Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Cool Sushi Chain
So, there's this fantastic sushi chain here called "Kura Sushi" that I was recently introduced to.
You can make a reservation via cell phone web site, but we made a last minute decision to go, so we showed up with the rest of Japan on Marine (Sea) Day and took a number. Our number was 427 and they were on about 350. It was a 2 hour wait, but well worth it.
It's an interesting set up. The staff seats you, and they have a bar counter for individuals or smaller parties as well as 4 person booths. That's as large a party as they can handle. The place isn't that large overall. The staff on the floor only seats you and cleans tables. Everything else is self service, such as the water, tea and beer; or automatic like the sushi. There is a team of sushi chefs in the kitchen furiously making tasty bites. What you do is sit at your table and use the touch screen above the conveyor belt to order everything you want. Next to the table is the conveyor belt constantly running sushi, soups, fruit, cake, etc. past. You can pick up anything you want off the belt. They have this in America already, I know. However, the touch screen ordering is cool. You can page through sushi photos and order by name or picture if you can't read Japanese. Then, back in the kitchen, they make your order fresh and put it on the conveyor belt in a red plastic bowl so that other tables know it's destined for a particular customer and they won't touch it, unless they are like sushi pirates or whatever.
The way it works next is that each dish has a chip stuck to the underside.
The computer can detect when your requested order is coming on the conveyor belt via this chip. It then pops up a warning image on the screen and tells you which order is coming. Usually, you have several orders in the system, but it knows which exact sushi is on its way to your portion of the belt. You just look for the red plastic bowls with your plates and food on top and grab them as they roll by. Any sushi that rolls around the belt for more than 5 minutes is automatically dumped so everything stays fresh. Whenever you have cleaned a plate, you drop it down the slot under the conveyor belt at the end of your table.
The plate drop slot is pictured above, just under that hot water tap handle attached to the side of the conveyor belt table. You can make your own green tea with the hot water, as they supply green tea powder in a covered cup on each table. After every 3 dishes you drop, there is a little video played on the screen and you can randomly win a game. If you win, there is a hopper at each table above the conveyor system containing little hollow plastic balls like in those coin operated machines that have toys inside. The ball drops out and contains a prize of some kind. We won a coupon. The computer continues to tally how many plates you have dropped and you are billed accordingly. They don't bill you based on what you order, so if you change your mind and never pick it off the belt, that's cool. You are only billed for what you drop down the slot, plate-wise. And this is the best part: each plate is 100 Yen (about a dollar). The four of us ate like famished wild boars and the total bill was about $38.
Amazing, and fun, and healthy. Very nice.
You can make a reservation via cell phone web site, but we made a last minute decision to go, so we showed up with the rest of Japan on Marine (Sea) Day and took a number. Our number was 427 and they were on about 350. It was a 2 hour wait, but well worth it.
It's an interesting set up. The staff seats you, and they have a bar counter for individuals or smaller parties as well as 4 person booths. That's as large a party as they can handle. The place isn't that large overall. The staff on the floor only seats you and cleans tables. Everything else is self service, such as the water, tea and beer; or automatic like the sushi. There is a team of sushi chefs in the kitchen furiously making tasty bites. What you do is sit at your table and use the touch screen above the conveyor belt to order everything you want. Next to the table is the conveyor belt constantly running sushi, soups, fruit, cake, etc. past. You can pick up anything you want off the belt. They have this in America already, I know. However, the touch screen ordering is cool. You can page through sushi photos and order by name or picture if you can't read Japanese. Then, back in the kitchen, they make your order fresh and put it on the conveyor belt in a red plastic bowl so that other tables know it's destined for a particular customer and they won't touch it, unless they are like sushi pirates or whatever.
The way it works next is that each dish has a chip stuck to the underside.
The computer can detect when your requested order is coming on the conveyor belt via this chip. It then pops up a warning image on the screen and tells you which order is coming. Usually, you have several orders in the system, but it knows which exact sushi is on its way to your portion of the belt. You just look for the red plastic bowls with your plates and food on top and grab them as they roll by. Any sushi that rolls around the belt for more than 5 minutes is automatically dumped so everything stays fresh. Whenever you have cleaned a plate, you drop it down the slot under the conveyor belt at the end of your table.
The plate drop slot is pictured above, just under that hot water tap handle attached to the side of the conveyor belt table. You can make your own green tea with the hot water, as they supply green tea powder in a covered cup on each table. After every 3 dishes you drop, there is a little video played on the screen and you can randomly win a game. If you win, there is a hopper at each table above the conveyor system containing little hollow plastic balls like in those coin operated machines that have toys inside. The ball drops out and contains a prize of some kind. We won a coupon. The computer continues to tally how many plates you have dropped and you are billed accordingly. They don't bill you based on what you order, so if you change your mind and never pick it off the belt, that's cool. You are only billed for what you drop down the slot, plate-wise. And this is the best part: each plate is 100 Yen (about a dollar). The four of us ate like famished wild boars and the total bill was about $38.
Amazing, and fun, and healthy. Very nice.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
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