Some would call this a kiddy restaurant. Others would call this a family-friendly restaurant targeted for young children.
I'd like to call this a restaurant for anyone who is young at heart.
Because it's pretty much a game experience from the start.
Once you're seated at Genki Sushi, wait staff hand you a pad and into it you make your orders. Now, that might not be so big a deal, you say, given that many restaurants have embraced such technology to speed up their processes, but see, it's more than just a systematic, computerized, smart technology process.
They've made it into a game for the consumer.
There's a little train at the bottom of each page, and what you have to do is to press the < and the > button to get to the right selection, drag and drop the items- four at a time- to fit the four windows of the train, press the 'okay' button, and watch as the train zooms off the screen.
Presumably into the kitchen.
You'd think the game stops there.
But no, it doesn't. The game continues with the way your food is served... via a real train with little plates fitted snugly onto it like seated passengers- four plates at a time, the same way like how you sent your orders in. It's what we call a continuity- much like theme parks- where the virtual content on your screens continues into a reality mode that is tangible, visible and experiential.
It's remarkable fun watching all the trains zip by on the tracks above your head, so much so that even the waiting becomes an interesting time as you try guessing whether the train you see heading towards you is the one bearing your plates, and then feel a tad disappointed when it whooshes past you.
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| choo choo train choo choo train |
But no matter.
You've got the self-made cup of ocha- ocha powder they offer- that you sip on whilst you wait. It doesn't take long, and finally, with a 'ding ding ding!!" that alerts you, the train stops at your table and you take the plates down, then press the big button on top and watch as the train whooshes back to the station.
We've been here a few times, and each time our orders have become our regulars. There's this seared salmon with black pepper where there're round peppercorns rolling all around your tongue.
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| wanna count the peppercorns? |
There's this other seared salmon with pollock roe that tastes salty and squishy all at the same time. We've ordered the hana sushi, which is four pieces of salmon sashimi hugging a coin-shaped piece of rice and with a generous dollop of mayonnaise on top.
We can't get enough of the salmon belly either. We've had the vegetable kakiage that comes with a sweet lovely sauce and which makes great dining fun whether you tear at it with the chopsticks, whether you give up on the chopsticks attempt and go barbaric, yanking at it with your hands or whether you poke directly into the fried vegetable tower and twist it apart.
And then there're the fried oysters. Huge juicy oysters wrapped in a batter deep fried.
This is a country where Japanese cuisines of varying standards abound. In many places sushi is readily available. It depends on how you like your sushi to be, and how your wallet is for the day, and you'll lack no choices at the restaurants, the diners, the in-hotel restaurants, the cafes, the chain cafes, or even the supermarket.
But rare is it when a diner gets a juxtaposition of simple, childlike fun coupled with the thrill of seeing virtual trains and mechanical ones go hand in hand.
And rare is it here too that a sushi meal itself reminds you that Japan, with her cultures and customs, with her history and heritage, with her dynasties and her people, is also a place of anime, toys, games and fun.
We can't get enough of the salmon belly either. We've had the vegetable kakiage that comes with a sweet lovely sauce and which makes great dining fun whether you tear at it with the chopsticks, whether you give up on the chopsticks attempt and go barbaric, yanking at it with your hands or whether you poke directly into the fried vegetable tower and twist it apart.
And then there're the fried oysters. Huge juicy oysters wrapped in a batter deep fried.
This is a country where Japanese cuisines of varying standards abound. In many places sushi is readily available. It depends on how you like your sushi to be, and how your wallet is for the day, and you'll lack no choices at the restaurants, the diners, the in-hotel restaurants, the cafes, the chain cafes, or even the supermarket.
But rare is it when a diner gets a juxtaposition of simple, childlike fun coupled with the thrill of seeing virtual trains and mechanical ones go hand in hand.
And rare is it here too that a sushi meal itself reminds you that Japan, with her cultures and customs, with her history and heritage, with her dynasties and her people, is also a place of anime, toys, games and fun.