by jessica yoon
A few weeks ago, my family took a short trip to Tokyo. We didn’t make a long list of things to do or see, but we did make sure to have a reservation at a good sushi restaurant. There are many exceptional places in Tokyo, but not all are foreigner friendly. Even some of the Michelin starred restaurants don’t accept non-Japanese diners (!?), but luckily Sushi Kanesaka isn’t one of them and we were able to get a reservation for dinner.
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A few years ago, conveyer belt sushi became very popular in Korea. Instead of ordering, small tapas like plates of sushi are placed on a conveyer belt. Each person grabs what they want to eat. At the end of the meal, the plates are tallied and paid for. These restaurants are common in Seoul located everywhere from business districts to trendy shopping districts. My family and I had lunch at the one at Shinsegae Department Store. The sushi isn’t spectacular, but good enough and reasonably priced. We ate our hearts out and until our shirts were snug.
I’ve never been to a conveyer belt sushi restaurant outside of Korea. Does anyone have a favorite place or one they frequent?
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When my family gets together in San Diego we always have sushi night. We throw a big icebox into the trunk and drive to the Japanese supermarket where we buy tons of fresh sashimi, fish roe, pickled diakon, and pink ginger. It may seem strange that my family puts together a sushi dinner at home. For many, sushi is a take out or dining out kind of cuisine. However, making sushi or putting together a sashimi plate is not all that complicated. Sure, it won’t be like having a meal at Nobu or Morimoto, but it definitely will be much cheaper. It might even be cheaper than ordering from the Japanese place around the corner!
While I was browsing the aisles of M2M, an Asian supermarket in the East Village, I saw that they sold some sashimi and fish roe. They didn’t have a large selection, so I couldn’t serve a platter of sashimi like the picture from my family’s dinner, but they did have everything needed for spicy tuna makis. I guess I could’ve gone to the cute Japanese supermarket called Sunrise Mart, which has a greater variety of sashimi, but I already had a bag full of groceries from Trader Joe’s so I decided to settle with M2M’s selection (yea, I was also being lazy).
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