Kaisen Kaiten Sushi Bar

Orange County previously had a wider range of conveyor belt sushi restaurants than it does today, where there are essentially two options: multiple U.S. locations of Japan’s Kura Sushi, and a single seemingly family-owned alternative, Kaisen Sushi in Santa Ana, nearly across from Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza. Kaisen’s confusing longer name – Kaisen Kaiten Sushi Bar – includes “kaiten,” Japanese for conveyor belt, and perhaps overpromises on the “sushi bar” part. The experience consists largely of sitting at a table and watching a single large conveyor move clear-covered dishes past your seat, unless you grab them first.

You can order items from a menu if they’re not circulating on the belt, which is quite common these days, as a substantial fraction of Kaisen’s rotating dishes focus on salmon. To place an order, you mark your choices on a sheet of paper, send the paper to the kitchen inside a glass cup on the conveyor, then wait for everything to be hand made.

As contrasted with Kura, Kaisen’s menu is more interesting – including lobster hand rolls, fresh oysters, and soft shell crab – with many dishes at lower prices than Kura’s current $3.75 per plate. Instead of one uniform plate price, Kaisen’s dish color determines whether you pay $1.25 to $9.00; dishes are stacked on your table and hand-counted by a server at the end. Our meals have tended to be less expensive at Kaisen than at Kura, sometimes markedly so, and sometimes not.