Japanese restaurants; What I ate recently

I have no suitable idea for Lang-8, so I don't know if this is interesting to you or not, I'll just be writing about what I ate recently in Japan.
It's like almost diary.

-May 13th
-Curry rice (Curry and rice)
Curry is obviously an Indian food but I heard it's a particular thing that putting the curry on the rice.
I had it in a small restaurant at a station at 6 am.
As a general rule, Japanese people are fond of curry with rice, but it's rare that a place serves curry in the early morning.
An ingredient was beef but it only had small pieces.
You can put as many pickles on it as you want.
It costs about 4 dollars.










-May 14th
-Cutlet with cheese and garlic sauce
If I'm correct, it was an Italian restaurant but I'm not sure whether the dish was Italian or not.
Restaurants in Japan tend to put every Western food, such as Italian, French, Spanish food and so on, together.
It's called 洋食屋, the literally translation is "Western food restaurant". I think it's similar to things that Thai ,Chinese or some restaurants  offer Japanese food overseas.
The picture makes my mouth water. The cutlet was tender and had cheese on it which added a rich flavor.
It costs about 11 dollars, and includes a salad and soup.

I think the restaurant should replace the tablecloth with checked patterns. It looks a bit shoddy.






-May 9th
-A potato croquette
My mom bought it at a supermarket.
What I was surprised by was its price, 18 yen (16 cents) for one.
She somewhat boasted how she was good at shopping.
Despite the wonderful affordability, it was tasty.












Thanks for Lee's revision.

A 100 yen shop: a dollar store in Japan again

A 100 yen shop, where everything is sold at 100 yen (now it's $0.91), is drawing more and more attention, or I should say that it's already a common thing for Japanese people.
Several 100 yen shop chains are always in severe share competition with each other. That is because of the nature of the business in which they are easy to be substituted by customers for other competitors. They keep expanding their selection.

Let me show you some items that surprised me.

First, nail polish. When I visited Toronto, I was surprised that a lot of nail salons were running along Yonge street.
What a lot of selections! I've never browsed the cosmetics section before, but there is a quite rich selection. Apart from normal color nail polishes, they even have assorted lame (shiny) nail polishes. I didn't expect this kind of things to be sold for 100 yen, but come to think of its manufacturing costs, cosmetics are likely to be sold in 100 yen shops.

Second, chair legs' covers. I found them a furniture protection section. It was a surprise to me, because my house doesn't have chairs which need these kinds of protectors. I live in a pure Japanese style house, in which Tatami mats are laid in all rooms, so it's difficult to put chairs.
What a large selection, while I don't even have a single chair

Third, Japanese fans. Oh my. They definitely look more valuable than a 100 yen. I'm scared of their ability to develop items.
Please feel free to ask me to bring them as a souvenir for you if I have a chance to visit your country.
Presumably, I think I can sell them at like 5 dollars overseas and make a profit.
Is that a good idea?

Extraordinarily expensive water in airports

Water in a airport is extraordinarily expensive.

I've been to airports in several countries, and I've noticed that beverages are always extremely costly.
Passengers are not allowed to bring liquids beyond the security checkpoint, so beverages are at higher prices within the security area.
It's about twice the normal cost.
I know that this is the nature of  business but I can't help feeling that I'm being exploited.
I have seen bottles of water sold for more than 3 dollars each.

On the other hand, I wasn't too bothered to see a bottle of water for sale in an airport in Tokyo at price which was only 1.13 times that of the normal price. (The normal price is 118 yen, but it was selling for 133 yen)
Compared to prices of bottled water in other airports, It was a very modest price.
I'd say it's too modest. Why didn't they set a higher price?

I'm curious as to what price would lead to the highest profit.
If price is too high, passengers will avoid buying bottled water, but if it is too low, the seller would lose potential profits.

In any case, I'm determined not to buy bottled water if it costs more than 2 dollars.

Thanks Deanfujioka!

ATM with recognition system.

This is an ATM in a Japanese post office.
The Japanese Post Service also runs their own bank, so every post office has its own ATM.
Approximately 10 years ago, the ATMs had finger vein recognition system installed. However, it's not precise or convenient to use because you may try to have your finger recognized again and again.

