Why is no one attending to us ?

The good thing about Tokyo is the variety of cuisine available here. And which suits all
kinds of pockets. This lets you try out a different type each time you go out for lunch or
dinner. The downside to it, is that the system works differently in each of theseplaces
and if you do not know how it works, you could end up surprised, like it happened to a
couple of my American colleagues.

Having seen a hole-in-the-wall restaurant which seemed to serve nice food (most restaurants display the food served in the window or have pictures displayed) they decide to give it a try. They enter the restaurant and see that the tables are laid out in a semi-circle with stools for sitting. The waiters are serving the patrons from within the semi-circle, which is connected to the kitchen.

So, our friends are sitting there waiting for someone to come take their order. 5 minutes pass, then 10, and even after 15 minutes of their sitting there, no one's even enquiring about them.
At the same time, they see the other patrons being served food. And since its Japanese fast
food (though healthy compared to burgers and stuff), patrons come, eat and go to be replaced
by others.

Our friends have had enough now and call a waiter and ask why they are not being served.
To be told that they have to go to the machine installed at one corner of the restaurant (see attached picture), select the dish they want, slot in the required yen and get a kind of small ticket.



Then you come to your place and keep the ticket in front of you. Now, a waiter will take the ticket, and get you the dish you ordered. Since they did not have any tickets in front of them, they were not being served.

We went there today for lunch. However, being in the know, we did not have to face the same scenario. Nice lunch - rice + curry - but not as good as at CoCo-Ichi, which is almost like having an Indian lunch of rice and chicken/beef curry.

The CoCo-Ichi system is different and interesting. Will cover it in another post.