kaiten sushi

This was originally going to be family trip pt 2, but it turns out the only thing I wanted to talk about from the Tokyo part of the family trip was kaiten sushi (conveyor belt sushi). All of the other Tokyo things we did were just classic tourist activities that you can see anywhere on the internet. And sure, kaiten sushi is also a very widely-known activity, but there are many conveyor belt sushi places. The three major chains are: Kura Sushi, Sushiro, and Hama Sushi. All three are within a block of each other in Takadanobaba, so we really scored the jackpot.

Amongst tourists, I think Kura and Sushiro are the most widely known. They even have locations in the US. I forgot which one we went to our first visit to Japan immediately post-covid - I think it was Sushiro. I remember being pretty disappointed that there wasn’t any sushi that was actually revolving around the belt…everything was made to order. It felt like we were being slightly robbed of our experience. I think they removed the buffet-style revolving sushi because of covid, but I suspect they haven’t brought it back due to general health and waste concerns. I have actually seen a few proper kaiten sushi places that aren’t the main chains. We went to one in Akihabara that was quite delicious, but I got a major stomachache afterwards, so I feel like that experience changed my perspective on proper kaiten sushi…

I remember not being super impressed by our Sushiro experience, it felt like it was definitely more of a novelty than proper good sushi, which you can find basically anywhere in Japan. The first place I went to this year was Kura, and it was indeed a lot better than I remembered from our Sushiro experience. Some pieces were better than others, it was a pretty good deal, and you could play the gachapon game (basically gambling for kids) - for every 5 sushi plates you insert, you get a chance to win a small prize, which is a smart incentive to get customers to buy more plates. Since the plates are so small, it’s fun to try a bunch of things to figure out which dish is indeed the tastiest and which ones are the best deals. The marinated tuna came out ahead.

One day, I was out with my childhood friend Shiho and her friend. We were wrapping up dinner at an izakaya when I got a message from a friend visiting from the US saying he was heading over, and was interested in eating sushi. I asked Shiho what we should do, and she suggested going to Hama Sushi (which is pronounced like “hamazushi” when you say it together - Japanese does this fun thing where they sometimes modify consonants depending on what comes before it. Like fukuro -> rinkobukuro). It was my first time hearing about Hama, but Shiho said it was her favorite of all the kaiten sushi places, so I had to trust the local. We went and got a number, and the wait time was an hour long! Instead of waiting around, we did this big brain move of going to another izakaya for drinks and some small bites while we waited. Then, it was our turn - we went to Hama and ordered like 5 plates because we were quite full by dinner part 3. But the few bites we did have shocked me. It was objectively delicious. I think it’s slightly more expensive than the other places on average, but the quality is unmatched.

Since then, we found ourselves going to Hama regularly. The quality of the sushi and other food is so vastly superior to Kura and Sushiro. It probably took 5 visits before I really figured out Hama’s queue system - you grab a number, and on weekend nights it’s at least an hour wait. You can monitor your progress in line, but you have to come back and check-in once you get close to the front of the queue, otherwise they won’t call your number at all and you’ll get sent to the “waiting” pool. If your number on the monitor is red, you haven’t checked-in yet (or got un-checked-in, which happens if they call your number but you aren’t there). Then another hack is that you can enter the queue remotely online and you can also reserve a specific time in advance, which I haven’t tried yet, but could be a good strategy for visitors. Entering the queue remotely is great, but it’s tricky to get the timing down perfectly. All of this hassle is completely worth it though. For the price, the food is simply unbeatable. By far our most visited restaurant.

I had such fond memories of that first Hama Sushi visit with Shiho that I really wanted to recreate that local experience for my family. I didn’t want to overhype it because it is still a “fast” food place at the end of the day, and we had a pretty great lineup of much nicer restaurants ahead of us. I tend to have a strong bias towards good value (aka cheap but still delicious), so I didn’t want my biases to affect my planning too much, but I felt like this counted as a local experience (which they wanted) since locals actually do go to Hama and they love it.

My family loved Hama so much, I think possibly even more than me. It was their first meal off of the plane so perhaps they were extra hungry and not used to Japanese standards of food (I have heard from many people that the first post-flight meal is always the most mind-blowing one). We ordered as many interesting and “fancy” dishes as we could and truly did not hold back. When they saw the bill at the end of the night, their minds were actually blown - less than $15 per person. I was so glad that they had a great time - there’s probably nothing that makes me happier than other people enjoying foods I love as much, or even more, than I do.

Throughout the rest of the trip, Daniel kept telling me he wanted to go back to Hama. We ate such incredible food during the rest of the trip, but it actually did make me really happy knowing that he genuinely loved it so much. I guess we are related, after all.