Round and round they go.... East Kaiten Zushi

East Restaurant

1405 Teaneck Road

Teaneck, NJ

(201) 837-1260

So we've been to East in the city and tried its NJ outpost.  East is one of the few conveyor belt sushi joints around, and the first time is always the best. I would say, oh, five years ago, we weren't too impressed.  It was a good thing that we've decided to give it another go and we were pleasantly surprised. The menu has been completely revamped, with a much larger selection, and tons of pictures so you know what you're getting.

If it's your first time, by all means try to grab a spot by the conveyor belt.  It's a very quirky and charming Japanese adaptation of the large luggage carousels in the airports.  You see the pretty pieces of sushi go by, all covered in plastic domed lids.  You pretty much just help yourself.  The plates are color-coded, which indicates the price of the item you've picked. 
 

What we've come to realize is that a la carte is the way to go with most kaiten zushi places.  There are just too many variables involved with bits of sushi going around and around, e.g., you could be positioned the farthest away from the kitchen and so the plates are already picked over when they come to you; the kitchen may not be too aggressive when it comes to replacing the sad pieces that nobody wants; or, if the place is not too busy, there is a poor turnover/selection.

Surprisingly, we've never gone beyond the conveyor belt selection before, which is a big shame because the fish here is quite fresh and the portions are hefty.

Unagi hand roll.

 House salad with a tangy-sweet carrot and ginger dressing.

Salmon sashimi.  Definitely a must-have.  It was nice and melt-in-your mouth fatty.  Barely seen in the foreground are pieces of tempura veggies.

Clam soup.  I especially liked this one; the broth is briny and bracing, with a lot of umami.

Tuna sashimi. 

Grilled salmon head. Yummm.

Here's another item we picked from the conveyor belt: spicy tuna.

We've been back a couple more times since then, and tried a few more things.  What's really nice is that East has a large selection of non-sushi/sashimi items, such as noodles, tempura and soup.  They even have some bento box specials which seem to be a great deal.  And of course, they also have a few Japanese beers (get the large draft beer to see what it looks like), sake and mixed drinks, which makes East a fun place to celebrate. 

Here are two items we grabbed: egg and fried shrimp sushi.