Blue C Sushi
3411 Fremont Ave N, 633-3411

(plus five other Seattle-area locations)

Description: A restaurant chain serving conveyor-belt sushi in a programmatically stylish setting.

What's inside: Many futuristic wonderments, such as the highly efficient checkout system (the plate colors designate menu prices, and you alert the servers with a blue-light signal when you're ready to order) and the restroom's hand dryer (its air jets are so powerful, they cause the flesh on your hands to ripple weirdly around, suggesting someone else's soul is trapped in your body).

What's not inside, thank God: The sushi chef robot unveiled at an exhibition in Japan last year, designed to resemble a disembodied human hand and detailed with inappropriately sensual effects (trimmed fingernails, white crescents at the nail bases, and faint blue veins that move too naturally beneath the silicone skin).

Fair warning: If you've come to enjoy the novelty of the sushi carousel, you're out of luck—happy-hour clientele must dine in the upstairs lounge, which is pleasant enough but lies beyond range.

Happy hours: Sundays and Thursdays 4–9 pm, all other days 4–7 pm.

Happy-hour drink specials: $1 off house wine, bottled sake, and beer (Fremont Pale Ale, Sapporo), $2.50 small house sake, $3.50 wells, and $5 specialty cocktails (such as the Blue C Cosmo).

Happy-hour food specials: A nice list of discount small plates, such as $1.75 California roll, $2.75 pork gyoza, $3.25 salmon sashimi, and more. recommended