Well, actually it doesn’t so much these days. We’ve had some really great sushi and sashimi on our trip – for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some nights, when we’ve had a big lunch we will choose sushi for dinner as we are in total control of quantity. That’s if we don’t want convenience store sandwiches!
Back in the day conveyor belt sushi places were just that – the sushi chefs in the middle, making the food, putting it on the belt, in a little boat, a little train, whatever the thing was for that restaurant. We would wait and see what appeared, or ask for something especially. The dishes were colour coded for the price of the sushi and at the end the dishes were counted up and that was that.
When we started coming to Japan that was how things worked, but as technology has changed so to has the conveyor belt sushi restaurant. The first change was the there would be two tracks for delivery. On the lower track would be food selections on plates with plastic lids on them which we could take if we wanted them. The upper track was for specific deliveries. With a tablet at each table we could order anything we wanted and soon it would come zooming along and be shunted to a little siding in front of our position, when the tablet would announce that our order had arrived. The sushi chefs were not longer out front. The tablet kept track of what we had ordered, the dishes have a chip in them to ensure delivery and at the end of the evening there was a slot at the end of the table where they all went onto a third, hidden conveyor belt.
On this trip we tried a new to us chain called Sushiro. They are a big operation and it is slick. When you arrive you check in via a machine, telling them if you want a table or counter space. When your number is called you scan your ticket and it produces another ticket with your table number, which is also keyed to your tablet. The lower level conveyor belt no longer has sushi on plates – just ads for the special of the day. There was a case where some idiot internet goon was messing with the food on the belt and the stores said okay then, we won’t do that anymore. One bad apple…..
Beer and 14 dishes between us – total less than $20.00 apiece for all we could mange to eat.
We always feel like we’ve eaten So Much Sushi, then we look over at the counter and people have 20 dishes stacked up, as well as a soup bowl just for themselves. I think we’re half milers, but then we haven’t had as much practice as the locals.
Wagyu beef sushi, with yuzu jelly and onions. So good.
And when we are done we tell the tablet that we’re ready to go – it totals our meal and shows it to us. From there we go to the checkout terminal in the front, scan our ticket and pay the machine. There are about 15 ways to pay. When we first started coming to Japan it was cash cash cash. Over the pandemic there was a move to have contactless pay and the options have expanded. We still find some places that are cash only, and others that are credit card only, but most have many choices – Apple Pay, a service called PayPay, Rakuten, our train cards. Lots of options now, and a lot less handling of cash by the staff.
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