All aboard sushi train
I’m all about trying something new, but when you know you don’t like something, and convince yourself it will taste different because it’s on a conveyer belt coming toward you, you’re in for a bad time.
Don’t let that stop you grabbing a plate of the unknown from New Plymouth’s first ‘sushi train’, the Sushi Ninja Express in Centre City.
I tried Tobbiko Gunkan (flying fish eggs), Eel Nigri and Renkon (lotus) Chips - three things I had never eaten before - and I would happily eat them again.
However, the something I knew I didn’t like, and made the mistake of confirming for a second time that I didn’t like it, was Uni Gunkan - or Kina.
I guess that’s what you get for asking owner Ken Kurota for the weirdest items on the menu.
When I couldn’t eat the whole
‘‘People are saying I've never tried this before, but now I have and it's really good.’’ Ken Kurota
plate of Uni Gunkan, I handed it on to an unsuspecting customer, despite also admitting he disliked kina.
‘‘It’s an acquired taste,’’ Mark Dickie said, with a tear in his eye and borrowing photographer Simon O’Connor’s drink to wash it down.
Mark and his daughter Kaia Dickie, 7, were visiting the ‘sushi train’ for the first time and Kaia also tried something new, and said it was ‘‘tasty’’.
‘‘She tried a vegetable one that was fried, that she liked, but nothing as extravagant as that,’’ Mark said, gesturing at the Uni Gunkan.
Kurota said customers have been trying new things but the most popular dishes were chicken. He said that fish was growing on people too.
‘‘People are saying I’ve never tried this before, but now I have and it’s really good,’’ he said.
The conveyer belt system gave customers the option of selecting what they wanted, as they wanted it, with the colour of the plate determining the price of the dish.
This tended to prove popular on the weekends as Kurota said, ‘‘the kids love it’’.
On Saturday families piled into booths, and sat along the bar, watching and selecting the Japanese food as it went by.
There were takeaway customers and a line of people who were being turned away too.
And despite the regret of asking for Kurota’s weirdest (I know they aren’t weird really) creations, everything I ate was beautiful - particularly the things I already knew I liked.