Sushi Station

We had a couple of Japanese visitors at work today. Since my company is the American division of a Japanese company, we often get visitors from our parent company. Normally we have lunch catered in in their honor. Today, instead, we had lunch at a new restaurant close by, Sushi Station.

The building is quite large; from the outside, it appears to have two stories, though it doesn't. Inside, the entire wait staff greeted each group of customers. (They also did the same thing when people left--something I found annoying.) The most unusual thing about this restaurant is that there were several long conveyor belts running from the kitchen for most of the way across the restaurant. Plates of food circled on the belts, and the tables were arranged next to the belts. The idea was that people would pick the plates with the food they wanted from the belt as the plates passed by. (The belts were encased to keep the food chilled, but there were doors you could open to take out the food.) The plates were different colors, indicating the price of each dish. At the end of the meal, the staff would count your dishes and total up your bill.

While I'm no stranger to sushi, even if I'm not an expert, this method of serving food was novel to me. I sat next to the belt and passed out food to my co-workers. One of them hadn't had sushi before, so she was a little nervous about it. Another co-worker gave her advice. Meanwhile, I had shrimp, salmon, a California roll, another type of roll similar to a California roll, and eel. After that, I switched to dessert, having several dishes of fruit. The food was good, but some of the dishes seemed overpriced to me. For instance, the dish of strawberries probably had about two berries on there when you added up all of the slices, and the sauce that came with it tasted suspiciously like condensed milk. Still, it might be worth an occasional visit to this place--especially if someone else is paying.