The sushi I had here was very, very good if I stuck to the exotic stuff, and the decor was nice. On the other hand it isn't what you really expect when you think of sushi train.

The train doesn't carry sushi all the time. It usually goes around its track carrying nothing and you have to order at the front desk. But this isn't explained when you get in, nor is the staff willing to behave like a waiter/waitress and take your order at the table if you do sit, so I personally found the beginning of my meal somewhat stressful and embarassing. I had sat there like a fool with my family, expecting some kind of degustation or something like it to ensue.

But it is understandable why they do things this way. The eatery appears in a little block of shops and so they do not have the customer flow neccesary to be able to have the usual cavalcade experience you would be used to if you had been for sushi train somewhere else. They would end up wasting a lot of food and effort. So I very much understand (and so should you).

The food came out with reasonable timing and even though my family usually don't go in for Japanese they really liked it. I loved the soft-shell crab rolls. They were brilliant with a spicy sauce drizzled over them.

The prices were fairly reasonable for the quality and quantity, so I would never say that people shouldn't come here at all. It's more that they should only go if they aren't expecting a typical sushi train and more of a "fancy takeaway shop with a really nice vintage style train that delivers your food" experience.

Approximate cost: $17

Disappointing :(

We drove past the shopping centre the other day and noticed the sushi place. I was excited to be able to try a sushi train experience, since I've heard about them but never seen one. So I thought it would make a nice treat for my friend and I to bring our girls for a sushi train lunch.

We get there and sit down. No instructions about how things work.... empty train going around the track. Eventually we go to the front counter to ask what happens, and we were told that we order from the menu. Ok :( so what about the train? They only do the sushi train on Tuesdays, every other day they just serve your food on the train. Hmm, not the fun experience I was hoping for.

So we order hand rolls for the kids and bento boxes for us. The hand rolls are served almost straight away - the kids are mildly amused that their plates were delivered by train. But when it's only your food on an otherwise empty train, it loses some of the appeal really.... We were the only ones there at that point, but were wondering how that would work when there are lots of people there? - we could work out whose plates were whose because we knew we were the only ones there, but if more people were there - how would you know?

Our soup arrived (not by train - maybe hot soup is a hazard?). Then a long time after the kids had finished their sushi rolls and were just sitting there bored, our bento boxes finally arrived. Also delivered by train, which was nice. It's a pity the food was served like that - with us having to sit there watching them eat, and them sitting there watching us eat. I'd have preferred if we were given the option to have their food served with ours.

The food was good, not fantastic, but certainly filling and nice. I'm sure I saw the chef snap apart some frozen pieces (I'm assuming it was the tempura "vegetables" (which was just 3 pieces of sweet potato)) - so they aren't exactly cooked fresh as claimed.

The cleanliness of the place is a rather questionable too. The little bowls for the soy sauce had crumbs in them (all 3 I looked at did), the train sections had food crumbs and bits on them, and there was dust everywhere! The top of the counter part the train ran along was very dusty, there was a potted artificial plant thick with dust (and the train travels under a portion of that - ick), the curtains hanging above the opening to the kitchen were thick with dust..... It didn't give a very good impression.

Just before we left more people came in to eat, and our question of "how would you know which is your food" was answered - you don't.... The plates on the train went around twice, with everyone sitting there looking at them... before someone called out to say whose plates they were. Doesn't seem to be a very efficient way to organise things.

So all in all, it was a pretty disappointing dining experience. I guess that's partly my fault, for assuming that they would be serving sushi from the train every day. If I wanted to buy sushi from a counter - I'd go somewhere else (like "Sushi Sushi", whose sushi is much nicer). However the dirtyness of the place, the time it took for our meal to be served as well as the fact the food wasn't able to be selected from the train, made the whole thing really disappointing.

I don't expect I'll go back again.