Bento Cafe Sushi & Roll in Woodbridge, VA

During a recent bit of traveling, I stopped for dinner in Woodbridge, VA and ate at a fast food Japanese restaurant called Bento Cafe Sushi & Roll.

I had their California Roll Combo which came with miso soup, fried dumplings, and the California roll.


The California Roll was filled with krab, cucumber, and avocado.  After being sliced into eighteen pieces, it was topped with masago.  All of my food was very tasty, although it was somewhat expensive for fast food sushi served on paper plates...

Another sushi roll combo was also ordered...

While the food was good, there was also a not-so-good aspect to the restaurant. The restaurant's owner seemed to be caught up in a multi-level marketing scheme and was desperately trying to sell an alkaline water machine to her customers. In fact, the sales pitch started as soon as we walked in the door with the mention that they make their own water. Somehow I didn't think they were bonding hydrogen and oxygen in the back of a fast food restaurant. Apparently the wonderful tap water produced in the United States is evil, but if you run the tap water through a machine that claims to ionize the water to make it more basic, it turns into a cure-all.

Later in the meal, the owner visited the table and gave a lovely demonstration on the proper way to mix wasabi into their home-brewed soy sauce, then went back into trying to sell her alkaline water. To add onto the scary sales pitch, potentially dangerous psuedoscientific health claims about the magic healing powers of the water were made. We were in the restaurant to eat Japanese food, not be sold psudoscientific snake oil! I wouldn't return, and I'm assuming I'm probably not the only customer that has been scared away... 

Google alkaline water and you can find plenty of good websites debunking the claims mixed into the sites promoting the woo.  Here's a good one: http://www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html