Sherman's Food Adventures: Sushi Land (Lynnwood)

Sushi Land (Lynnwood)

Arriving into SeaTac from San Jose, we headed over to Goose's house to pick up the many items we had purchased online. Yes, his house is shipping central for all of the great deals we find on the Net, including a set of snow tires. (yes I realize it is not Winter yet, but it was a great deal!). Now talking about deals and shopping, Viv was not done yet. She wanted to head to a few places to do some power-shopping. Oh great, that was exactly what I wanted to do after a plane ride and needing to still drive back to Vancouver. Okay, before the shopping could materialize, we needed eats. So without much of a plan, we just went to the most convenient place near Alderwood Mall - Sushi Land. Okay, okay, please don't laugh.

When we walked into the place, the sushi on the conveyor belt looked novel and suited us just fine as we were pretty hungry. So much like grocery shopping on an empty stomach, we began randomly picking plates and chowing down. The trick here is the plates are marked with a price and at the end, you pay for what you ate (they add up the empty dishes). As I was busy eating, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that they were stuffing sushi rice into a machine. And a few minutes later, out popped formed sushi rice for nigiri! I sat there stunned. Did I really just see that??? Okay, "reasonable expectations", I repeated to myself. So the selection of Nigiri we ended up with included Salmon, Tamago, Seared Tuna, Tai, Vegetable, Seared Tuna, Spicy Salmon and Tempura Fish Cake. Machine-formed sushi rice withstanding, the texture was not bad being slightly dry. The rice was on the blander side, but did exhibit some vinegar. Overall, there was really nothing particularly awful with the nigiri, it was just average.

While we were beginning to move onto some Maki Roll Sushi, I was further shocked to see it being made free-hand without a sushi mat. Therefore, some of the rolls were very sloppily constructed. Okay, "reasonable expectations" I reminded myself. We had the California Roll, Salmon Skin Roll and Spicy Tuna Roll (with a Takoyaki for good measure). If I had to describe these rolls, they were like the premade ones you'd find in a grocery store. Edible, yet not really all that good either. The Takoyaki was your typical fried frozen ones. They were not bad though with large pieces of tender octopus inside. We ended off with 2 fried items in the Fried Gyoza and Ika Karaage. The fried gyozas were okay being mostly crisp. The filling wasn't bad (not gritty). The Ika Karaage was not very good though. The squid was leathery and chewy while the batter was oil-soaked and not crispy at all.

If I sound a bit indifferent about our meal here, it is because there was nothing to get excited about. Now to be fair, the food was edible, so it did the job. Of course there were a lot of short cuts taken and let's not even get into the topic of authenticity. With a place such as this, "reasonable exceptions" must be employed. No, you won't find legit Japanese food here. And honestly, who really cares? The food was very inexpensive. We got out of there for around $20.00 and were stuffed. Would I come back? Probably not, however, it filled us up for cheap.

The Good:
- Inexpensive
- Conveyor belt is a novelty
- Edible

The Bad:
- Lots of shortcuts taken
- If you are a sushi snob, you won't want to come here

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