Genki Sushi

My experiences with conveyor-belt sushi has been mediocre at best.  I've tried the inexpensive Sushi Land and although one can eat there on budget, the food ain't something to write home about.  I found Blue C Sushi to be better, but at their pricing, very hard to justify going there over Sushi Land.  Finally, Sushi Maru in Bellevue was the best of the bunch, but once again, it wasn't super cheap.  So really, I had no reason to do this again, but alas, the kiddies love the novelty.  Therefore, we visited the popular chain Genki Sushi while we were staying in Renton.

For those unfamiliar, you help yourself to anything on the conveyor belts where you will be charged accordingly by the plate color (with each representing a different price point).   Upon sitting down, the kids started grabbing plates like no tomorrow.  We ended up with Salmon, Red Tuna and Tamago.  Unless I'm mistaken, the rice appeared to be shaped from a machine (since they were so uniform).  No matter really since the texture was actually not bad being chewy and not overly wet.  It was a bit bland, but sushi rice comes in all levels of seasoning.  On top, the salmon was sliced rather thin but was buttery soft.  The tuna was firm and not all-that-flavorful.  Surprisingly, the tamago was decent (of course it wasn't prepared the traditional way, but let's keep it real here...) being fluffy and slightly sweet albeit thin.  The Seared Salmon was buttery, but lacking in flavour, it needed more charring and some sauce.

The problem with conveyor-belt sushi is that one tends to grab everything that they see.  Call it the power of suggestion (visuals) and/or being very hungry.  So the next 3 Nigri consisted of Tuna, Spam (yes, really) and Mackerel.  Although haphazardly sliced, the tuna was quite good.  It was somewhat thick, but the texture was on point with a meatiness that was still soft and buttery.  Not much to say about the spam other than it was sauced with some teriyaki and did its best impression of a masubi.  Graced with the usual green onion and ginger condiment, the mackerel was pretty typical (which was a good thing).  My son really loved Unagi, so we had to get some for him.  However, it was a special order since if you can imagine how it would be sitting on the conveyor-belt for too long.  As you can see, the portion was generous and it was warm and buttery soft.

Onto some cooked items, we also special ordered the Fried Salmon Bits and Popcorn Shrimp.  These were actually available on the conveyor-belt, but our server told us to ignore those since they had been sitting out for awhile.  Crunchy and light, the fish skin were akin to the packaged version found in Asia except these were served warm.  They were lightly salty and with the squeeze of lemon, it was rather addictive.  The popcorn shrimp was more or less acceptable as the shrimp inside was buttery with a snap.  I found the breading to be a bit thick though, yet still crunchy.  We didn't special order the Deep Fried Potstickers, but they turned out to be still crunchy while okay on the grease.

Onto the maki rolls, we chose the Garlic Salmon Roll with kanikama salad, cucumber, seared salmon, garlic mayo, BBQ eel sauce, sweet chili sauce and green onions.  Once again, there wasn't really anything wrong with the roll as the rice was fine and the garlic really came through.  It was essentially a California roll with seared salmon on top. We also had the Spicy Tuna Roll consisting of tuna, cucumber and chili pepper.  As evidenced in the picture, the spiciness was pretty obvious.  Hence, it lived up to its namesake.  If you haven't noticed by now, the food was decent, but it didn't exactly light my foodie fire.  However, with that being said, it was reasonably-priced and was fun for the kids.  If you come in with clear expectations, Genki does the job for conveyor-belt sushi.

The Good:
- Decent
- Reasonably-priced
- Although service was sparse, it was actually quite friendly

The Bad:
- Don't expect too much
- Sparse service