Sometimes I get through it on the first attempt, but not usually. It's so finicky
registering your finger vein pattern, unlike on the iPhone6. I’ve never seen people using the system aside from me.
I guess the Post Service wants to renew the old system but they will be not able to do that because there aren't many current users.

How about installing an iPhone on that ATM?

Thanks for Jess's and Madox's correction.

A 100 yen store: a dollar shop in Japan

It was not until I went abroad that I noticed there are 100 yen shops abroad.
In this kind of shop, everything is sold at 100 yen, or a dollar in North America. (1 dollar is 109 yen in today's exchange rate.)
I had heard that the prices in North America is quite high, so I assumed the shop was only in Japan and I was surprised to find it in Canada.
However, I noticed the selections in the shops is in Japan and overseas are different.

I went to a 100 yen shop for the first time in a while, and I was surprised to see the selection in a 100 yen shop from the perspective of a foreigner.
Let me show you some picture I took in the shop.

First, the abovepicture. I couldn't help laughing when I saw so many kinds of insoles there. Do so many people need insoles in 100 yen shops? It seems they have ones for leather shoes, running shoes, women's shoes, and ones with aroma and others. Because of the price, you can change your insoles frequently. However, I don’t think their quality is very good… Though I haven't used them before, so I don't know their quality.

Secondly, in the middle picture, there is a set of precision screwdrivers. It's surprising they have such a thing. Sometimes it's needed but I often only have big screwdrivers on hand.
It’s expensive if I buy it from the usual store, so I leave screws loose, occasionally.
Now I know I can buy them for a dollar, so I can tighten the screws anytime. After that, I will probably lose those screwdrivers too. It seems I have to organize my tool box. It seems I have to put together a tool box.

Thirdly, in the following picture, there are flip-flops. I was shocked to see them because I bought the cheapest flip-flops in a store in the Philippines, but it cost about 4 dollars. What is more, they look better quality than my flip-flop. It shocked me. I almost bought it but I decided to keep using my flip-flops.
I'm a bit skeptical that they can make them with under a dollar including all costs. How much profit does the manufacturer earn? It raises me a lot of questions…

 Thanks for MarkMcP's correction.

A budget food in Japan: Udon

Do you have the image that Japanese food is expensive? If you visit Japan, I bet you'll have another idea.

If you want to have a budget lunch in Japan, you might want to go to an Udon shop.

Udon is a Japanese traditional-styled noodle. Nowadays, Ramen has gained worldwide popularity, but Udon is not yet popular abroad. I would say it's an up-and-coming Japanese food.

The noodles in Udon are elastic, harder and chewier than Ramen's. Japanese people enjoy their texture. The food is made very simple. They serve soup in a bowl, and put the excellent noodle in it, and voila, that's it. 

Because of its simplicity, it's cheap like 3 dollars and cooked fast.

The above pictures are taken at an Udon shop in my area. You can see green onions and tempura-ish things in serving trays along with the Udon. They are important ingredients for Udon, they make Udon more delicious. As you see, you can add them as much as you want. You will be attracted by various tempuras such as vegetable, fish, and meat tempuras in an Udon shop. Each tempura costs about a dollar. You should be careful to have tempura too much. You'll gain weight. I don’t know why Udon shops usually serves tempura as well. You can see the following picture.

*In the above picture, I ordered Kake-udon which cost 290 yen ($2.7).

Lemon curry?

When hanging around a town or somewhere in Japan, I noticed something that I didn't realize before I left Japan. This time, I'll introduce that.

This is a Curry-Meshi, a popular instant food which you can cook curry with rice by just putting into a microwave oven. It seems they have produced a new product. The new products are on the left side of the picture. It indicates "Lemon cream taste". It's unbelievable for me that curry and lemon cream are combined to make them delicious. However, it also has irresistible attraction because of originality. Who proposed to produce this? Just a thought, is the taste is inspired by Monty Python? I admire him.

*I checked to see if lemon curry exists, and it does.there is. I'll apologize to lemon curry.
*It costs about \200.

Thank you for kierstynnf's correction!