Conveyor-belt sushi (or kaiten sushi in Japanese) is a popular type of sushi restaurant in Japan. If you are not familiar, just picture a literal conveyor belt running through the restaurant transporting the sushi plates: customers can pick from the conveyor the dishes they like.
Let’s be honest, conveyor-belt sushi is to sushi what fast food is to beef. Not your first choice for quality sushi in Japan. However, it can be a fun experience and a good way to have a quick meal.
This review is about a lunch at Hamazushi, the largest coveyor-belt sushi restaurant chain in Japan (with over 400 outlets).
The visit
I visited a Hamazushi restaurant located in a non-descript shopping mall near the Oi Racecourse. Not your usual tourist spot, but I had a reason to be there (hint: the massive citizen flea market) and there was not much around.
First of all, I was greeted by the house robot… and guided through a number of choices (counter? table? how many people?). Once Mr (?) robot was satisfied I got a ticket with my assigned seat number. The staff then escorted to my spot:
All well, the only drawback of the system is that the algorithm is not spacing people… the place was almost empty and the few customers were sitting neck to neck in one corner of the restaurant. Not a tragedy… but they could rethink the algorithm to make a better use of the space when it is not too crowded. This is also why I cringe when I hear speaking about artificial intelligence… still a long way to go.
The first thing I did was preparing some hot tea. In this case, as customary, I was provided the green tea powder (matcha) and I poured the hot water by keeping a button pressed with my cup.
As you can see, they have five different sauces available for each customer, including different types of soy sauce. The sushi comes without any soy sauce or wasabi added by the cooks.
It was early, but there were already a good number of dishes on the conveyor belt. Hamazushi is very technological and they also gave me the chance to order additional items and drinks using a touch screen. Every spot is equipped with one of these touch screens and English language is available.
When your order is ready, the screen will display a message. The order will come through the conveyor belt and it will be placed on a special pedestal (like the tempura sushi in the photo above) so other customers will not take it (not sure if it always works…).
I did not picture all the dishes I had. These are a few:
Mackerel with vinegar sushi.
Lean tuna sushi.
Seared salmon sushi.
You can have a look at their website (in English) for the full standard menu. They also have a bunch of seasonal items.
This is kind of run-of-the-mill everyday sushi, but it was good. The dishes were simple, the rice was ok. I have been in other conveyor-belt sushi restaurants that made a mess and were using rice probably one day old. Or that were trying to game the customers by putting on the conveyor belt only expensive qualities of sushi to push your final ticket. Nothing of this happened at Hamazushi that struck me a very professional establishment.
The check
When you are finished, you have to indicate that you are finished through the touch screen and the waiter will come to give you the check to pay at the reception.
I spent 864 yen (7.74 USD) for six dishes and a coke. All the dishes individually cost me 108 yen (except one that I ordered via the touch screen that cost 162 yen). The dishes usually have a pair of nigiri sushi. The one that cost me 162 yen had three pieces of tuna (one fatty, one medium fatty and one lean). It is also great that they do not have a system of colored plates with different prices according to the color (it can get confusing sometimes).
That’s as cheap as it gets for fresh sushi. Again, this is sushi fast food but everything was made by the book and I had a positive experience. If you are looking for cheap sushi and you like the coveyor belt concept, I strongly recommend Hamazushi. After all, you cannot have an omakase every day!
Where in Tokyo:
They are everywhere in Japan. Check their website for locations (even if for some reason the English version of the website only list a fraction of their locations).
The location I visited was located on the second floor of Wira Oi shopping mall.