Yo Sushi! 52 Poland Street 020 7287 0443	Lunch £20 ($30)	This was my first visit to Yo Sushi!, a popular and growing chain of sushi bars in which the main feature is an endlessly moving conveyor belt carrying covered dishes of hot or cold morsels. You sit at the counter surrounding the food preparation area and choose whatever takes your fancy from the belt, and add soy, green wasabi or pickled ginger to taste. Still and sparkling water (£1 for unlimited refills) is available from little counter top dispensers, and a roving mechanical bar loaded with wine, beer and sake trundles around on wheels saying 'coming through' or 'please help yourself'. The dishes, most of which are minutely pictured in the menu, are colour coded according to four price brackets: £1.50, £2.00, £3.00 and £3.50. At the end your server counts the empties to make up the bill. We tried some of the hot dishes, including chicken katsu (chicken in a light spicy batter, deep fried and sliced) and seared pepper tuna. We also had salmon sashimi, prawn and salmon nigiri (slices of raw fish on a cube of sticky rice), spiced beef with noodles, and several kinds of iso rolls (rice and seaweed strip rolled around vegetables and fish). To finish we tried some of the (overpriced) sweet dishes, which included a delicious little lemon tart, a rather tired pancake filled with custard and drizzled with a red fruit sauce and some 'traditional Japanese sweets', the latter consisting of sweet chocolate and nut flavoured paste wrapped in a gelatinous rice pastry. We loved the food although in spite of loudish rock music and several television monitors suspended near the ceilings (and therefore unviewable from the counter), it was a little soulless. An incentive to return was the loyalty offer of a £10 free meal on our fourth visit. Apparently, all dishes are only £1 each in the last half hour of trading each day, to save chucking them away.
Wagamama Noodle Bar 4 Streatham Street WC1A 020 7323 9223 Tottenham Court Road	Dinner £10 ($15)	Is this the dining experience of the future? A recent visit to the smaller and relatively quieter Bloomsbury branch of Wagamama in Streatham Street, near the British Museum, proved that the formula is holding up. This is again in a basement, and the fare on offer is virtually indistinguishable from one outlet to the next. We went at lunchtime and enjoyed sweet and sour prawns with udon noodles, chicken with rice and pork with rice. I had a raw juice, and my prawns came with dollops of tofu and a quarter lime to squeeze over the plate. My companions chose a bottle each of Asahi beer (brewed these days in Czechoslovakia). Basic yet tasty noodle cuisine with ambitions of global domination.
Wagamama Noodle Bar 10a Lexington St Soho W1 020 7292 0990 Piccadilly Circus	Dinner £10 ($15)	Avoid peak times at this, the first of a small chain of oriental restaurants specialising in noodles and a hippy health kick sales pitch. Set in a basement with long wooden canteen tables and benches and an open kitchen along one wall, the spacious, minimalist venue is popular with the local media crowd and can get very busy and noisy, with queues building up rapidly. Team up freshly made fruit juices with small plates (essentially starters) and udon, ramen or soba noodles from a large selection.
Prices are per head for two-three courses, sharing a bottle of wine or a beer or two where appropriate
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