Sushi Coming Through
Wasabi sushi soon to be circling at Stonebriar Centre in Frisco
Wasabi's menu includes sashimi and sushi rolls.Wasabi/Facebook
Wasabi features a conveyor belt from which you can grab whatever you like.Wasabi/Facebook
Wasabi's conveyor-belt items have ID's tracked by a computer, monitoring howlong they have been on the belt and what needs to be resupplied.Wasabi/Facebook
Grab your sushi here: Wasabi, a small Washington, D.C.-based restaurant chain, will bring its conveyor-belt sushi to Texas — specifically Frisco, in Stonebriar Centre mall. The restaurant will take up the space previously occupied by a Microsoft kiosk, in the lower level of the food court. A mall spokesman said it'll open in July.
Founded in 2006, Wasabi has four locations: one in Virginia, two in Massachusetts and one that opened in Florida in 2012. All are located in mall food courts. The Stonebriar Wasabi will be modeled after the one in Natick, Massachusetts, with a bay sticking out from a center circle that resembles the Starship Enterprise.
"The centerpiece is our eye-catching conveyor belt, where plates of sushi, sashimi and nigiri glide around the restaurant," reads Wasabi's Facebook page.
Wasabi won't be the first sushi spot with a conveyor belt (a.k.a., a kaiten). There's Sushi Envy in north Plano, and there was Genki Sushi in North Dallas, which closed last year. But Wasabi will be the only conveyor-belt sushi in which each plate has a radio frequency ID chip tracked by a computer to tell how long it has been circling, circling. And if you care to clock the conveyor belt's speed, it's "a serene quarter of a mile per hour."
In addition to standard sushi items, Wasabi does trendy creations like the "BLT," with bacon, lettuce and mayo-scallion-soy sauce wrapped in a roll and topped with fresh tomato. There are always cooked, raw and veggie items such as the Sunrise roll with sweet potato, carrot, roasted red pepper and veggie cream cheese.
Distinctive desserts include green tea mousse and the chocolate "beignet," with chocolate enclosing a center of mango puree. And like fellow chain Sushi Samba (which once had a branch at Galleria Dallas), Wasabi's menu features a few Latin American items like ceviche and tiradito, the Peruvian rendition of raw fish.
