Column: Get sushi by bullet train at Genki Sushi in MainPlace Mall

The slow death of Santa Ana’s MainPlace Mall could have easily ended with its complete closure, the fate of so many other indoor retail centers that were built in the ’80s heydey and fell out of favor as the Internet lured shoppers away from stores over the past decade.

Yet, even as the central O.C. mall loses another high-end anchor store this year — Nordstrom closed in March — its new owners are investing in a consumer-focused revitalization of a different sort. If shopping can easily be done online, the logic goes, then offer something that the Internet cannot by making the mall a dining and entertainment destination.

When MainPlace opened 30 years ago, it featured only three restaurants and a small food court.

Today, it’s home to multiple food festivals — including Foodbeast’s Meat Street — plus three distinct dining areas. Each features different levels of comfort, pricing and grub, some of which, yes, remains your standard mall fare.

Since purchasing the aging shopping center from Westfield Corp. in 2015, Centennial Real Estate Company has upgraded its facilities and added nearly a dozen new places to eat, some of which you won’t find at any other mall in Orange County.

But only one, Genki Sushi, serves you sushi by tableside bullet train and is the first of its kind in the country.

On the other side of MainPlace from the so-called “Patio Restaurants” — where all the recognizable mall-friendly casual chains live — is the newly created Restaurant Row, undoubtedly the most impressive area of the three. The other, a rebranded food court in the western atrium, features a new Cancun Juice and Korean-style build-a-bowl counter.

It’s a shame that Restaurant Row is so distinct because it’s also the most hidden. On the interior side, Genki Sushi, along with row-mates Saigon de Pho and Boudin SF — a Poke-Ria that opened last year closed two weeks ago — is surrounded by small boutiques selling niche goods that don’t garner much foot traffic.

Their exterior entrances can be equally as forgotten, wedged into a corner between the hulking facades of Macy’s and J.C. Penney.

With a little extra effort, though, you’ll be rewarded by Genki’s unique sushi experience, which originated with the company in Tokyo and is considered to be an industry first.

See, unlike a conveyor belt, or revolving, sushi places, where pre-fab appetizers and rolls spin around the restaurant until someone decides to take it off, Genki sends your order zooming out of the kitchen directly to your table via “high-speed” monorail-looking trains.

This location opened in 2012 with only a conveyor belt-style delivery and decided to upgrade the infrastructure to their “Bullet Express” in October. It truly is a sight to behold.

Here’s how it works:

All the tables and counter spaces in the entire restaurant rest up against a double-tier track that winds out of the kitchen and through the entire dining room, so when you sit down, the server only has to activate your table and point to the tablet sitting in a holster above eye level.

Take the tablet out of the holder — it’s your lifeline for the duration of your stay — and spend some time scrolling through the dozens of pages of nigiri sushi, rolls, gunkan and more before deciding on what you want. Add up to four items at a time to your order and when you’re ready, hit “send.”

Then, you wait. Within a few minutes, your tablet will ping to alert you of an incoming arrival and seconds later, a low-slung bullet train comes whizzing up with the goods, stopping directly in front of your table.

Remove your dishes and press the button on the tablet to send the train back. Use the ginger, wasabi, soy sauce, chopsticks and other accessories at your table to complete the meal. Order another four dishes as soon as you want and repeat. When you’re ready to go, press the “call server” button and ask for the check and you’re done.

The sushi isn’t Nobu quality, but for the price — between $1 and $5 for each plate — you’re not expecting that. What it is is standard nigiri and gunkan and small-plates of common rolls like spicy tuna and Philadelphia alongside more inventive house specialties like a Spamasubi-like Spam roll, a spicy hot lobster roll and a garlic salmon roll, slathered in both eel sauce and sweet chili. Sides of above-average udon, takoyaki and edamame fill in any appetite gaps.

Endless online shopping capabilities might not give us a lot of reasons to go to a real, surviving mall these days, but if there’s one thing the internet will never be able to provide, it’s sushi delivered by high-speed rail right to your table.

Genki Sushi is located at MainPlace Mall, 2800 Main St., Santa Ana.

SARAH BENNETT is a freelance journalist covering food, drink, music, culture and more. She is the former food editor at L.A. Weekly and a founding editor of Beer Paper L.A. Follow her on Twitter @thesarahbennett.