Training ground for eating sushi
There are very few rules to eating sushi:
• it is perfectly acceptable to eschew chop sticks and use your fingers when eating sushi: indeed, if you are lucky enough to sit at the tiny sushi bar at Mizutani, it is de rigeur (and whichever way you roll, don't forget to pop the thing in whole, otherwise it will be less sushi and more a heap of rice in front of, or all over, you);
• do not mix the wasabi with the soy sauce: they are two distinct tastes; hot and salty. You put a bit of each on, or sometimes one and sometimes the other, but never mix them in the same bowel; and
• if you pick something off the kaiten you DO NOT put it back. Nobody else wants your germs added to what they pick up later, so if you take it, you eat it.
Stuck away in the Lanes behind the Royal Albion (don't go there. No really, do not, under any circumstances, go there) Moshimo has a kaiten – a long one that wends its way around three separate counters. Some have stools, some have tables, with two of the seats at the belt and the others away. OK, with a table, it is not always easy for the person sitting farthest away from the belt to see what is going around, but that is no excuse for anyone to pick up a plate, pass it around to see if anyone wants it and then to put it back.
We went on a quiet Sunday afternoon and the place was packed with people, lots of whom were kids and lots of whom were the ones sitting kaiten-side. It is terrific to see that young kids enjoy eating raw fish, and good on the parents for encouraging their offspring to pass on the McCrap burgers and dimethylpolysiloxane soaked fries, even to let them sit belt side and choose the grub, but please, please don't set them a bad example by breaking a pretty obvious rule.
Fortunately Moshimo also allows you to choose things off a long, rambling menu that covers a variety of different Japanese styles, yet also trips across the Tsushima Strait to Korea. Why? Japan has so much to offer, so many varieties of cooking or preparing raw food, who needs a Bulgogi, sitting there on the menu like a turd in a swimming pool? I know I shouldn't be expecting Jiro Dreams of Sushi, but really, start with the most basic of things, the bedrock of the sushi; the rice. Get the rice right first, then maybe move on to fish and other dishes: the rice at Moshimo is cold, doesn't have the right texture and lacks the vinegar punch it needs to set it apart from just plain rice, to become sushi rice.
The best dishes were the ones ordered off-belt: the tempura, the teriyaki and the dumplings all went down a treat. Some of the fish was too, but the uni and the tuna were just a bit past it.
Service is hit and miss, but the atmosphere is pleasant enough. I visit Brighton a fair amount, but I'm not sure that I would revisit Moshimo, other than with a group of kids, so that they could learn the basics of eating sushi, before moving on to the real thing.