Kaitenzushi Nemuro Hanamaru KITTE Marunouchi — Restaurant in Tokyo

I wanted to love it but I have mixed feelings.

First, this place is very popular. Get there early or be prepared to wait. They have a ticket machine for you to get your place in line. They also have a screen that shows the current ticket being seated and a web app you can check too. When I went I was #40 and they were seating #5. Fortunately this restaurant is located on the top floor of a mall, so there is plenty of shopping to do while you wait.

Pro tip: when your number is called, you are supposed to join the small queue at the very front of the restaurant. Don't just walk up to the counter. This isn't explained well by the signage but it's the way they seat you.

The food was of mixed quality. They have a rotary sushi bar with limited options, but it seems that you are expected to order most of your food from a paper sheet where you write down how many pieces of which pieces you want. Fortunately they have instructions in English to help you know what to do.

I ordered four types of sushi:

Unagi (eel): this was my favorite by far. Unagi is delicious and theirs was no exception. Highly recommend.

Salmon: it was good. Not as good as the unagi but it was of good quality.

Cheese maki: not good. I only ordered it because it piqued my interest and I had to try it. That was a mistake. I love cheese but could barely finish it. Do not recommend.

For the fourth, I wanted to try something from the rotary bar so I picked up a mystery plate of some sort of white fish. Do NOT do this unless you know what you're getting. The fish I got was Terrible - tough and unchewable, goopy, and I just had to swallow it whole. The server thought I was choking and rushed a cup of water over to me. I don't know what kind of sushi that was but do NOT get it.

On a more positive note, the rotary sushi bar also had rotating tea cups. You can grab one and make your own matcha tea right at your seat for no extra charge, which I really loved.

Altogether I think my food was around ¥1100 which is not bad at all. I really wanted to love this place, but I just didn't think the sushi was the best. I do think it's worth trying if you're in the...

Our first proper sit down meal in Japan was at this kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi restaurant, Nemuro Hanamaru located in the Marunouchi KITTE building. We waited over 2 hours to get a table at this restaurant but it was well worth the wait. For starters, they have this neat system in place where you get a QR code and using that QR code, you can periodically check on your status in the line. This means that you don't have to actually stand there, waiting for 2 hours. We were free to go off to other places. Instead of standing around, doing nothing for 2 hours we went and took a stroll through Tokyo Station. We spent a good amount of time familiarizing ourselves with the area as we had some upcoming trips planned which would require going through Tokyo Station. When we were done with that, we came back to the KITTE Marunouchi building and enjoyed some lovely Xmas tunes being sung by a choir on the ground level. So, waiting for our table at Nemuro Hanamaru really wasn't at all painful even though it took over 2 hours to get a table.

When we finally got to sit down and start eating...wow, what a feast! Wish we could have a restaurant like this back home. The food was so fresh and there were all sorts of offerings that we would never get back home, even if we did have a conveyor belt sushi restaurant back home. I think the Negitoro was my favourite but even simple dishes like Zaru Soba were very enjoyable. My only regret...that I didn't leave room in my tummy to try things like Basque Cheesecake or Salted Caramel Pudding!

We wanted to try more than one conveyor belt sushi restaurant on this trip, but in the end this was the only one we managed to try. Glad we made it to this one though as the quality at this restaurant was much higher than any other conveyor belt sushi we would have probably gone on to try.

If you make it out to the Tokyo Station area, this is an excellent conveyor belt sushi restaurant. Highly...

I consider this restaurant a higher-end kaiten sushi because the quality is really good, but the price is very reasonable. A typical place like this in Tokyo, I believe, is comparable to an expensive sushi restaurant in the US, in terms of the quality of the food.

The wait time is always quite long. On one occasion, I waited over two hours. This time, I arrived before the restaurant opened and waited with the crowd. I waited in line to use the ticket machine, where I entered the number of people in my party and received a number.

Not only that they had completely renovated the interior since my last visit a year ago, they upgraded their system and now allow you to check the status of your wait online.

I scanned the QR code on our ticket. This allowed me to use the LINE app to check the status of our wait and see when my number would be called. While waiting, I went downstairs to the mall and had some coffee. I was the second seating and waited about an hour.

I mostly ordered dishes by using the menu, writing down the number on the provided paper, and hand it to the staff over the counter.

I ordered every type of tuna on the menu at this restaurant. When in Japan, I recommend ordering chuutoro, which is medium fatty tuna. Not only it isn't generally offered in the US, it is cheaper than otoro, which is fatty tuna, but still very, very good.

This time I had luggage with us, as I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo Station. I figured I'd run across the street for some sushi first. I was not the only ones with luggage, and the staff was used to it. They stowed my luggage behind the register counter without batting an eye.

I visited numerous kaiten sushi restaurants, and this is really one of the best. If you have time to wait, give this...