conveyor belt sushi

[pianistimo]

yes.  i peeked at my son's pc magazine.  this is what it said:

'if you're always on the go, why not have your food moving too?  restaurants with sushi conveyor belts (known as kaiten zushi) let you choose items as they roll past.  the sushi, usually on dishes color coded by price, is often less expensive than in traditional places.  rotating-sushi joints are everywhere in japan.  but, the united states has it's share, too.  we are fond of the asahi kaiten sushi bar in arlington, va.'

never heard of this phenomenon.  has anyone done this.  how do you choose?  as it rolls past you point at it?  then, they take it off the conveyor belt and add it to your sushi before it's rolled up - or is the sushi prerolled and you are choosing the final item?  i'm confused.  perhaps i don't eat enough sushi to understand this process. 

[maxreger]

-you take it off the belt yourself, the belt is in front of everyone, its a HUGE circular table in most places. Whatever you open, you pay for... the chef's just keep feeding more plates into the belt at all times... as people take certain items off, they replace them.

[elspeth]

Yes, you just take whichever plates you want. And when you're done, the waitress counts how many plates you have, and you are charged so much per plate. I've never tried it myself, such things haven't taken off in Yorkshire yet!

[pianistimo]

plates?  with an 's.'  you mean - you take plate A with this kind of sushi - and plate B with that kind?  or you roll the sushi yourself  - once you have plates A B C D?  this sounds kind of fun.

[Bob]

Reminds me of the SNL Greek trough skit.  Everyone ate out of troughs. 

I could see other restaraunts working that way.  Kind of an interesting idea.  But some of that food much just go around and around with nobody wanting it.  (feels sorry for the lonely meatloaf)

[elspeth]

plates?  with an 's.'  you mean - you take plate A with this kind of sushi - and plate B with that kind?  or you roll the sushi yourself  - once you have plates A B C D?  this sounds kind of fun.

We're talking saucers here, rather than dinner plates! Each with a different kind of sushi on.

[pianistimo]

oh... i see now.  ok.  already rolled.  how many saucers are you allowed?  how many sushis per saucer?

[quantum]

This randomly brings back memories of I love Lucy.

[rach n bach]

You're allowed as many plates as you can pay for

They also make sure the windows are closed tight... >_> otherwise the garden would be filled with plates...

[Bob]

This randomly brings back memories of I love Lucy.

(laughing... randomly)


It's fish though right?  Wouldn't there be one sacuer that sits out too long?

[ihatepop]

Man, I just LOVE sushi.

Anyone here tried Sashimi before? I have, and its delicious.

Raw fish mmmmm...

ihatepop

[ilikepie]

The sushi in kaiten zushi 99% of the time is inferior to the traditional Sushi restaurants'. If you aren't really that big on sushi(or on money), by all means go to one. The real experience is sitting in front of the chef while he prepares the food(hopefully he has trained for many years).

Basically:
x= people in seats
o= plates
c= chef/s
<,> = direction
                          x  x      x     x      x     x      x     x     x     x  x 
                          x  o  >  o  >  o  >  o  >  o  >  o  >  o  >  o    x
                          x ^        c      c      c       c                 v     x
                          x  o  <  o  <  o  <  o  <  o  <  o  <  o  <  o    x
                          x  x      x     x      x     x     x     x      x     x  x

Why am I wasting my time though?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiten_zushi

[jlh]

I went to one of these sushi bars in Japantown in San Jose a couple weeks ago!!  They had little boats in water circling the sushi bar right in front of you and you just picked out whatever sushi you wanted.  There was generally a $2-5 roll of sushi on each plate (or saucer) which was just larger than a playing card deck.   When you're done, the server counts up how much you owe based on the number of plates and the color and pattern of the plates.  There was a laminated picture of each type of plate on the bar and it told what each cost.  It was a great experience, and let me tell you the sushi in San Jose is wonderful!!

Josh

[pianistimo]

hmm. interesting.  they say that the new ones have touch screens and you just touch that instead of the fish directly.

[diminished2nd]

I've wanted to go to one of those places for a long time... I think there's one about 4 hours away from where I live too! Mmmmmmmmm now I'm hungry for sushi 

[jlh]

Here's the sushi bar in San Jose I was talking about earlier... 

[pianistimo]

cool.  much different than i envisioned.  simpler.  more efficient. smaller conveyor belt.  smaller plates.  smaller portions.  chef doesn't look exhausted.