Kaiten Zushi Nomad | AYCE Conveyor Belt Sushi, Japanese Restaurant in NYC — Restaurant in New York

Seeing some of the older reviews, perhaps this place was better years ago. This review is not in hostility to any of the servers or even chefs here, I tipped them fairly as they likely play no part in how this restaurant is managed.

I can firmly say however that currently, amongst all the sushi I’ve eaten, ranging from gas stations, supermarkets, and overpriced collegetowns to mom/pop shops in Japan and Michelin-starred restaurants with months long queues, none have quite made me regret my financial decisions as much as the sushi I was served here for AYCE (All-You-Can-Eat) lunch.

Let’s start with the positives. The salmon, red snapper, and unagi. You could probably prepare these at home with zero experience and achieve the same result. Maybe better if you used the internet as a guide. Totally unflattering, but not terrible. Just below average as far as sushi goes. Might be worth the $32 lunch price tag if you have a big appetite. Not a very high bar, but positives compared to the rest of the restaurant.

Now onto the negatives. The host at the front desk was frankly terrible, or was having a really bad day. He asked me something in a quiet voice that I couldn’t make out, and upon asking him to reiterate, he just sighed and handed me a menu. Took me half a minute to guess he wanted me to say whether or not I wanted AYCE or A-La Carte as he never repeated the question again or even so much as looked at me. Judging by the fact that he was dressed differently compared to the rest of the front of house, the rest of the servers are probably alright.

As for the food, most of it was a massive letdown bar the 3 examples mentioned earlier. The tuna, which was a near perfect rectangle and hot pink, probably wasn’t even tuna, and it sure didn’t taste like it. My guess is a dyed white fish of some sort, which would’ve been at least only dissppointing if it didn’t also taste worse than white fish. The shime saba, which looked rather nice for an AYCE restaurant, was rubbery and tasted like leftover grilled fish from yesterday’s dinner. Props for being the best looking nigiri for lunch service though. The chicken gyoza was a poor imitation of what you might find in the frozen aisle at your local market, and fell just shy of the microwavable ones too. No gyoza sauce was harmed in the serving of this dish as it didn’t come with any. You might as well have it with just the soy at the table. The miso soup was comparable to the ones I microwaved in my college dorm room at 3 in the morning studying for exams. The small but firm pieces of seaweed and minuscule tofu chunks that came with it all but confirm this hypothesis. A small but important note is also to be made of all the nigiris here: they come with massive rice proportions that would beat the leftovers in my fridge in a heavyweight boxing match for tomorrow’s fried rice.

I dared not eat more after 10 nigiris and the two sides mentioned here, despite the restaurant being AYCE. I have a sinking feeling that my stomach will turn into Chernobyl when I get home from work after...

To preface, if the food was decent I would not have given it 1 star. However, the wait was insanely long and the food was one of the worst meals I've ever had. Do not come. Do not be fooled by social media and influencers. There's much better food out there.

For starter, I placed my name onto the waitlist and was told it would be a 1.5 hour wait. The waitlist was on paper and the hosts had to write each person down. I come back after 1.5 hours and was told I had to wait another 45 minutes. That's ridiculous and when I explained what I was told to the host, she replied with an attitude asking if I'm still going to wait then. I waited as my parents really did want to try this place. I did note that there were ~9-10 available tables for parties to be seated but half of them were left empty for the next 20 minutes.

The waiting area is mixed in with the bar area. Instead of taking dirty dishes to the back, all dirty dishes were brought to the bar area through crowds of people who were waiting. This did not make any sense to me.

This is not your traditional conveyor belt/revolving sushi place where the food is on the conveyor belt and you can grab it. That was a bit disappointing. You are only allowed to order 4 items at once on the tablet which makes ordering a bit annoying. Service took a long time and it took 10 minutes for my party to even get hot green tea.

Onto the food, we should not have to ask for wasabi, soy sauce, and pickled ginger for a sushi place. The wasabi they gave were packaged ones that tasted off. The food was terrible. The fish were clearly not fresh, the rice easily crumbled, and fish slices were thin. There was a lot more rice than fish which I can understand if the fish was good quality but it wasn't. We ordered salmon, bluefin tuna, tuna, anago, yellowtail, scallop, and more. The spider handroll was disappointing as well. It was evident that it was fried a long time ago and left sitting. The only sushi I didn't have to force myself to eat was the dragon roll.

Even the fried food we tried were bad which says a lot cause it's so hard to mess that up. We ordered takoyaki, chicken karage, assorted tempura, and shrimp tempura. Only the udon was decent which is just....It also took longer than it should for me to get my check. I was charged for items we didn't receive, but I didn't even want to bother with this place anymore.

We left less than an hour after we were seated and there was a long line outside. We were extremely confused by the line given the available tables inside.

Do not be fooled by the influencers/reels/tiktoks. This place is terrible and it is not the only conveyor belt sushi in NYC nor is it the first in Manhattan. I acknowledge it was there grand opening and people usually say to cut them some slack, however they should have been prepared. This left a terrible impression and the quality was not there. I would not return and do not recommend anyone to...

After living in Japan for several years (Tokyo, Osaka, and Himeji), I am admittedly a sushi snob from having had amazing sushi 2-3 times a week while there, and at a fraction of the price. From a foodie perspective, it was heaven!

Fast forward and I’m back home in NYC, but my sushi obsession is as strong as ever. I’ve tried, literally, dozens of places in all parts of the City. Most are ma-ma (so, so), but still charge ridiculous prices several times above what you’d pay in Japan. You have no idea how much we’re getting fleeced here.

I finally tried this 5th Ave. place for their AYCE lunch, and I have to say the sushi was very good. They have a pretty good selection, I have to say. They have unagi, which is great. As an unagi lover, I was surprised that it was so good. OK, not ‘melting’ like what you usually find in Japan, but pretty darned good nonetheless. The maguro (tuna) was good, but the slices were way too thin, and looked like it was machine sliced, as the slices lacked that individually cut feeling. Also you won’t find the different types of maguro like toro or otoro (fatty tunas), which is much better than regular maguro. Same with the ebi (shrimp). No variations like amaebi or botanebi, which are at totally different levels of deliciousness (‘oishiness’) than plain boiled. Salmon was spot on. Hand rolls were fantastic, with nice crispy nori. They don’t have my top two favorites, uni and anago (or ni -anago), which was disappointing. But those are more high-end pieces that I wouldn’t necessarily expect here. In spite of some specific shortcomings, I truly enjoyed the sushi there. I loved the whole experience.

The layout of this place is pretty much in line with your typical kaiten zushi place in Japan, including the robots that they have running around delivering drinks (a common thing back in Japan). I don’t think you’ll be able to practice your Japanese there, as no one in the restaurant part is from Japan (not sure about the chefs in the back). So no yelling of the usual traditional greeting and the continuous yelling of different instructions in nihongo. But regardless, it’s still a nice experience. I loved the interior stying, plus the bathrooms are big and clean; always a plus. Will I go back? Definitely. This place has moved up the ranks of my favorite AYCE sushi places (a title most recently held by a hole-in-wall place on W. 72nd St.). I certainly look forward to my next trip. If you like sushi, and you’re in the area, you should check this place out, as I’m sure...