Masahi’s Take on Sushi

My student, Masahi went to Minnesota, USA on a three month business trip recently. He is an engineer with good English skills. Minnesota is located in the north-central part of the USA, so finding good Japanese food is a bit difficult. Japanese restaurants advertise “fresh sashimi and sushi,” but he found it differently, in fact very disappointing. He told me that the sushi was “terrible.”  He was not near a big city. Generally the Japanese food is okay on the West or East Coast of the USA, but he was stuck in the middle where nothing is fresh. When he returned to Japan, he soon went to one of the cheap places for sushi, a conveyor belt, pick it up as it comes by sushi place, which is considered “cheap sushi” in Japan, but he told me it was “the best sushi he had had in a long time.”  He obviously appreciated his home country’s cuisine, because the “conveyor belt” sushi is not the best, compared to sitting in a real sushi restaurant having a professional chef serving piece by piece. The price is right on this kind of sushi in Japan. Some call it “conveyor belt sushi, go around sushi, grab it as it comes in front of you,” but whatever you want to call it, it is unique and, according to Masahi, very good. I agree.