Sushi

The sushi restaurants here are very different than they are in America. Though, it could just be the ones that we’ve gone to… We’ve been to (I think exclusively) chain sushi restaurants. At these places, the sushi comes out of the kitchen on a little conveyer belt that snakes alongside all the booths (like luggage at an airport). When you see something you like, you just take it. If you want something special, or something that you don’t see on the belt, you push the button on your table and a waiter comes to take your order. When you’re done, the waiter comes and counts your plates to determine the bill (its about a dollar per plate).

Only in Japan, right? A place like that would never make enough money to stay open in America. People would just take the food and leave the plates on the conveyer belt. There’d be no way to tell how much food you had, and no way to figure out who left the empty plate on the belt. It only works in Japan because the people are (for the most part) honest.

With the exception of one, the food hasn’t been terribly good at these places. I have yet to visit a proper sushi restaurant.

[The picture, by the way, is of hamburger sushi, from the sushi chain "Kappa Sushi".]