I have a soft spot for conveyor belt sushi (CBS), aka kaiten sushi. I also have a soft spot for steam cart dim sum, but that’s another story.
CBS reminds me that the origins of sushi was street food for the masses. Don’t get me wrong, I love sushi bar sushi too. I categorize sushi into two major groups, fast and inexpensive and slow and costly. Each has its purpose. Conveyor belt sushi fall into the first group. For this reason, my choices for CBS usually fall into the first two pricing tiers (the cheapest and second cheapest). My choices for sushi bar sushi are the more expensive selections.
A CBS restaurant opened just outside of Ala Moana recently (click the contact button for location).
Sign
At first I was a little worried, the interior was nicer than other CBS restaurants (to me CBS restaurants should not be too upscale).
Interior
Not to worry, the prices were similar to other CBS restaurants (click menu).
I started with natto gunkanmaki.
Natto Gunkanmaki
This was really good, one of the best. The restaurant was generous with the natto. And the natto was really fresh (I wonder if “fresh” can be used to describe natto, oh well). A definite winner.
The second selection was spicy tuna gunkanmaki.
Spicy Tuna Gunkanmaki
This was also very good. The flavoring did not overpower the tuna and the rice to tuna ratio was good.
The restaurant also had kappa (cucumber) spicy tuna gunkanmaki (cucumber instead of seaweed used as the wrapping).
Kappa Spicy Tuna Gunkanmaki
I actually liked this better than the regular nori wrapping. The cucumber provided a cool contrast to the spicy tuna. The only issue was that the cucumber was slippery, I had a little trouble holding the first one with chopsticks, I used my fingers for the second one.
In keeping with my onigiri/musubi project, I tried the Spam nigirizushi.
Spam Nigirzushi
This was also very good. My one suggestion is to char the Spam just a bit more (but that’s just me). 🙂
I try to always end my visits to CBS restaurants and sushi bars with this.
Tamago Nigirizushi
This one was also very good.
I noticed the restaurant overall was generous with the sushi toppings and fillings. The rice was average, not spectacular, but good for fast food sushi. Must return for more research. 😉
A very good adventure indeed.
Enjoy.
The Mouse
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