Sushi Push Pops aiming to be Japan’s newest sakura season snack sensation

Restaurant chain creates sushi you can eat with one hand, leaving your other free to toast the cherry blossoms.

The cherry blossoms will be blooming soon in Japan, and the arrival of sakura season also means the arrival of snack season. Between parties in the park and long strolls along tree-lined lanes, there’s often not enough time for a sit-down restaurant meal on a day of cherry blossom viewing excursions, so something fun and filling that you can munch on quickly and conveniently is the perfect form of sakura season sustenance.

And so, with that in mind, Japanese restaurant chain Unatoto is offering a new takeout item: Sushi Push Pops.

Each pop has four pieces of nigiri-style sushi. They’re stacked in a cup with a unique design that lets you push up on the stick and raise the bottom of the container, bringing the next piece of sushi up to the top so you can easily eat them with one hand without the need for chopsticks or getting your fingers dirty.

Unatoto specializes in unagi (freshwater eel), so the top piece is a slice of unagi over vinegared sushi rice (the promotional language calls it “popping texture sushi” in its English text and “unagi California sushi” in Japanese, neither of which is a commonly used term with any sort of widely accepted meaning). Underneath that is a piece of smoked salmon and mayo sushi, followed by a minced unagi sushi piece wrapped in a thin omelet, and finally another piece of salmon sushi.

Knowing full well how freely the drinks flow at many cherry blossom viewing parties, Unatoto points out that the Sushi Push Pop pairs very well with beer. The chain also points out that each Sushi Push Pop comes decorated with one of seven stickers of Unatoto mascot Totoko, since in Japan “people who like beer” and “people who like cute characters” are far from mutually exclusive demographics.

The Sushi Push Pop is priced at 750 yen (US$4.85) and is available at only two Unatoto branches: the Asakusa one in Tokyo and the Minami Morimachi one in Osaka. It’s being offered for a limited time, which Unatoto has poetically set as “from March 13 until the cherry blossoms scatter.”

Restaurant information
Unatoto (Asakusa branch) / 宇奈とと（浅草店）
Address: Tokyo-to, Taito-ku, Hanagawado 1-5-2
東京都台東区花川戸1-5-2
Open 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
Website

Unatoto (Minami Morimachi branch) / 宇奈とと（南森町店）
Address: Osaka-fu, Osaka-shi, Kita-ku, Tenjinbashi 2-3-24
大阪府大阪市北区天神橋2-3-24
Open 11 a.m.-11 p.m.
Website

Source, images: PR Times
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