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).
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