Ever wonder how sushi proliferated so fast? Now that you can find neatly bamboo-patterned trays of salmon maki in every grocery store, in kiosks and airport cafés, it’s worth asking whether we’re eating more of it. Have we forgotten the era when it used to be fashionably ooky to eat raw food? And, above all, are we getting better at appreciating it?

Truthfully, the glamorous arrival of sushi in the '90s has turned into a marketing headache: Should such a carefully prepared food remain a specialty, or should its bite-sized appeal be incorporated into a fast-food lunch menu, available on every corner -- even if its dishes become homogenized?

Maki House, a slim shop-front offering sushi for lunch, dinner and takeout, was our destination, where we'd think about the future of sushi: Having opened about two months ago on the 200 block of South Street, it styles itself as a takeout joint first and foremost, with two tiny tables and a counter bar along the wall added as an afterthought. Again, space is pretty tight -- the reception doubles as a work counter staffed by one sushi chef, working feverishly.

Grabbing seats, we start to pore over the menu. Art designer Christina confesses she's "recently started venturing to sushi restaurants," while Ron, our automotive classifieds whiz, has gleaned extensive knowledge of the sushi craft while working in restaurants, including Morimoto. Editor Howard is disappointed immediately by the atmosphere -- which has "all the ambiance of a cell-phone store" -- but determines to make the most of their "Japanese staples."

We start with a few appetizers: a seaweed salad ($3.95), a bowl of edamame ($3.25) and a generous portion of vegetable tempura ($3.50). Mixed reactions abounded: The edamame, Christina noted, "seemed to be defrosted rather than steamed. They also lacked sea salt and a pod shell bowl." On the other hand, the tempura, consisting of lightly fried broccoli, carrots, mushrooms and slices of sweet potato, was way above average in veggie freshness and quantity -- though some of us thought the batter quite thick, almost as if some slices had been dipped in Bisquick. Not very Eastern.

The seaweed salad held over into the main meal, partly because most of us didn't know what to make of it: Its bright green strands were heavy, not moist but actually slimy (a pitfall I've found seaweed salads can evade). Could it have come from a can? And if so, we wondered, is that what the sushi lunchtime crowd forks out for?

Speedily enough, our maki arrived: the California roll ($5.50), which sported the now-traditional crabstick rather than crabmeat; rock 'n' roll ($6.95), a really good spicy tuna-and-avocado mix where Howard noted "the tuna flavor stood up well." When the dragon roll ($9.95) arrived, we all noticed the great presentation: The inside-out roll was appreciated by Howard for "the salty yumminess of the eel," with avocado and drizzled with glossy sauce and sesame seeds. Ron announced this was "the best of the three."

For a clear idea of the quality of fish in all the dishes, we moved onto a selection of nigiri, slices of raw fish over rice beds ($1.50 each). Surf clam, with its dramatic red-and-white flesh, received good marks, as did the salmon, squid and ebi (sweet shrimp). The tuna was lean and meaty. However, the rice was sticky to a fault, and Howard, who specified his order as sashimi, received nigiri instead.

Larger dishes are certainly generous: We tried sukiyaki beef, which was a bit chewy but a filling bargain at $9.95, while a shrimp tempura lunch box ($12.95) featured soup and green salad plus a serving of four tempura shrimp. Howard found the shrimp, served with rice and hoisin sauce in a bento box, to be "heavily battered and overcooked." In the same vein, Maki House's menu experiments with a number of dishes fusing tempura with the traditional roll: The shrimp tempura roll ($6.95) fared better than the lunch box, but still appealed most to Western appetites.

So, as Ron put it, the prices were low, but the "food wasn't good enough to constitute 'good and cheap'." Others remarked that the little details were curiously halfhearted: The decor consisted of a couple of wall hangings, and while hot green tea was ready brewed, iced tea was only available from a can.

"What year is it again?" Christina remarked on finding out Maki House didn't recycle its iced tea cans. Back when sushi felt futuristic, that comment may have better applied to the forward-looking cuisine. But yesterday's novelty, it seems, models itself as today's mediocre fast food.