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| Bright, lovely colors! |
They've got an promotion going on at Nihon Maru now. For every ten plates of sushi you order- each priced at $1.60- you get a cute looking little lobster with sauces that you can choose from. There's Mentaiko and Yuzu and something else.
We usually go for the Mentaiko.
Honestly, I don't know what goes into the sauce. :) It just tastes good, kind of sweet, kind of salty, kind of a little bit of everything, which goes really well with the nibbles of lobster that I carefully pick out with my chopsticks.
Rules stipulate that one must have ten plates on the table first before they bring the lobster, so by the time the little fella comes, we've more or less munched through a portion of our meal.
Our orders vary. I've tried the Californian maki. I've tried the soft shell crab maki. I've tried the scallop maki. They're all good. I've tried three little deep fried fishes that reminded me of some sort of sardines. I've tried the fried salmon belly. They've got fried oysters. They've got karaage, the little deep fried chicken pieces that make for a great snack. And I think they've got tofu, and they've got lots and lots of other dishes that offhand I don't really recall but are as appetizing as the ones I've tried.
It's easy to keep eating and eating and eating over here.
Maybe it's the atmosphere. They've got an open-concept feel where you can see your fellow diners across the conveyor belt, call across the aisle to the opposite table and ask them if the ice cream's good and hear the cheerful chat and laughter emanating from all sides. It's casual, it's fun, it's Gen Z inside and out.
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| Their Tables ^_^ |
Or you could feel like you wanna eat and eat and eat because of the conveyor belt. Really.
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| Their Belt ^_^ |
I mean, there you are sitting, patiently waiting for your orders to come, and then right by your head, they come, brightly colored plates of gunkan, maki, appetizers and dessert sitting pretty on the belt, as if giving you a friendly wave of greeting and a friendlier wave of goodbye.
How not to keep wanting to take and take and eat and eat, like that? :)
Control is key. Seriously. Two people can easily finish twenty or more plates down here, and I've seen a group of six consume thirty plates over. Me and my dining companion, we've built our personalized menu of favorite staples.
Like there will be a portion of sweet corn sushi.
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| One kernel by one kernel |
Sweet corn sushi that I specially pick out from the conveyor belt because yellow corn and mayo make this a fun gunkan. The bright yellow and kernels cheer me up at dinner time and because I treasure memories of buying an individually wrapped piece of sushi for $0.50 from my school's in-house convenience store two decades or so ago.
There will also be salmon sashimi. A few portions in fact, five or six plates, thereabout, served to us sometimes lovingly arranged, sometimes looking like a heap, but a very nice looking one. :) Nice enough that we immediately grab our chopsticks, quickly spoon out the wasabi, dribble the soy sauce and dig in.
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| Good-enough Salmon |
And then there will be the salmon skin. Call it an appetizer, a snack before dinner, whichever, it just whets the appetite, and gives you something to nibble on whilst you wait for the rest of your orders to come. Crispy, crunchy and slightly sweet.
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| Salmon Skin!!!! |