Clients dine at a Japanese conveyor belt sushi restaurant restaurant in Tokyo on Jan. 22, 2020.
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP by way of Getty Photos
conceal caption
toggle caption
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Clients dine at a Japanese conveyor belt sushi restaurant restaurant in Tokyo on Jan. 22, 2020.
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP by way of Getty Photos
SEOUL — Japan’s conveyor belt sushi eating places are struggling to regain the belief of diners, after the business took a licking from one buyer, whose viral movies of him defiling utensils and sushi together with his saliva have earned him descriptions starting from “nuisance” to “sushi terrorist.”
The Japanese public’s response suggests it is a brazen assault on two issues of which Japanese are very proud, their sushi and their manners.
With a furtive look and an impish grin, the younger man within the video licks the rim of a teacup earlier than returning it to a stack in entrance of his seat, the place unsuspecting clients might decide it up. He additionally licks soy sauce bottles and smears his just-licked fingers on items of sushi making their rounds of the conveyor belt.
Conveyor-belt sushi eating places have been round (and round) in Japan because the late Fifties, and have since unfold worldwide. They seem to be a cheaper, extra nameless various to ordering immediately from a sushi chef, who makes the meals to order, whereas standing behind a counter.
At conveyor-belt sushi eating places, plates of sushi rotate previous diners who can select what they like. Many sushi emporia additionally characteristic tablets or touchscreens, the place clients can place an order, which travels on an categorical train-like conveyor and stops proper in entrance of them. Plates, chopsticks, bottles of soy sauce, containers of pickled ginger and inexperienced tea sit on or in entrance of the counter for diners to seize.
Studies of varied abuses at different conveyor belt sushi eating places have surfaced, together with pranksters filching sushi from different diners’ orders, or dosing different clients’ meals with the spicy inexperienced condiment wasabi.
In an effort to restore the harm, the Akindo Sushiro firm which runs the restaurant the place the video was filmed, says it has changed its soy sauce bottles, cleaned its cups, and centralized utensils and tableware at a single level. All of the chain’s eating places will present disinfected tableware to diners who request them.
The chain additionally says it filed a grievance for damages with police on Tuesday and obtained a direct apology from the person who made the video, though his motives stay unclear.
Some pundits are blaming the eating places for making an attempt to economize on labor prices. Fewer restaurant workers means “fraud shall be extra prone to happen,” sushi critic Nobuo Yonekawa argues in an ITMedia report. “It may be stated,” he concludes, “that the business itself has created such an surroundings.”
Takehiro Masutomo contributed to this report in Tokyo.
