Like most DS owners, I carry mine with me for a lot of reasons: having a few games at my disposal during time in the doctor's waiting room or on a bus is a great way to kill time that would otherwise leave me fidgity. I can't say I've ever whipped out the DS in a restauraunt, but its not because I haven't wanted to. I just didn't want to seem rude. If you get served a DS while waiting for your food however, who's to argue?

505 Games announced a agreement today with mega-popular UK sushi chain YO! Sushi to promote Cooking Mama 2 in their Poland Street and Farringdon Road locations. While sitting at the kaiten (the sushi conveyor belts popular in American sushi establishments such as Los Angeles' Sushi Mac), DS consoles with Cooking Mama 2 will be placed on the conveyor belt inbetween sushi plates for customers to play while they are waiting to be served. Many more of the chain's 30 locations will participate eventually, but the launch will only be in two to start.

Sushi plus Gaming? Sounds like utter bliss to me. YO! Sushi's new dish could send some geeks into delight overload, although I'd obviously like to play other games eventually, and since the game is food specific I'm sure that won't be happening. Still, it's pretty iconic and clever, and I find myself kind of envious that I don't live in the UK so I can go see the general reaction. Anyhow, press release post-jump and all that jazz.

505 Games today announced an agreement with the hugely popular and uber-cool YO! Sushi to offer its diners the opportunity to play Cooking Mama 2 for free through DS consoles placed on the restaurant chain’s iconic conveyor belts - or kaiten, as they are known in Japan.

The sushi restaurant sampling campaign, a games industry first, will see free DS consoles preloaded with Cooking Mama 2 being offered to YO! Sushi customers for the duration of their meal in the Farringdon Road and Poland Street restaurants in London from Monday 14th April, with many more of the chain’s 30 UK restaurants following suit over the coming months.

Cooking Mama 2 is the recently released sequel to the best-selling cooking simulation game Cooking Mama, and promises more culinary fun and even tastier gameplay as players chop, slice, dice, fry, grate, mash, mix, peel and roll ingredients using the DS stylus. Multiplayer gameplay ensures budding sushi chefs can challenge each other wirelessly over the restaurant floor and blowing on the in-built DS microphone will even cool a hot dish down!

“We’re overwhelmed with YO! Sushi’s enthusiasm and support for our Cooking Mama 2 campaign,” commented Ian Howe, Managing Director, 505 Games. “The YO! Sushi brand is colourful, cool, fun and essentially Japanese, which are all values shared with our Tokyo-developed Cooking Mama series. This is going to be an exciting and creative campaign and we’re looking forward to getting some great feedback from family sushi diners across the UK.”

Furthermore, My Ly, Marketing Manager for YO! Sushi adds “As well as offering delicious and healthy Japanese inspired dishes, we are always looking to provide something extra for our customers - and this is a perfect way in adding value to their dining experience. We are delighted to be working with Cooking Mama on this exciting and innovative promotion.”

Cooking Mama is an original and fun title that boasts immediate ‘pick up and play’ kitchen action, to ensure that players of any age or skill level are able to enjoy its wholesome wholemeal gameplay. Over one million Nintendo DS and Wii copies of the original game have shipped to-date, making it the biggest selling third party DS title ever released, and Cooking Mama 2 looks all set to break that record over 2008.

As part of the campaign, 505 Games will also be offering YO! Sushi customers the opportunity to win DS and Wii consoles and copies of Cooking Mama 2.

Cooking Mama 2 is available to play for free in the Poland Street and Farringdon Road YO! Sushi restaurants from Monday 14th April.