Itadakimasu

If I had to sum up my entire culinary experience in Japan into a word, that both adequately described what I had intended to consume here and subsequently how I realized it, that word would have to be simply: sushiro.

There is not another restaurant like it. I'm sorry. That's not true. There are a handful of different restaurant chains in Japan that offer a customer the chance to pick his sushi from the conveyor belt that whips through the entire length of all the tables and benches in the place. And there are countless independent restaurants that have adopted the same practice for expediency's sake.

But there's something about sushiro. Maybe it was the first place I ever completely gorged on nigiri sushi, but I've never looked back. All of the other sushiyasans in Japan are good and I've never disliked an experience at a sushi restaurant, but colourful, friendly sushiro has me eating there four times in a week if its convenient and I am in the greatest shape of my life. This is also largely due to a diligence to remain active and the fact that I'm riding my bicycle nearly everywhere that I have to go to, even if it's four times on the occasional week that I'm riding to sushiro. There are two such restaurants within a short bicycle ride from my house.

I want to open a sushiro in Canada. It's based a little bit on the honour system: you take what you want, you eat the selected delicacy and then at the end of your meal a friendly young woman arrives at your table to count the plates. I just wonder if I could trust the Canadian public to not try and screw the system by hiding empty plates when it came time to pay up.

There are some things to consider in doing this, of course. It's obvious that we as Westerners need some major lifestyle changes in the kind of food we consume, and sushi is one of the healthiest meals you can eat. I don't support the practice of over-fishing that destroyed the marine-based economy of Eastern Canada, either. But I think if we were responsible in the execution of a Canadian-based sushiro, it could really take off.

And the greatest thing about sushiro? It's only ¥105 a plate. That's about a buck for two pieces of the most delicious nigiri sushi I've ever had in my life. At that price, I tend to eat a lot of it. My current record is 14 plates. All that rice is pretty filling, and after tossing a nice ¥105 bowl of udon soup into that, you know that I was dragging my feet out the door, dizzy with omega-3 acids.

And it was worth every yenny.

December is update-a-day month! To read all the posts this month, click on December 2006 on the right-hand side of the screen!