Andy in Tokyo News, views, life and current affairs from Japan

This week, chilblains, we will be talking about kaiten-zushi, otherwise known as conveyor belt sushi. Kaiten-zushi restaurants have a conveyor belt running around the counter table upon which plates of sushi are placed. You can choose to either shout your order to one of the sushi chefs, or simply take whatever you like from the conveyor belt. The quality and price vary, but last night we visited a first-class establishment called Magurobito (literally meaning tuna-person), which is located underneath Kichijoji station.

As you are no doubt aware, I have a penchant for trying absolutely any kind of food that is shoved under my face. So then, yesterday I had the following:

This is sea urchin. I had no idea what to expect when I tried this. The outer shell is rock-hard, and the only edible parts are the small orange blobs of… stuff splattered around the inside. It tasted a bit like a liquidised oyster, which is either not bad or absolutely God-awful, depending on your taste. I think this one cost about ¥700 (around GBP3.50), which is quite expensive considering how little you actually get to eat. Hmm… Andy’s verdict - 6/10.

Greenpeace members turn away! This is whale-meat. I couldn’t work out if it was raw or cooked, which leads me to believe it probably tastes the same no matter what you do with it. The cat poo-shaped blobs on top are grated ginger. It tasted like very fatty tuna, and the ginger was a bit overwhelming. I’ve heard that few people in Japan eat whale meat these days, and to be honest I’m not surprised when fish tastes much nicer. Makes you wonder why they bother with whaling at all really (the excuse is always “scientific purposes”, but I really don’t see what kind of scientific information they’ll glean from a 10 tonne carcass) Andy’s verdict: 7/10.

The price of each item is based on plate colour. Each place has it’s own pricing system so you really need to check before snatching the first thing that passes by on the conveyor. As you can see, we had a fair few plates. The plates have RF chips embedded in them, so when it comes to totalling up the bill the waitress simply has to wave a wand-like device over the plates, rather than counting everything by hand. This means they can get more customers in and out of the door during busy periods. I thought it was a pretty snazzy way of finding a practical use for new technology, rather than all that weird bollocks they would show on the BBC’s “Tomorrow’s World” (”Jet-powered dogs: the future of travel!”).

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