Sushiro

Rating: OK
Meal:  Lunch
Price:  1200 yen
Payment:  Credit Cards accepted
Dish:  See below
English Menu: Yes

Smoking: No

Sushiro is the last Daie Mall restaurant!  Yay!  I can move on to other stuff within walking distance of the base.  Sushiro is a famous cheap kaitenzushi (sushi-go-round) restaurant.  There are 4 of these in the nearby Yokosuka area and Sushiro is the closest to base.  The other nearby one is Hamazushi located closer to my apartment.  The last two are a bit down the road, very close to each other, Kappa Sushi and Kura Sushi.  Of these, I am partial to Kappa, but Sushiro is probably second on the list.  Remember, all of these are cheap 100 yen (108 yen now with sales tax) per plate restaurants, so the quality and in some cases quantity cannot be compared with really good places.  You have to go in with that mindset in order to enjoy yourself.




The other fun part is the unique dining experience that they afford.  Each one is a little different.  Sushiro operates with a single track and a touch based ordering system.  So you can just take plates from the track or custom order from the menu.  The menu has an English option by the way, taking the difficulty out of ordering (reducing the mystery, but oh well).  The trick with the single track systems is that in order to be sure you get your order they put the plate on a special round dish that elevates it slightly, and then alert you through the menu when it's getting close.  This means you must not take any plates from those elevated round dishes if they are not intended for you!  There are numerous stories of foreigner's first time visits to this style of kaitenzushi taking the wrong plate and only realizing later that they deprived someone of their custom order.  To try and prevent this, Sushiro provides a clear instruction guide in English...though it is a bit wordy so it might seem intimidating.  Really it's all quite simple.  Other restaurants (i.e. Kappa) have 2 tracks, the regular one, and a little train that zooms out with your order and then zooms back.  At other places, there is a special slot for you to slide your dirty plates down that automatically counts up your total.  Still others have a little contest after you are done where you can win prizes based on how many plates you ate.  It's kind of fun to try them all.

Because they are cheap, you will see families with small children sitting at the tables.  This makes for a loose atmosphere that puts us foreigners at ease I think.  Also foreigner friendly, there are lots of plates without raw fish!  You want bacon or prosciutto ham on your nigiri?  Got it.  Fried chicken?  It's there.  Chocolate cake?  You betcha.  French fries?  2 kinds:  regular and sweet potato with glaze.  So even the "sushi hater" can eat and have a good time.  Personally, I prefer to save my money and go to Chuo Sushi, but hey, sometimes the fam just wants to eat a ton of sushi and the cheap places are perfect for that sort of thing.

Aside from not taking someone else's order, the one thing you should look out for are the two main plate colors.  These are different for different restaurants, but they denote the same thing:  with or without wasabi.  Whichever color you see the tamago (egg) or inari (rice in tofu pocket) on is probably without wasabi (those are popular kids dishes).  When you order from the menu, you usually have an option to select with or without.  Personally I like wasabi, so pile it on.

Also, be sure to check the menu at least once for specials.  Often the specials are not put out on the main track and you have to order them.  They are sometimes slightly more expensive than usual.  Today for example, Sushiro seemed to be having a Hokkaido specials theme.  There was corn and miso ramen, Hokkaido sourced hotate (scallop) and shake (salmon).  Mmmmmm boy!

Here are pictures of the dishes I had.  I tried to get some non-sushi ones too to show what they sometimes have available:

Yellow plates have wasabi

Special Hokkaido hotate (I added the spice)

Asari miso

Cold chicken

Stewed beef and egg I think?

Marinated thin sliced beef