29 Jan Itamae Sushi, Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong

Itamae Sushi is a chain sushi restaurant. After taking a ticket we waited maybe 15 minutes in the queue. Luckily we got a spot on the sushi train rather than a separate table. Sushi of the same type were lined up consecutively in the train, rather than arranged alternately – a boon for the indecisive or unobservant. Each person got a cup with a Japanese tea bag inside and between every two people was a hot water tap used to top up our cups.

The prices for the sushi train plates ranged from 12 to 40HKD. These are the ones I ate: a rose-type salmon sushi with roe and a prawn arranged on top, one wrapped with egg pancake and an oyster on top, crab claw, and a four-piece plate with crumbed soft shell crab or prawn and a crab stick inside (two had a slice of salmon on top, one was topped with a slightly toasted white fish and the other was encrusted with roe. Later I ordered a piece of flamed eel sushi and a chu-toro sushi. Mum and I originally wanted to try the o-toro (40HKD) – the fattiest part of the tuna that apparently melts in your mouth – but it was unavailable. On the menu these two a la carte sushi were 28HKD but on the bill they came out as 18HKD. Mum thinks that they’d be 28HKD if they gave two pieces rather than one, which means the second piece is virtually half price. I was surprised that they were 18HKD for one piece because that made them cheaper than the other plates, even if two pieces were double the price. The photo on the menu didn’t show the eel sushi with nori but the real thing came with it. I think eel goes really well with nori so I didn’t mind at all, and it tasted amazing. My favourites were the eel and the oyster sushi. I should have had more eel instead of the crab.