There's sushi, and then there's SUSHI. There's the kind you eat in a noisy, friendly atmosphere with all the prices written out in big black characters and taped to the walls. If you feel the act of reading and choosing is too much, just ask for any one of the various sushi setto (sets), depicted in laminated photographs stacked on every table.

On the other hand your sushi could just be rotating on a conveyor belt (called kaiten) right in front of you, in which case all you'd have to do is pick up the plates of choice (color-coded according to price) and eat until kingdom come. Such places are designed to minimize the stress of sushi-eating, by slashing all but the most basic communication between sushi chef and customer. Call it a sushi safe house.

But a lot of shokutsu (gourmands) will say that sushi is meaningless without the stress of engaging in sushi warfare. Which brings us to the third kind of sushi: the kind served in upscale restaurants with counters that often have no price list, much less a menu, and force one to confer meekly with the stern, disciplinarian sushi chef every two minutes.