Miscellaneous Sushi via Conveyor Belt

[Grumps]

My wife's daughter came to visit last week and her and her boyfriend picked out an interesting spot in DC's Chinatown. It's called Kura and it's a sushi bar with a track that runs along the booths that allows you to open a bowl on the line and take the plate of sushi accordingly as it goes by. There's also a track above the main line that will deliver special orders to your table from the digital menu. The special orders came at various cost, but every plate taken off the main line goes for $3.90. When you're done with the plates, you slip them through a slot and get rewarded with a toy in a ball that comes down a chute after the fifteenth plate goes through. Yeah, the kids really loved that... even though they're like in their thirties. Still, it was fun, and decent enough food. Just a bit crazy. For me.

 

[Tuppertn]

Cool idea.

I'd grab a hamburger if it went by...medium-well, preferably.

 

[skeller047]

I am a sushi snob. No no no nononononononon…..

 

[atwl77]

Pretty common sight in sushi restaurants over here. They use coloured plates to denote different prices, so you can pick cheaper plates with egg or cucumber, mid-tier stuff like ebiko (fish egg) and salmon, or the more expensive stuff like unagi (eel). Can get pretty expensive if you're not careful, though.

 

[jonf]

Conveyor belt sushi is known as Kaitenzushi in Japan. It's been around since the late 1950s, and is widespread and well established. Kura Sushi is one of these, it set up a US subsidiary in 2008.

 

[Grumps]

I'd grab a hamburger if it went by...medium-well, preferably.

Every now and then, you'd see a couple pieces of seared "American Wagyu" beef on rice go by, but that wasn't for me. You know... when in Rome. I did get some noodles though with pork and broth, but tended to grab the more interesting uncooked offerings going by on the fly.

It was a neat experience, but I'd only go back if I were to take a grandkid there some day. My wife took a good picture capturing a "what the F is this?" moment of mine.

 

[turf3]

I've eaten in a couple places in Japan with that setup.

The same sushi chefs as more traditional joints are doing their stuff behind the belt, to the same standards. The sushi was great. If you wanted something special, you just called out to the chef and he'd make it and put it on the belt for you.

 

[Tenor Viol]

The conveyor belt sushi restaurants exist in the UK although I doubt there are many of them. Last time I ate Japanese food in the UK it was in a normal type of Japanese restaurant in Manchester.

 

[skeller047]

I have been going to the same sushi restaurant since 1992 or 93. I occasionally go elsewhere and am usually disappointed.

 

[Grumps]

That was my first time in DC for sushi, though I've been numerous times for Chinese. My home town has very little quality in regard to the latter. But we do have some decent sushi places in town, as well as plenty of raw seafood options with oyster happy hours for a buck apiece. Got hooked on oysters when my dad would bring me along with him on his rounds on Sundays and we'd snack at the markethouse at the harbor.

 

[Tuppertn]

Got hooked on oysters when my dad would bring me along with him on his rounds on Sundays and we'd snack at the markethouse at the harbor.

Bleh! Like salty bogies sliding down your throat.

I remember my grandfather slurping them off the half shell, though. But then he also ate pickled squid. Never could get into it myself.

 

[Grumps]

Like salty bogies sliding down your throat.

Ideally, yes. Yet folks will smother them in ketchup and horseradish nonetheless. When I talk about them at the harbor in town with my father when I was a kid, that was back in the day of the Chesapeake Bay skipjacks; sailing boats meant for oyster harvesting. They'd dock the skipjacks in the harbor and that's where the local restaurants and shuckers would buy them. We'd get them at the nearby markethouse where they were kept on ice. My father was a physician and musician. He seemed to always be on call, but he'd take me with him on weekend rounds. Like fun time in the ICU. The oysters were a reward at the end and I'll always think of those times with my father when I have them. And of course, they're everywhere here living on the Chesapeake Bay. Friends will bring them over to shuck and yes, you have to have your own particular oyster shucker for the job. A good friend of mine who recently passed made Christmas Eve rather special each year, arriving in a Father Christmas outfit and a bushel of live oysters. It's certainly an acquired taste, but 'round these parts we all acquire it.

 

[turf3]

I learned to love oysters on the half shell when I lived in Houston. Angelo's Fisherman's Wharf on South Main, something like $7.50 for a dozen.

In the years since then, I've gotten sick twice on raw oysters, and it's a miserable experience. I decided not to eat any more raw meat, with the one exception of sushi prepared in Japan by an actual sushi chef.

 

[Grumps]

In the years since then, I've gotten sick twice on raw oysters, and it's a miserable experience.

Well, definitely avoid them at the buffet. And you have to trust that your shucker never let them freeze or otherwise die. It's been a long time since they've got me, but I recall two occasions from some years back when I had more lax standards. Each time it hit me one and a half days later. So that's when I know it's from the oysters.