Sushi Hiroba, Kingsway, London

The conveyer belt sushi restaurant is a marvellous invention. So far I have only experienced Yo Sushi, so I was delighted to discover another one, Sushi Hiroba, on Kingsway in London. The conveyer belt style is known as “Kaiten-zushi” (thanks, Wikipedia). It particularly suits my enjoyment not only of eating food, but looking at it as well!

We were in London for the Taste Festival, but fancied some sushi for Friday night dinner. We were quickly seated at the bar and given menus. The food is priced in the same way as Yo, with coloured plates indicating the cost of the food. The conveyer belt was pleasingly full, and I enjoyed my usual choice of Salmon Maki along with a range of sushi rolls. Sushi Hiroba is probably a bit more adventurous with their roll designs, as I kept seeing a roll filled with a slice of banana passing by on the belt. (I didn’t try this one as it breaks the Leeds Food Leads rule of food – no sweet with savoury. This applies to Hawaiian pizzas, gammon with pineapple, and now I find, sushi).

Service was a little slow – it took a while for our drinks to arrive. The hot food we ordered arrived promptly, however. We managed about eight small plates each.

I would recommend Sushi Hiroba. The choice in Leeds is fairly limited so if you are a sushi fan, it is always worth checking out what’s available in other cities.

Little Tokyo, Leeds

Many of my blog entries seem to begin....”We were meant to be going to_______, but it was closed/full, so we ended up going to ________” I am aware it makes us sound a bit hopeless at organising/planning our dining experiences, and maybe we are! But I was not hopeless this morning when I printed out a voucher for 29% off at Yo Sushi (fantastic deal!) and headed off into Leeds to enjoy an hour of maki, hairy prawns and sushi rolls at the top of Harvey Nichols.

Except when we got to the top of the 4th escalator, we were faced with a boarded off area – “sorry for the appearance of this area, it is being refurbished”– What????? So they are doing up Yo Sushi in Leeds – I suppose it is starting to look a bit worn. Meanwhile, Yo Sushi head office are sending out e-mails to regular customers, inviting them to take advantage of their “ScorchYO” discount offer – something to do with taking the summer temperature at a given point in the week (i.e.29 degrees) and then having that number as the % discount for the following weekend– a nice idea, apart from the fact that our local Yo Sushi is closed! But like the troopers we are, instead of banging out a snotty e mail to Yo Sushi discounts department and billing them for the cost of the diesel and the car parking, we hatched a new plan. So I shall begin this post again......

We were meant to be going to Yo Sushi, but it was closed, so we ended up going to Little Tokyo. Can you see the theme developing? The thing is, once A gets his heart set on something he is going to eat, he cannot under any circumstances change direction. Japanese food was on his mind and that was what he was going to get.

Little Tokyo is a favourite of ours anyway – their sushi selection isn’t great but we ordered some nigiri and vegetarian rolls to share for starter.

We followed this up with bento boxes – literally a box with little compartments in it for the different dishes. A bit like the trays you might get in a prison but much nicer*. The bento includes a compartment for rice, tempura vegetables, salad, fruit, soy sauce and then whichever main dish you order – I had battered king prawns and A had fish balls. Both bentos were really good. I particularly like the tempura vegetables – aubergines, sweet potato, carrots and beans.



The place was busy for a Sunday. Maybe they were mopping up diners from the Yo Sushi fallout. There was a bit of held-hostage moment at the end, waiting for the bill, but it arrived – about £38.

And Little Tokyo has a coy carp pond inside, with a bridge over it. When you walk past, all the fish come to the surface with their mouths open. A nice touch.

*I have never been to prison, by the way, but I was an avid fan of Prison Break before it became crap.

Yo Sushi - Harvey Nichols, Leeds

We are regular visitors to Yo Sushi, after A discovered the joys of sushi on his travels in America a few years ago. In Leeds, despite a number of Japanese restaurants, there appears to be slim pickings on the sushi front. So Yo Sushi, upstairs in Harvey Nichols, seems to be the best bet.

Luckily, it’s good. So instead of a heavy Sunday lunch of roast beef and all the trimmings, we went for the lighter option of fish, rice and soy sauce.
Yo sushi is always busy on a Sunday. A short queue had developed but we were quickly seated on the bar stools. Most seating is at the bar, wrapped around the kitchen, where the staff make all the food in front of you. There are a few tables that can seat about four people on one side.

The conveyor belt of small portions moves around the room, and customers take them off when they see something they fancy. Plates are colour coded for price, which makes it easy to keep a track of what you are spending. The empty coloured plates are added up by the waiter at the end and you are presented with a ticket to take to the till on the way out.

Many of the cold dishes are already on the belt – sushi, sashimi, sushi rolls, maki, salads and desserts. You just lift them off when you see something rolling past that you like the look of. Hot food and drinks are ordered from the staff. There is a button in the bar you can press to switch a light on to make an order.
Also built into the bar are storage areas where you can find your chopsticks, ginger, soy sauce and wasabi (hotter than it looks – use sparingly). These mix very well with the sushi rolls.

We both ordered hairy prawns to start – my particular favourite.



We then proceeded to take plates from the belt...

Salmon skin rolls (A’s favourite)



Tempura prawn rolls



California rolls



Avocado maki




All very good as usual. I particularly like the maki, as they are small enough to put in your mouth whole. The bigger rolls I feel the need to bite into, often spraying rice down my shirt. I think the right way is to eat them whole too. Contrary to popular opinion, my dentist reliably informs me that I actually have a small mouth.

The only issue is that sometimes when we go to Yo Sushi, the belt is full of plates and we struggle to decide what to have. Other times we arrive to find the belt mostly empty, or full of desserts. I am not sure why this is – whether they have certain times of the day when they fill it up, or whether it is an issue of staffing. Maybe I should ask. This is not too much of a problem though, as if there is something you want that is not on the belt, you can just order it. Maybe it just appeals to my love of buffets, having lots of food floating past that I can look at.

Yo Sushi sometimes has special discount offers. They also have a “Blue Plate Mondays” promotion, where more plates are blue (i.e. cheaper). It is worth checking their website for the latest promotions before you go.