Alas, my first ever restaurant sushi experience in Japan was probably not as authentic as it gets, as I indulged in... conveyor belt sushi.
While in Fukuoka, there was a sushi restaurant that I really wanted to check out, but the lineup was ridiculously long, seeing as it was winding down two staircases and into some creepy basement. It was my last night in Japan, and I let my impatience get the best of me, and figured I'd settle for another sushi place.
I wandered Fukuoka's downtown core for a while, craving sushi and just generally starving. Fortunately I stumbled upon a sushi restaurant while trying to find some wifi, and the lineup seemed long enough that it appeared desirably, yet not too long that I'd be rooted on the spot for hours.
Well, turned out I'd be waiting in that lineup for over an hour, but I did succeed in finding some wifi so at least the time could fly by a little bit faster.
Conveyor-belt sushi is fascinating, and an experience all on its own. You take a seat on the bar and watch as the chefs prepare their many different cuts of sushi, and then proceed to place them on the conveyor belt whenever they find a free space. The sushi is placed on a plate according to its price, each price being assigned a different colour. At this restaurant, the yellow dishes were the cheapest, priced at ¥140 (approx. $1.70 CAD or $1.30 USD), and the most expensive were assigned elegant purple dishes, priced at ¥590 per dish ($7.10 CAD or $5.50 USD). The yellow dishes didn't always serve up traditional sushi though, as sometimes they would feature egg or spinach sashimi, though the elegant purple dishes always featured something extremely fancy.
Though these conveyor belt sushi restaurants can now be found around the world, and I have tried it in other countries, experiencing it in Japan is indeed something else. The practice actually began in the central Japanese city of Higashiosaka in the early 1950s when a man named Yoshiaki Shiraishi was having trouble manning his sushi restaurant all by himself. He spent five years designing the conveyor belt as a measure to save himself both time and energy. His restaurant was finally operating with a conveyor belt in 1958, and since then the practice has spread across Japan and worldwide.
At that point, all that's left to do is sit back, and enjoy...!
Well, not quite. See, the problem when you're there alone is that there is no one to share with. I don't usually mind being alone, but on this particular occasion, I was not able to taste as many cuts of sushi as I would have liked, seeing as there are always two pieces served on a plate, and had someone been there with me, well, we could have ordered more and split it. Oh well!
Regardless, everything was absolutely incredible!
What I did manage to taste includes: (from left to right): shrimp sushi, fatty salmon sashimi (yellow plate), scallop sashimi, tuna and green onions sushi, and mackerel sashimi! Oh, and way up is the highlight of the night: the tuna sashimi! For about $25 CAD, I ate 14 pieces of sushi, which is kind of what you'd pay back at home, just somehow tastier and more Japanese.
I wanted to keep on eating, but I was full to the brim, and neither my stomach nor my wallet could permit for any further indulgence. There will definitely be a next time, as my Japanese adventures certainly aren't over yet!
-Daniele
