Eating across Japan - Kaori Mizoguchi has arranged a wide variety of restaurants for the group, ranging from French cuisine, with too much silverware, a Korean-Japanese fusion restaurant, and a Sushi Boat restaurant in Tateyama. I wasn't sure about the sushi-boat restaurant as it had a Chuckee Cheese flavor to it, but boy was I wrong. The group had an outrageously good time and ate more than could have been imagined.
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| The Sushi Boat Conveyor coming toward our table -- we were downstream. |
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A fully-laden belt moving right to left - before the upstream tables
began to pick off all the good stuff. |
The Hamazushi - Sushi Boat -- The concept originated in high-end sushi bars where there was a channel of water and tiny boats would drift past and the customer would remove the sushi they wished and be charged at the end by the plates they had collected. Reminiscent of dim suum restaurants. But in the Hamazushi, it is mechanized and computerized with the plates of sushi, or other delicacies (French Fries!) parading past on a mechanized belt much like a luggage carousel in an airport. Trouble was that our table was downstream from all the others, and we (Agnes and Howard Nelson, Alan Richards, Don Yamaguchi, Annie and I) were afraid that they upstreamers would grab all the good stuff before it got to us.
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Don Yamaguchi hunting for goodies on
the far side of the belt. |
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Yamaguchi strikes! He's so fast his hand
is a blur in this photograph. |
Don Yamaguchi - Master Hunter - Fortunately, Don Yamaguchi was positioned closest to the belt, and he quickly figured out that he could reach through and snare some of the plates BEFORE they came around to our upstream colleagues - the perfect short-stop position. So, we would spy something interesting going up the far side of the contraption, and we would suggest -- "get it Don!" and he would reach through and slide the dish to our table before it could get to the upstreamers. Pretty soon the pile of empty plates rose higher and higher, and together with the empty beer mugs, were evidence of an evening well spent. Our table had the tallest pile, of course, and we didn't have the nerve to tell them about Don Yamaguchi, the Hunter.
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The Results of Don's dexterity and courage.
We won! Burp....
Wendy Stevens photographs the results. |
