it should.

The thinly sliced pieces of rare ahi tuna come served with wasabi and pickled ginger in a soy vinaigrette. The aesthetics of the dish are awesome. The deep red color of the tuna gets your mouth salivating immediately. But then you take your first bite, and those salivary glands lock up like a bank vault. The tuna doesn't have much flavor to it, and whatever flavor you do taste is mostly due to the soy vinaigrette, which skews on the salty side. If you have a hankering for Japanese food, stick to a Japanese restaurant.

When salmon is prepared by someone who really shows the fish the proper amount of love during the cooking process, the end result is a delicately flaky filet of subtle ocean flavor that whisks your mind away to the sea. It should have you thinking about salmon long after you eat it. Yard House has a Mediterranean Salmon option for anyone with the urge to dive into those culinary depths, but alas, it falls short of that great oceanic sensation your palate craves.

The salmon is crusted in za'atar seasoning and served over cauliflower rice, red quinoa tabbouleh, kale, baby tomatoes, and spicy tahini sauce. The veggies that cower beneath the filet taste good, and the spicy tahini sauce marries them all together with a kick of creamy heat. However, the salmon itself is too dry to enjoy thoroughly. It doesn't flake apart with juices like it should. Instead, you're left grabbing for a drink after each bite to help wash it down. The za'atar crust on the outside is a nice touch, but it'd be so much better if the texture of the fish wasn't such a letdown.

"Vampire" is an interesting word to include on a food menu. What could possibly be vampiric about a dish? Is it chock-full of garlic? Can it enter your home only if you invite it? These types of questions start flying through your mind when you read "Vampire Taco" on the Yard House menu. Once you read the ingredients, you see that roasted garlic is one of them, and voila: There's where the "vampire" comes from. But how's the taco as a whole? Overall, it's not bad, and it has one distinct characteristic that makes it super unique.

The taco is filled with carnitas, bacon, roasted garlic, crushed avocado, salsa roja, sour cream, and cilantro. But it's the taco shell that pulls in most of your attention. The tortilla is crusted in a layer of crispy cheese, which is a really cool way of delivering a cheese flavor. However, keep in mind that sometimes the cheese crust has too much char on it, and you get a burnt flavor, which trickles into all of the ingredients. It's a unique idea, but the cheese crust is sometimes executed poorly.

Not everyone who likes a kick of spice wants to feel like someone doused their tongue in gasoline and set it ablaze every time they eat something with heat. A light punch of heat often does the trick. Don't be fooled by the name "Firecracker Shrimp" on the Yard House menu. The word "firecracker" implies your mouth will explode in a fiery inferno, but the heat level is very manageable, and the flavors are all really solid.

The dish consists of a pile of shrimp coated in a sweet chili-Sriracha glaze resting on a crispy rice cake. The shrimp is also topped with sweet soy ginger, green onions, and cilantro. The glaze on the shrimp balances sweet and spicy really well without ever leaning too far in either direction. The texture of the crispy rice cake is a really good contrast to the succulent shrimp, as well. Even though the rice cake is rather flavorless, the crunch it gives makes it worthy of a spot on the plate. The sweet soy ginger, green onions, and cilantro somewhat take a backseat, but it's okay because the shrimp is the main attraction anyway.

Fried chicken and pancakes are two foods that, at first, don't seem like they ever belong on the same plate together. But, once you shovel in that first forkful of both ingredients you realize they definitely belong arm-in-arm on a plate. Yard House takes advantage of the two great flavors in the Nashville Hot Chicken and Pancakes dish. Not only do you get the sweetness of the pancake and the savory taste of the fried chicken, but you also get a kick of heat for a three-way battle of excellence that unfolds on your palate.

You get a stack of sweet potato pancakes, two pieces of golden fried chicken, pickles, ranch dressing, and hot honey sauce. This is an array of flavors and textures you definitely want to explore. The sweet potato pancakes are light and fluffy with a subtle sweetness that pairs really well with the rich chicken. The fried skin of the chicken is brittle and has a great crunch, which contrasts nicely with the fluffy pancakes. But once you pour the hot honey over everything, the flavors really start shouting. The honey isn't overly hot, but it adds a great layer of flavor that clings to every ingredient. Don't forget to munch on a pickle every so often for a vinegary bite that resets your palate.

There are few appetizers better suited for a large group of friends than nachos. When a tray of tortilla chips piled with a ton of delicious fixings are slapped down in the middle of the table, you can almost hear the phrase, "It's party time!" echo through your mind. If you're looking to dive head-first into a tray of nachos while also basking in a unique experience, look no further than Yard House's Poke Nachos. This is an appetizer that's always ready to crank the party in your belly up from 10 to 11.

The chips in this dish are crispy wontons, and they have a lighter feel to them than your typical corn chips. The wontons are topped with marinated cubes of raw ahi tuna, chunks of avocado, serranos, green onions, nori, sesame seeds, cilantro, sweet soy ginger sauce, white truffle sauce, and Sriracha aioli. Yea, you need these now. The tuna is super fresh, and the avocado adds a great creaminess. The nori lends that awesome seaweed flavor sushi lovers crave, and the cilantro gives each bite a bright kick. But, it's the trio of sauces that steal the show here. The white truffle flavor is subtle, but it's enough to tingle your palate. The sweet soy ginger sauce and Sriracha aioli combine for a wonderful sweet heat that leaves you craving more. This is how you start a meal properly.