Spin me right round baby

I've been talking about food a lot.  Tokyo has lots of amazing food that I got to try back in 2003 and couldn't wait to try again.  Takoyaki?  Yes please!  Ramen?  Dinner my first night!  And then there's sushi...  Did you know I used to hate sushi?  I'm embarrassed to admit it.  It's true.  I was here for 10 glorious days 7 years ago, and I didn't eat a lick of sushi.  I couldn't stand it.  Who in their right mind would want to eat raw fish?  I had tasted it many times back home, and I just didn't understand the appeal.  It had no taste.  The texture was weird.  It was just gross.

That was before real sushi.  Some would argue that you can't find real sushi in DC.  The next time someone says this to you, send them here.  The sushi available at that back counter will make them cry.  They will complain about the price, until the boxes come out.  In fact, tell them I sent you.  While Chef Nobu will probably stare at you blankly, I like to pretend we are BFFs.  But, I'm getting off topic.  The point is, I became a sushi addict a few years back.  When I found out we were moving to Tokyo, I got all giddy with the idea of sushi all the time!  But wait- it's expensive.  And sometimes, it's not good.  This is just unacceptable.  I wanted to make sure I got the good stuff.  How do you know where the good stuff is?  Pay attention.

Recently, we were walking around the restaurant floor of a department store.  Yes, you read that correctly, department stores have entire floors devoted to restaurants.  They also have entire floors (sometimes two) devoted to selling food.  More on that later.  Back to the restaurant floor.  It was lunch time and we couldn't decide what to eat.  Divine intervention struck.  What is that giant line for?  Why is there a man with a sign?

A very blurry picture of a restaurant bouncer

That man with a sign was telling you where to stand if you wanted to wait in line.  What were these people waiting for?  Everyone knows if people are standing in line, it must be worth it (unless of course you are anywhere near Georgetown Cupcake, in which case- don't bother.  The cupcakes are delicious but no cupcake is worth a two hour wait in the rain.).  We decided to investigate.  I could feel the excitement brewing.  Wait- do those tables have ipads?!?!

A very happy Japanese family at their ipad-clad table

Good googly-moogly, they are ordering SUSHI from an ipad!  Yes, that was my exact reaction.  As starving as I was, I demanded we wait in the line.  So we did.  I was so distracted by the ipads, I didn't even notice the sushi itself was moving on a conveyor belt.  This concept isn't foreign to me.  I have eaten at all TWO of DC's conveyor belt sushi restaurants.  Both leave much to be desired in terms of quality.  But we're not in DC anymore.  This is Tokyo.  And there was a line bouncer!  It had to be good.

As we slowly approached the front of the line, I could see the sign with the prices.  In true Japanese restaurant style, there were excellent pictures to guide you.  How could this be?  The prices seemed too good to be true.  Could you really get good sushi for 100 yen?

So many possibilities!

My friends, it was glorious.  Sadly, you had to have 3 or more people to sit at a table with an ipad.  I almost threw a fit, but I decided sitting at the counter and watching the chefs up close was more important.  If any of you come to visit, we'll take you and get another chance at those ipad tables.  Back to the sushi.  It was amazing.  The portions were generous.  Those chefs were masters with their knives!  We ate, and ate, and ate, and then we ate some more.  It's hard not to be gluttonous when you're grabbing small plates right in front of you.  Some eye candy for you:

Perfect salmon.  There were 2 here, but someone ate theirs before the picture was taken.

Super duper toro.  This fatty tuna was so fatty, it was like tuna flavored butter on rice.  Yum!

Beautifully butterflied scallops- a new favorite of mine.

Last but not least, the uni (sea urchin)!

 Of course, none of these were actually only 100 yen, but I swear the cheap ones were yummy too!  We could have sat there and ate all day.  But, our wallets and our stomachs stopped us.  We still did pretty good for ourselves though:

Huge stack of plates = good meal

One of the coolest parts of the meal was when we were ready to pay.  I thought they would come by and sort our plates by color to add them up and figure out our total damage.  Leave it to the Japanese and their crazy technology.  The dude came over with a scanner gun and just ran it down the side of our stack.  Boom- here's your total.  I still don't know how that worked, but we went with it.  We managed to get out of there only 3800 yen poorer.  Not bad at all.  We'll be back soon for another spin soon.