We have reunited with our now dear friends from Convoy Recon for a joint expeditionary force! Prepare yourself for a highly automated, tasty, and extremely kawaii experience.
Rating: Two thumbs up (Gold star potential)
Here we go!
When you show up, you log in here:
They’ll text you when it’s your turn. There’s even a website you can go to on your phone to see what number they’re on. This is a good thing because the wait can be over an hour. Try to go at an off hour if you can — we were there at 7 pm on a Wednesday, and we waited about 40 minutes.
You gotta be quick!
When they arrive, they zoom down the upper conveyor belt and stop at your table, and a lady who sounds like a train announcement says, “Without further delay, now arriving!” in Japanese.
A selection of the plates we tried:
Every 5 plates, you get a little animated movie. Every 15 plates, you get a prize!
Apologies for the vertical video–despite Andrew’s objections, it’s the only way I could get the whole thing in the frame.
Date: 9/16/2015
Time in: 7:00 PM (seated at 7:39 PM)
Number in our party: 6
Final check amount: $124.42
Price per person: $20.74
NOTES
- This meal caused some fits of uncontrolled giggling and cheering.
- Once you sit down, there is immediate gratification. Endless food with no wait! If you want something specific that hasn’t shown up on the conveyor belt, you can special-order it, and it’ll come in just a few minutes!
- Our favorites:
- Andi: sesame balls, crispy rice with crab mayo
- Andrew: wasabi, crispy fried squid
- Beston: umami oil salmon
- Django: tempura philadelphia roll, Japanese soy donuts
- Jenne: seared salmon with mayo nigiri, golden crunchy roll
- Miko: umami oil salmon nigiri, seared salmon with mayo nigiri
- I (Miko) am fairly picky about raw fish, especially salmon, which I find has too strong of a taste unless it’s very fresh. I liked the salmon here, probably because they had the sense to marinate it in various flavors rather than leaving it plain!
- Special-order fried or crispy rice items; don’t get them off the conveyor or it’ll be cold and kind of hard.
- Yay, warabi mochi! That shit is pretty hard to find in a restaurant setting. Thrilled!
- We were ENTIRELY CHARMED by the experience. We had grown a little wary of Convoy, what with all the fancy hipsterish developments, not to mention the drop in quality at some of our favorite restaurants, but this has restored a bit of our faith in our favorite street in San Diego.
RESTAURANT INFORMATION
Address: 4609 Convoy St, San Diego, CA 92111
Phone number: 858.715.4605
Noise level: 3
Accepts credit cards? Yes.
Parking: Shared lot, fairly crowded
Ideal group size: 2-6
Available vegetarian options: Dessert? It might have gelatin in it. Edamame, tamago nigiri, natto rolls, cucumber rolls.
Whom not to bring: Vegetarians who want a varied menu
Convoy Conquest 