Sushi Choo Choo

Finally, Houston (or it's metroplex) is cool enough to have the conveyor belt sushi (回転寿司, kaiten-zushi). This concept is not new, it's so not new that it's been around for more than 10 years.

I first heard about it from my mom who had it in Hong Kong. I didn't personally had a try until 2003 in Pasadena, CA. I've heard of it, and know how it works, but never experienced it. It's just fun to see your food going around.
If you don't know how this work, it goes like this: you get seated in a sushi bar type seating. There's a thin little conveyor belt going around and carrying food. You grab whatever you like, and at the end of the meal, the server tally up the colored plates, which associate to different pricing, and that's how you pay your bill.

We heard about Sushi Choo Choo from a friend who went. This is the 2nd conveyor sushi place that I've heard of in Houston, the first one was Sushi Sara (which I can't find a website for). I'm kinda sad to know that after this concept has been around for 10 years, it finally made it to the 4th largest city in the country to have it. For crying out loud, Dallas had it before we did. Mind you, there isn't one inside the loop, where the yuppies would totally embrace this concept.
Speaking of concept, I must say, this isn't a traditional set up. The traditional set up is really have an island where the conveyor belt goes in circle, and the sushi chef make the sushi in the center of the island, and customers sitting around can watch them make sushi, enjoy the freshly made product and place order right there.

This place has a U-shaped conveyor belt, and I understand this place has space and they can take up as much space as they like. However, they set their kitchen to the back, as an open kitchen, and has a normal sushi bar set up (to one side), and the little opening is where they load up the plates. That takes away part of the fun. You can still order any specialty items, but it's with your server as opposed to your sushi chef.

This place also try to please too many people at the same time. They have Teppanyaki, as well as skewers with lamb meat, as well as sushi. And the sushi isn't the best thing ever. Now, given that this is in Jersey Village, the population big on sushi is not great, which also explains why on the conveyor belt next to your sushi, you see cheese sticks. BUT! It's all over the place. I would say I'm going there for the novelty and that's it. There's better sushi places out there.

In Japan, we went to couple of places like that, and it's pretty much a self-served environment. You have your cups, tea powder, hot water, chopsticks, wasabi, ginger, all within your reach. The server is really there to keep you honest. The ones in LA, does a little bit more serving, but still focus on serving good sushi. Aside from the novelty factor, I'm not too sure what else this place has to offer.

Sushi Choo Choo
www.sushichoochoo.net
(Jersey Village area)
12149 FM 1960 Rd W,
Houston, TX
(281) 955-2888