At this Fort Worth-area restaurant, a robot cat named Bella delivers the sushi
A new all-you-can-eat sushi and hibachi restaurant doesn’t have flaming grills or flashy knife work.
But it does have something everybody wants to see: Bella the robot cat.
Bella and Pudu are the robots that bring orders at Japan House, a new restaurant counting on new technology and cooked-to-order dishes to draw diners to a former Chinese buffet at 7536 Boulevard 26.
The robots — Bella is a friendly kitten, Pudu is more of a self-propelled serving tray — roll alongside a server to deliver repeat orders of sushi, sashimi, teriyaki steak or karaage fried chicken to each table at a restaurant serving all you can eat for $29.99 at dinner and on weekends, $19.99 at weekday lunch.
“I saw one in a restaurant in Plano, and I had to find one,” said Wei Lin, a partner in the new sushi bar-and-grill replacing his family’s buffet.
“I think the robot will attract people to come, and the food will be what makes them stay.”
Bella is interactive and responds to petting. Pudu, on the other hand, is all business.
Robot servers debuted last summer in Texas at Ari Korean BBQ in Carrollton and Plano and at La Duni in Dallas.
Some restaurant owners say the robots help with the staffing shortage. They’re capable of delivering food to an exact table and returning to the kitchen without an operator.
But Lin said he still wants a server to arrive alongside the robots and personally present the food.
“I’ve seen restaurants where you just take your food, press a button and send it back,” he said. “We want to make a personal connection with the customer.”
Japan House would do well even without a robot cat.
The menu features hibachi or teriyaki steak, chicken, shrimp or salmon, with hundreds of other choices, such as ramen or poke, an ahi tuna tower and fried chicken, shrimp or dumplings.
At dinner, Japan House also offers Japanese short ribs.
The 30 raw and cooked sushi rolls include the deep-fried “super chy chy” roll with spicy tuna, spicy crab and spicy mayo, or the “rock ‘n’ roll” with crabmeat and crawfish.
If there’s a drawback, it’s that the 138-item menu is a little overwhelming when you can order all you can eat.
Settle on a couple of rolls and an entree, then see if you want to try something different.
The more times you order, the more times the robot comes to the table.
Don’t expect anything as nice as at, say, Tokyo Cafe. But expect a wide selection and a lot for the price, particularly at lunch. Ask for extra sriracha and wasabi.
Lin’s family also has a role in operating two other local all-you-can-eat restaurants: China Harbor Super Buffet in Arlington, a traditional Chinese buffet, and Chamas do Brazil in Arlington, a Brazilian churrascaria.
“I think the sushi and sashimi are what people want now,” he said.
And Bella.
Japan House serves lunch and dinner daily. It’s just west of Loop 820 on Boulevard 26 in front of City Hall, in a location built as a chain restaurant named China Coast; 817-537-2223, japanhousedfw.com.
This story was originally published October 20, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
