Kamakura Trip 2: Kaiten Sushi

Yesterday, I went to Kamakura for the 2nd time. It was an all girls trip to the beach, some washokuji in the form of conveyor belt style sushi dining, a visit to a temple and a shrine, and a visit to the home of my Japanese friend.

This post is about the Kaiten Sushi place (also known as Owari Sushi), which is a type of restaurant where you can select the sushi plates you want as they whiz by you on the conveyor belt.

After a brief visit to the beach, which is currently one of the few that have officially opened before this Monday's Umi no Hi holiday when almost all beaches in the Kanto region will open until sometime in August, we walked for about 7 minutes to TOTOYA-MICHI for some authentic Kamakura kaiten sushi. The restaurant is on the main road leading up to the torii gates of the famous Hachimangu shrine. This road is one of the oldest in the towns. As you near the shrine, the central dividing island of the road has been preserved as a dirt road lined with cherry blossom trees.

The restaurant itself was quite spacious and were lucky enough to score one of the belt-side tables. All tables at the restaurant had at least two seats right beside the conveyor belt so that at least two people at your table could easily grab the sushi plates as they whizzed by. This was one of the coolest things I've seen yet at a kaiten sushi place. Previously, I had only encountered the style where all seats are on stools right in front of the moving belt and the sushi chefs are all encircled within. This place had stools too, but it was so much cooler to sit at one of the tables.

During the dining experience, the wait staff come around with the fresh fish on platters for all to view. We saw two large, fresh red snapper, on a platter. The waitress kindly told us that we could order these directly by making a request to the chef's within the belt; which really meant just asking them since one was literally about 4 feet away from where I was sitting). That was another great thing about sitting at the tables. They had menus as well, so you could look at the entire menu and have a fresh, made-to-order variety of sushi. Having a native speaker with us made it so much easier to order with confidence. Off conveyor belt, we ordered: a set of California rolls (honestly, truly fresh and so delicious!), the fresh red snapper (they don't get any fresher than this!), some gently seared salmon sushi (it's salmon sushi, but grilled ever so slightly and comes with a wedge of lemon, some slivers of a vegetable that looks like onion but isn't, and some mushed radish --- soooooooo tasty), and a delicate, flat white fish native to Japan (I forget the name but very tasty indeed).

From the conveyor belt, we picked up some ebi (shrimp sushi), something that I thought was clam sushi (but in fact, we suspect it was squid because it was the chewiest sushi I have ever tried to eat; we still don't know what variety it was), some cucumber maki, some tuna, some vinegared mackerel (very nice), some kiraagi chicken (basically seasoned deep fried chicken balls in batter; I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I didn't taste any, so I can't comment), and some salmon with onion and mayonnaise (again, I didn't have any of this one either). There was also an egg sushi plate, where the egg tasted a lot sweeter than any version I've had in Canada or Japan.

Aside from the conveyor belt, the miso shiro soup was a self-serve option, which we opted to try. I liked it. Very salty with chunks of various seafood. My bowl had a shrimp head in it and some very bony fish. I elected not to eat most of the fish due to the sheer number of bones it contained. Hot tea and iced tea were self-serve and compliments of the house as well. I elected for the drink bar option (150 Yen) as I always try to have some beverage with sushi that might kill any bacteria not finished off by the soya vinegar or wasabi. This time, it was Pepsi.

Another first time for me to see was the alternate, non sushi / fish variety of food that came around on the conveyor belt. Most notably, there was the deep friend chicken balls that I had spoken of earlier, a basket of french fries, some sweets, and dessert fruit such as honeydew melon and watermelon. Since my friend had prepared some sweets for us at her place, we had none at the restaurant. Besides, I wasn't too keen on picking up some watermelon after it was sitting beside a cutting board and knife that was near raw fish. Call me paranoid.

Above are photos of the dessert (flan or cheesecake?) complete with whip cream, slice of melon and a cherry, and the watermelon.

The bill is calculated by plate colour. Various sushi, other non-fish dishes, and desserts all come on a certain plate colour and at the end of the meal the waitress tallies up the meal by counting the coloured plates. The watermelon is on a green plate, so that one is 250 yen. The dessert cake with whip cream is on a black plate, so I think that was 350 yen.

It was one of my favourite memories of kaiten sushi. The fish was all truly so fresh and almost all delicious. Truthfully, I could have done without the dish that I thought was clam, but even that was a memorable experience; I can't recall another sushi experience where I had to chew for more than 4.5 minutes before I could get the sushi small and soft enough to swallow.

The restaurant has large 3/4 windows on 3 sides, so there is plenty of sunlight streaming in. The chefs and wait-staff are super friendly, and the tables have a divider between them, so it feels so private.

The next kaigai friend that comes to visit is getting a trip to Kamakura just to check out this kaiten sushi place. Or, I may not wait for any kaigai friends.