It’s normal that you want to eat good sushi when you come to Japan, but if you don’t know much about the country, you might want to read this article.
Because nowadays there are a lot of scam restaurants.
Sad to say, but thanks to the steady increase in the number of foreign tourists every year until 2019, some Japanese seem to think that foreigners are easy to pay. However, I can’t stand the continuation of such dishonest business. As a Japanese, I would like to tell you how to eat cheap and delicious sushi.
4 ways to buy sushi
When I was in Europe a long time ago, a French friend told me: “I love sushi. I eat it at least three times a week.
We only eat sushi once a month.
Sushi is a luxury cuisine, and it is eaten when, for example, a child gets a perfect grade on an exam, or when relatives visit us after a long absence. Therefore, it must be understood that Japanese people do not go to the cheap sushi restaurants that foreign tourists usually go to.
However, there are still several ways to eat cheap and tasty sushi, and I will introduce you to four of them below.
Supermarkets
Surprisingly, foreign tourists do not know that sushi is also sold in supermarkets. And it is 10 times better than “something like sushi” sold in Carrefour in your country, so please buy it.
The supermarket I recommend is Life. The fish at the sushi corner is always fresh and delicious. If you want to start living in Japan, you should live near Life so you can eat delicious sushi every day.
Price range: 500-1,000 yen
Conveyor belt sushi
If you have more money to eat the sushi. Conveyor belt sushi, “Kaitenzushi” is a good idea, isn’t this conveyor belt sushi restaurant the most famous in the strange Japanese food culture? By the way, this kind of conveyor belt sushi restaurant is usually cheap. This is because the sushi, whose freshness is important, is served at room temperature on a counter.
Therefore, it is often used by families and young couples. Especially, large chain restaurants use robots to make sushi, so it is not really good. If I have to eat sushi from a big chain, I will save my money and go to a good sushi restaurant.
Price range: 1,000-2,000 yen
Delivery
In fact, there is a way to order sushi that is as cost effective as the conveyor belt. That is Sushi home delivery. For example, the sushi restaurant I often use, Gin no Sara, has central kitchens all over Japan that prepare sushi, and deliver fresh sushi right to your doorstep.
In my opinion, this home-delivered sushi is better than the cheaper conveyor belt sushi. If you live in Japan, I think you can get better sushi here.
Price range: 1,700-3,000 yen
Sushi restaurant
The last resort is to go to a regular sushi restaurant. Of course, the price is high, but you can be sure that you will have delicious sushi. This type of sushi restaurant is called a “non-rotating sushi restaurant” compared to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant.
To be honest, the price difference between sushi restaurants is so big that if you make a mistake and go into a top-notch restaurant, you may end up paying as much as 50,000 yen. What’s even scarier is that these restaurants don’t even have a menu, just a “market price” sign.
This means that the chef changes the price of the sushi according to the price of the fish he bought at the market that day, and the message is, “You’re not a price-conscious client, are you?” It’s fun to go to these restaurants and try the sushi recommended by the chefs, but if you’re a foreigner and your Japanese isn’t very good, your money may disappear from your wallet.
Price Range: 3,000 yen – 50,000 yen.
How to find a good sushi restaurant
Now that you understand the main differences between sushi restaurants, you probably know what kind of restaurant you should go to. If you are going on a date, you should go to a sushi restaurant, but if you are going to eat sushi with your friends, you can go to Kaitenzushi. However, it is very important to be able to predict whether it is a good place or not.
My foreign friends have walked into sushi restaurants that didn’t look good, so I’d like to tell you a simple way to tell it apart.
Avoid sushi restaurants with katakana or alphabet.
If you see katakana or alphabet in the name of the restaurant, beware. If you see katakana or alphabet in the restaurant’s name, there is a high possibility that the restaurant is operated for foreign tourists. If there is a cute character on the sign, there is a high chance that the food is not good. It is usually a sushi restaurant for families with children.
“I’d rather save money than go to Kappa Sushi” is my father’s usual phrase.
If you want to try it, go at lunch time.
If you find a sushi restaurant that looks good, but the price is too high, you don’t know what to do… Then you should try it for lunch. Even the most expensive restaurants in Japan have lunch menus ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 yen. The reason is that people can try the restaurant during lunch time and come back in the evening. Therefore, you can get to know the taste of a very expensive restaurant during lunchtime.
For example, Japan’s most famous sushi restaurant, Kyubei, is said to cost 30,000 to 50,000 yen per person, but for lunch they offer a set for 6,500 yen. At dinner time, the price is already in another dimension, but at lunch time, you can eat if you save. Take advantage of lunchtime to find your favorite sushi restaurant.
My recommended sushi restaurant
Now that I have told you everything, I would like to tell you my recommendation for a sushi restaurant.
Tachigui Sushi is a style of sushi restaurant where you eat standing at the counter. At first glance, it may seem crazy because you don’t sit down, but it is the most authentic style because sushi was originally a fast food like a hamburger until the Edo period.
The reason I recommend this type of restaurant is because it is tasty and reasonably inexpensive. The price of sushi is kept low because they don’t expect customers to stay long since they eat standing up, so you can get good sushi at a low price. I would choose this restaurant over the cheap conveyor belt sushi restaurants, and I have put the restaurants I usually go to on Google Maps so you can try them out.
Frankly, it is a pity that Japanese people have forgotten their integrity and started to do easy business for the sake of the tourist business. However, due to the decrease of tourists caused by the coronavirus, almost all of these dishonest restaurants will be closed. So the next time you come to Japan, sushi restaurants in Japan will be in healthy condition. However, if you know how Japanese people choose sushi restaurants, you will be able to find better restaurants. Read this article and find a sushi restaurant you like.
