While Takadanobaba is known as a hotspot for ramen, Ueno is known for the fierce competition zone for sushi restaurants. Stroll around the station and you'll find plenty of conveyor sushi belt restaurants and seafood Izakayas. 
One of them is this Kaiten sushi that belongs to Misaki Meguno Suisan(三崎恵水産), the Maguro supplier in Misaki fishing port. In fact, Misaki fishing port is known for the hauling and transaction of Maguros. Hence this is the reason why this sushi-ya, more specifically Maguro-ya, can offer super value for money sushi. All other seafood comes from the Tsukiji Market.
This Maguro-ya has several outlets in Tokyo and Yokohama. But each one varies a little from each other. The outlet at Ueno is known for its "mountain sushi" in which the vinegared rice is piled with overflowing ingredients that you practically can't see the rice.
Starting from ¥105 for the Maguro, the sushi here is priced at several grades till ¥629 using flowery plates that can be tricky to distinguish for the untrained consumers. Well, with many voluptuous sushi rotating in front of your eyes, who really pays attention to the plate colors anyway?
Omakase Sushi purists might snub the sushi here but there is quality to speak about the sushi that doesn't require you to shell out a big fortune. About 80% of what we had was truly fresh and tasty, particularly the Maguro, White fish, Anago, Aka-Ebi and Uni. I couldn't get acquainted to the texture of shellfish and the chunks of maguro topped with grated mountain yam were slightly stale. Tamago wasn't tender and flavorful to my liking too. But it's all about a matter of preference so the best strategy is to pick the seafood you like to eat.
There are only 19 counter seats and the conveyor belt is therefore a lot shorter. However, this also means that you can catch the attention of the chefs more easily and place your order for any item that is not rotating on the belt.
Miura Misakimachi Ueno 三浦三崎港 上野店
Tokyo, Taito-ku, Ueno 6-12-14
Weekdays 10.30am-11pm
Weekends/PH 10.30am-10pm
Thanks so much for the post! Went here and loved it. Everything was fresh and the staff were very friendly. They even gave me a maguro sushi on the house with "welcome" painstakingly written in English on it. Definitely going back ;D
ReplyDeleteHi Tabitai,
DeleteThank you for popping by my blog. I'm so happy that there are people who read this and visit the place. Yes, I agree that the staff there is very friendly. Hope you continue to have a great time eating around Japan!