Coin-operated restaurants in Tokyo April 10, 2008

I actually got here last night with Stephenie and man that was a long flight! We’re in Asakusa right now at Khaosan Smile Guesthouse. It’s so cute here. Tokyo is really pretty but I’m even more excited about going to Shibuya and Shinjuku!

Last night we had our first taste of coin-operated restaurants here in Tokyo. Apparently, they have some too in Japantown in San Francisco but I never really knew that so I’ll probably check it out once we get back.Surprisingly, the food here is rather cheap! And when I say cheap, I mean at the coin-operated restaurant, a dish can be as low as 350 yen! That is equivalent to about 3 dollars and fifty cents. Forgive me for not using the proper symbols but I really can’t work these Japanese keyboards well!

So you’re probably wondering….what the hell is a coin-operated restaurant? Well, here’s how the process goes like this:

You look at their huge menu and for every item comes a number and a picture of the dish.

 

You choose which dish you want.

You go to a machine with a bunch of buttons which resembles a vending machine. (Note: this isn’t the same vending machine as the one in the above restaurant. I forgot to take a picture of that one. This one is from another coin-operated restaurant called Pepper Lunch, but I posted this pic to give you an idea of how it looks.)

The buttons have numbers that match the numbers on the menu (or it has a picture of the dish on the button), so all you have to do is put your coins (or bills, they give change) in the slot and then punch the proper button number to print out a ticket of what you want. 

Then you take your ticket to the counter so that they can start preparing your dish.

Your food does not come out of the machine. It is not a food vending machine.

Your food is prepared hot and fresh by real people. 

You don’t really talk to them except for saying thank you (in Japanese of course!) I wonder why this is. To eliminate an extra step in the process and make it faster? To discourage speaking? To prove that if your dishcomes out wrong you have no one to blame but yourself -”hey buddy, you pressed the wrong button!?” Haha, or is it to simply and smartly encourage efficiency?

Well, whatever the reason, it’s A WONDERFUL THING. I am all for coin-operated restaurants.

Mmmmm. It was huge! I definitely got full off of it. And it was not only cheap but DELICIOUS. 

Whoever said Japan was expensive? Everyone, apparently. They so do not deserve that reputation because everyone gets all spooked when they go to Japan and people scare them that it’s so-called expensive.

Stop spreading rumors, yo. Japan is awesome and NOT expensive. If you were there and think it’s expensive then your ass was probably ripped off. Haha!

Coin-operated restaurants in TOKYO April 9, 2008

I actually got here last night with Stephenie and man that was a long flight! We’re in Asakusa right now at Khaosan Smile Guesthouse. It’s so cute here. Tokyo is really pretty but I’m even more excited about going to Shibuya and Shinjuku!

Last night we had our first taste of coin-operated restaurants here in Tokyo. Apparently, they have some too in Japantown in San Francisco but I never really knew that so I’ll probably check it out once we get back.Surprisingly, the food here is rather cheap! And when I say cheap, I mean at the coin-operated restaurant, a dish can be as low as 350 yen! That is equivalent to about 3 dollars and fifty cents. Forgive me for not using the proper symbols but I really can’t work these Japanese keyboards well!

So you’re probably wondering….what the hell is a coin-operated restaurant? Well, here’s how the process goes like this:

You look at their huge menu and for every item comes a number and a picture of the dish.

You choose which dish you want.

You go to a machine with a bunch of buttons which resembles a vending machine. (Note: this isn’t the same vending machine as the one in the above restaurant. I forgot to take a picture of that one. This one is from another coin-operated restaurant called Pepper Lunch, but I posted this pic to give you an idea of how it looks.)

The buttons have numbers that match the numbers on the menu (or it has a picture of the dish on the button), so all you have to do is put your coins (or bills, they give change) in the slot and then punch the proper button number to print out a ticket of what you want.

Then you take your ticket to the counter so that they can start preparing your dish.

Your food does not come out of the machine. It is not a food vending machine.

Your food is prepared hot and fresh by real people.

You don’t really talk to them except for saying thank you (in Japanese of course!) I wonder why this is. To eliminate an extra step in the process and make it faster? To discourage speaking? To prove that if your dishcomes out wrong you have no one to blame but yourself -”hey buddy, you pressed the wrong button!?” Haha, or is it to simply and smartly encourage efficiency?

Well, whatever the reason, it’s A WONDERFUL THING. I am all for coin-operated restaurants.

Mmmmm. It was huge! I definitely got full off of it. And it was not only cheap but DELICIOUS.

Whoever said Japan was expensive? Everyone, apparently. They so do not deserve that reputation because everyone gets all spooked when they go to Japan and people scare them that it’s so-called expensive.

Stop spreading rumors, yo. Japan is awesome and NOT expensive. If you were there and think it’s expensive then your ass was probably ripped off. Haha!