24 March 30th–april 5th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | music | cafe | film | culTuRe | NighT+Day | feaTuRe | NeWs | OPiNiON | feeDBacK | cONTeNTs | Month XX–Month XX, 2014 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | Dystopian Dining From robots to conveyor belts, Kura Sushi has its charms. The food isn’t one of them. BY DOMINIC ARMATO O nce upon a time, back in the early 21st century, I got into an argument about sushi. I was singing the virtues of a dinner near Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market when our antagonist — we’ll call him Mr. Snootypants — expressed horror and revulsion that my family would deign to sit at a table and order with a ticket and pencil rather than eating at the bar. Sushi, he explained, is a higher art form; not just a meal prepared by a skilled craftsman, but a complex and sacred performance where the interaction between diner and itamae is critical to the experience. I get it, I told him, I’ve no less respect for the craft than you, but awkwardly sitting four abreast isn’t exactly a family-friendly night out. Yes, ordering off a ticket is a more casual and less artful experience, but it absolutely has its place. And besides, we’re talking about a well-regarded Japanese restaurant in Japan. Are you saying they don’t know how to appreciate their own food? Mr. Snootypants responded with heated, righteous indignation. Ordering sushi off a ticket was a travesty. It was contrary to sushi’s “original intent.” It was “fast food sushi.” It’s interesting you say so, I told him, because back in the Edo period when nigiri sushi evolved into the format we know today, it was primarily sold by street vendors from small stalls and carts — a quick, inexpensive convenience food to eat and go about your day. Fast food, I gleefully informed him, was precisely sushi’s “orig- inal intent.” At this, Mr. Snootypants harumphed and trundled off, and I basked in the smug satisfaction that while I sometimes get a little snobby about food, at least I’m not that guy. Two decades later, Kura Revolving Sushi Bar’s arrival in Phoenix has forced me to consider the possibility that maybe I am. Dinner or Dystopia Kura, you see, is a breed of restaurant called kaitenzushi, or as you likely know it, conveyor belt sushi. It might be tempting to assume that this impersonal, cut-rate format is an American invention, a bit of cultural sacrilege wrapped around an ancient tradition with mechanical, capital- istic precision. But kaitenzushi was conceived and remains wildly popular in Japan, where Kura is a titan of the genre, boasting nearly 500 locations in the moth- erland alone. Hey, people in Japan like fast food, too. But “fast food” barely begins to describe the experience, which makes a pencil and ticket seem charmingly quaint. Kura is the (un)holy union of a sushi bar and a pachinko parlor — a flashing, pulsating, electrified, and amplified dose of sensory overload where the food is practically a sideshow. Once you’re seated and place an order on your tableside touch- screen menu, a Hobbit-sized robot with cartoonish facial animations and an incon- gruous British accent pulls up to deliver your drink. Meanwhile, sushi selections slowly drift by on brightly colored plates, each protected from the heat — and, hopefully, other diners — by “Mr. Fresh,” a hinged plastic dome that yawns like Pac-Man and belches forth your chosen vittles when you lift up the edge. Don’t see what you want on the belt? No problem. Return to the touchscreen menu, and a few minutes later your dish arrives, heralded by 8-bit musical fanfare and delivered via a special express conveyor belt that whisks it directly from the kitchen to your table. There’s no service to speak of, unless you specifically call for it (via touchscreen, natch). But a human responds if you order alcohol. The robot is underage. Who clears the plates? You do. Finish one off and drop it in the tableside chute, where it disappears into Kura’s bowels with a clatter and thunk before it’s digested and tallied on your digital screen. Every five plates, your touch- screen displays an anime short featuring Mutenmaru, the restaurant’s mascot, who urges you to help him fight off the evil creatures stealing his recipes by sending him more plates. And every 20 plates, you receive manna from heaven when an overhead dispenser delivers gachapon — some manner of cheap, cartoonish trinket sealed inside a hollow plastic ball. If automated, gamified dining sounds like some kind of future dystopia, you’re not far from the mark. The thing is, even for a culinary curmudgeon like me, it’s also kind of fun. That’s probably why there’s routinely an hour wait on the weekends, and why the original Biltmore location already has metastasized to Chandler. What’s more, anyone who has traveled to the source will recognize Kura as quint- essentially Japanese, right down to the soy sauce carafes that dispense a drop at a time ▼ Café Tables at Kura are arranged to maximize access to the conveyor belt. Dominic Armato Dominic Armato Negitoro looks extruded, and tastes like it too.
