Whenever I go to a sushi restaurant, I never order a set. Sets always come with a variety of sushi and among them are usually octopus, squid and fish roe; missing is usually chutoro or anything including "toro" (toro literally translates into "fat" - not hard, chewy lard but a blend of meat and fat that can be extremely tasty). Since I'm not fond of the former and the latter is my favourite, I always order sushi a la carte. This tends to quickly become pricey, especially since the sushi pieces that I like are usually the more expensive ones. Because of this, I limit my trips to a proper sushi restaurant for special occasions and all other times go to the much more reasonably priced kaiten sushi restaurants.
Kaiten sushi places are very much about self-service. Customers sit on stools by a counter and help themselves to plates of sushi moving on a conveyor belt. Rather than a waitress serving you hot tea, cups are lined up on the counter, along with tea bags or powder; you must fill the cups yourself with hot water from the taps built into the counter every few seats. Everything is within easy reach from your seat and at your complete disposal: chopsticks, saucers, wet napkins, soy sauce and ginger. Even though you can help yourself to the sushi rolling around, you can also order things
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| The price menu |
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directly from the chef or waitress and the shop will usually provide a picture menu for this. Above the counter, you will usually see the price list, and each plate colour indicates a different price. The more expensive plates will not usually be on the conveyor belt unless the place is busy, so ordering directly from the chef or waitress is the only option during lull times. As you finish each plate, keep them stacked in front of you. When you've had your fill of raw fish, flag down a waitress who will
come to your seat and give you a tally of your plates on a piece of paper which you then take to the cash register by the entrance and pay there. As a side story, I once went to a kaiten sushi restaurant where the person sitting next to us snuck one of his plates onto our stack. Luckily, it had been a ¥500 plate for beer - the plate literally had a "beer" label across it; the waitress gives it to you when you order alcohol since it's not easy to stack mugs or bottles. Since we had no beer mugs at our seats while the young punk next to us was still nursing his but had no beer plate in his stack, the waitress waived the cost. Interestingly, she also did not accuse nor mention it to him even though it was quite obviously his. This only happened once for the 10+ years we've been in Japan but it's sad that it marred our first year here.
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| This plate of chutoro is ¥550. |
Since chutorou is my favourite piece of sushi, I judge most sushi restaurants by it. Chutorou is from the belly of tuna, and there are different names for the different cuts of tuna meat; akami is leaner and ootorou is fattier. I find that akami is tough and not that tasty while ootoro is sometimes too overpowering. For kaiten sushi, I love the shop in Yokohama, Miura Misaki-ko, which is on the 6th floor of the Cial shopping centre in Yokohama Station. They have another branch in the World Porters near Sakuragicho Station but this restaurant is not as good as the Yokohama one. Miura Misaki-ko always has amazing chutoro (the tuna comes fresh from Miura port), an excellent salmon toro, nama yuba, and salmon mayo - the last two of which isn't done in many shops but is great here. Their "aburi" plates (broiled with a hand-held blowtorch) are wonderful - especially the tuna and salmon. Most kaiten sushi bars will do these types of sushi and simply let you dip them in soy sauce, Miura Misaki-ko has a topping of mayonnaise or marinated daikon that really enhances the flavour of the dish. In Shinjuku, the best chutorou has been at Numazukou Kaiten Sushi which is underground close to the Keio department store at Shinjuku station.
How to get to Numazukou: From the street level, the best place to go underground is at staircase number 6 (not Exit No 6 - it's a completely different area). After you go down the staircase, turn right. It's just pass the glass doors.
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| The west side of Shinjuku Station with a view of the main entrance to the Keio Department Store Building. Staircase 6 is across the street from the right side of the Keio Department Store. |
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| A street level view of staircase number 6 which has a sign with its number on the side and a view of the right side of the Keio Department Store across the street. |
Numazukou is reasonably priced and the quality is consistently good. They do a very nice aburi engawa (broiled flatfish) and a great anago (boiled eel) that they will warm again when you order. Also good is the toro tekka, which is tuna with shiso (perilla leaf) in a roll. The bitterness of the perilla leaf gives the roll a nice bite and this type of roll is not common to all sushi restaurants. The chutorou is a bit pricey at ¥550 a plate but it's usually good. I also like to have aji (horse mackeral) and buri or hamachi (yellowtail). Numazukou is thankfully a non-smoking sushi bar, however the line-ups for lunch and dinner time can be very long, it's best to go during the off-times since they are open all-day.
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| Toro tekka is ¥550. |
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| Aburi engawa is ¥400. |
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| Anago comes in a long strip (¥550) or cut into two pieces (¥330) |
For a general map of my restaurants, visit :
My map
As a woman, I find it offensive for restaurants to serve high-calorie food that is
tasteless. What are the benefits of ingesting a heavy cream sauce that
has no flavour - an extra 20 minutes to your workout routine or
slightly tighter clothing? For all the enjoyment your tastebuds are experiencing, you might as well be eating plain tofu or rice. And I hate it when vegetables have been cooked to the point that it's practically pureed or have lost any hope of retaining any flavour; equally bad is trying to find a vegetable to spear your fork with but discovering that the one piece of broccoli on top was a loner. But whenever I bite into the pasta at Al Dente, the sorrow from terrible, past pasta dishes disappears and the world is a less fearful place. The cream sauces are hearty and the vegetables are flavourful and have more than a cameo appearance.
Al Dente's menu is written in Japanese and Italian. On the front right side are the starter courses: bruschette (bruschetta), antipasti (appetizer) and insalata (salad); while the left side has the spaghetti alla giapponese (Japanese-style spaghetti which usually has a soysauce base) and determinazione lista (house specials). On the other side are more spaghetti sauces: salsa pomodoro (tomato sauce), en bianco (white sauces), and alla panna (cream sauces). All pasta dishes come with 110g of spaghetti. If you wish for less, you can order the 70g "piccolo" portion and save ¥50. For heartier eaters, there are "grande" (180g for ¥100 extra) and "doppia" (250g for ¥200 extra) sizes. This is all written down on the top right corner of the menu. When ordering, the restaurant forbids you from ordering only one doppia-size dish and sharing it between two adults. 
