Makoto Sushi Bar

It's hard to remember when we didn't have sushi trains. These cunning delivery systems for rice and raw fish arrived just as we clicked on to the internet. At the time, their conveyor belts were faster than our dial-up modems. Now we have broadband, sushi is more common than sandwiches and sushi train restaurants dot our shopping precincts. In Chatswood, only one of them, Makoto, has a queue out the front, under a striking red Japanese character on a black sign.

The other eye-catching sign is the "catch of the day", which lists the sources of Makoto's seafood smorgasbord: South Australian kingfish, Tasmanian sea urchin, Coffs Harbour bonito, New Zealand snapper and trevally, and Port Lincoln jewfish and bluefin tuna.

The last one stops me in my tracks. Southern bluefin tuna rarely shows up on Sydney tables. Nearly 99 per cent of Australia's production is exported, mostly to Japan. I'm not sure whether to be impressed by a sushi train that declares the origins of its seafood or dubious about eating this fast-moving fish known as the Porsche of the sea.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society lists the warm-blooded fish as endangered. The society opposes its fishing and farming because tuna numbers have been so drastically reduced. The Tuna Boat Owners Association disagrees, saying that wild stocks are recovering.

Southern bluefin tuna is caught and farmed under a quota system. The fish journey from Java and are captured at three years old, weighing 17 kilograms. They are raised on ranches, so called because of the enormous size of the enclosures. Here, the tuna are fattened for six months until they weigh about 30 kilograms.

To try this rare, ranched tuna, we join a small throng outside Makoto and take a ticket. A sample display of food is at the entrance and a poke of the cling wrap reveals that the food is real not plastic.

A poster in the window shows the dishes on offer. They are divided into nigiri, with everything from scampi to the deepwater fish alfonsino draped over rice, ''ships'' which are wrapped in nori, regular and ''hand'' rolls, udon, tempura and conveyor containers of salads.

In the end, it's easier to wait until we are seated and can see the food trundle past for ourselves.

From the rolls, we haul in a twist of raw salmon fillet filled with avocado and mayonnaise, a play of soft textures. Scallops, lightly seared and stacked on a lightly cooked salmon strip, include a salty burst of bright-orange fish eggs.

Three nori, or dried seaweed ''ships'', have briny fresh oysters, chopped tuna yukke, which is a different take on the fish, and creamy, delicate sea urchins with a dab of wasabi. All are good.

I throw caution to the wind and order the Port Lincoln tuna. It's amazing: melting, ruby-red flesh with a clarity of flavour that hovers in your mouth. You can understand why the Japanese go crazy for it.

Not everything works. The kingfish nigiri is dry, though there's no doubting its freshness.

A lot of the fish featured on the window poster isn't on the conveyor belt, a sign that produce is bought based on market-fresh availability. The desserts, on the other hand, aren't seasonal and don't vary.

We try the green tea pannacotta, which is ultra creamy and suffers from an overdose of gelatin. More to my taste is the gorgeous daifuku mochi, a supple ball of glutinous rice dough filled with red bean paste and a zingy strawberry.

The minimalist, edgy decor is also to my taste. A cluster of light bulbs dangles inside a spiral frame of copper piping. Cardboard rolls curve along the walls in the style of Japanese paper architect Shigeru Ban. The ceiling swoops like a white wave, a fitting tribute to our precious oceans that produce some of the finest fish in the world.