Its almost like New Year already wanted to give him the cold shoulderor rather, a cold fish cake.
My illustriously zany Japanese-language reporter Mr. Sato is a big fan of inexpensive sushi. Its not unusual to find him dining at one of Tokyo’s numerous conveyor belt sushi chains such as Kura Sushi – which is exactly where he was heading on this particular day. Then he wanted to try the New Years kosechi (small osechi) which he wanted to sell last year and which his coworker had tried at the time. Japan’s X’o’o’oechi can get a bit too heavy on him. A small, single-sized version weighing only 770 yen (US$5.75) is not enough to wrap himself around the idea of having one for only 770 yen.
Long wait times in recent days for particular West Shinjuku spot he was visiting, so he prepared for some more wait.
Sure enough, he walked in, was greeted by check-in monitor on which the seats were currently full. It was also big numbers waiting around, often students who had extra time now that they were on winter break.
However, a closer glance at the screen then made his jaw drop. One counter seat wait time grossed over 67 minutes!
Mr. Sato was too hungry to wait there for an hour on empty stomach, so he decided to go for a snack in the meantime.
crowd fainted out one hour later. He found out that his number had been probably not called much ago, but after speaking to staff he’d set up empty seat at the counter with no trouble that time. He began by now researching the food options on his touchscreen panel, and quickly identified kosechi meal.
One particular is Kura Sushis kosechi, which includes small portions of eight individual foods that each have a symbolic, stunning, visual taste
I gave him the order and sit back to wait. Other customers special orders passed by him on the belt but his kosechi was nowhere to be seen. Five minutes became 10 minutes, turned into 15and fast 20 minutes of waiting. Something actually seemed wrong for fast food at a sushi restaurant. Internally, he begins to debate whether to call over a staff member to see if there was a problem. Just as he was heading toward his turn, kosechi dish pulled up right in front of him.
The eight individual foods in the year included freeze dried tofu, a cooked shrimp, snow peas, kabocha, shiitake, sweet potato, and a kamaboko fish cake.
On top of freezing-dried tofu was labeled kanji (kotobuki; the kanji also used to write the su in sushi), which means longevity. It was a very helpful visual for New Years. Sato took a bite and was pleasantly surprised by its crispy texture.
Specially admirable for the sweet potato, which was expertly cut into shape of a rabbit to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit in 2023.
He topped each of his menus two by one. He pauses to be amazed at how quickly he took a bite of the kamaboko fish cake. I think it tasted perfect and the tasted great! Sure enough, a closer look showed that there was still some ice around the cake.
So that must be all its long to get kosechi defrosted.
Out of a very chilly greeting, Mr. Sato enjoyed a meal. Tough bit to wonder why Kura Sushi felt need to offer dishes such as kosechi that they still don’t have. It seemed like that just brought fewer staff jobs and pushed customers to wait longer. Oh well. Maybe hell come in the opposite direction next and visit somewhere that has a particular focus in something such as the cafe where Mont Blanc first offered in Japan.
Reférence: Kura Sushi Follow us on Facebook, Twitter!