A Button, a Track, a Bite
By Hiroshi Tanaka for Singapore Sushi Stories
My finger hovers over the screen for a moment before I press.
A soft tap. A small chime. Somewhere behind the counter, my order joins a queue of others, and I settle back to wait for the track to bring it to me.
There is a low hum in this room. Not conversation, though there is some of that. The hum of the belt, the quiet mechanics of a place built to move food from one point to another without a single word passing between us.
For a wider look at how this moving-track format became part of casual dining, read about the evolution of the sushi train and how it created the cheapest sushi buffet in Singapore.
I watch the plates go by. Salmon, tamago, a small tower of tuna. Each one riding the track past strangers who glance, consider, and let it pass.
Then the little cart arrives. My order, on its own express lane, gliding to a gentle stop in front of me. A light blinks. I lift the plate, and the cart slips back the way it came.
It is a strange sort of intimacy, this. No chef’s hands, no nod across the counter. Just a button, a track, and a bite waiting at the end of it.
I used to think something was lost in all this. The ritual, maybe. The human part.
But I am not so sure anymore.
There is a rhythm here too, if you slow down enough to feel it. The tap of the screen. The wait. The hum. The arrival. A small cycle, repeating, the way older rituals also repeated in their own quieter ways.
We are a city that likes things to move. Lifts, trains, queues that dissolve the moment they form. We eat between meetings and errands, and we have built our meals to keep our pace. A tablet instead of a menu. A belt instead of a waiter. A track that never tires and never rushes you, either.
I look around. A child two seats down presses the screen with great seriousness, then watches the track like it holds a small magic. A pair of office workers order without looking up from their talk. A man alone, like me, taps and waits and eats, unhurried inside all this motion.
There is comfort in it, I think. The machine asks nothing of you. No small talk you are too tired for. No pressure to decide before the next plate disappears. You order when you are ready. The track brings it when it comes.
Perhaps this is simply how ritual survives in a city like ours. It sheds the old ceremony and keeps the shape underneath. The waiting. The receiving. The eating. The quiet gratitude of a plate arriving in front of you.
I press the screen once more. Another chime. Another small wait.
And in that wait, I find something the hum almost hides. A pause. A breath. A moment that is mine, before the plate arrives and the cycle begins again.
The next time you sit at one of these counters, try not to fill the wait. Let the track do its slow work. You may find the ritual was there all along, humming quietly beneath the machine.
- Hiroshi Tanaka
