At the Entrance of a Family Restaurant

It's not unusual to see sinks at the entrances of restaurants. Some convenience stores have them, too. This was at a family restaurant in our neighborhood called Royal Host.

Emergency Number for Children

Children are on their own a lot here. They walk to and from school and after-school activities. If they run into trouble they should call 110. This was posted at a family restaurant entrance in our area. It could be seen from the inside and outside of the restaurant.

e.m. HAPPY PROJECT

Before Big Sister left Japan in June for university, she and I had teatime at "Afternoon Tea", a place that serves lunch and tea with cakes or scones. An adjoining shop sells tea and a variety of things. This display for e.m. HAPPY PROJECT was at the register. These delicate bracelets are being sold to raise money for the East Japan tsunami and earthquake relief efforts. There are five choices. (I didn't get a photo of the diamond one for some reason.)

I chose this one. Click to enlarge the photos.

Though this one was very nice too,

Big Sister chose this one.

Tea House

Entrance to a large tea room.

An entrance to a small tea room on the other side of the larger entrance. That is a small wooden door. One must crawl through to enter.


A window screen.

Soba Shop

Detail of another soba shop down the hill (below the temple). That yellow sign tells children that it is a "safe house". If they're lost or having trouble with strangers, they can go there. Shops and homes display those signs.

Click on the picture and you can see more detail. There is a scale on the counter to weigh soba.

Family Restaurant: Place Mat & Toothpick

If you have read this blog for a while, you may have noticed that there is a lot English everywhere here. Some foreigners call it "decoration English". This is a paper place mat from a family restaurant called Royal Host. It says that it is "printed with soy ink" and it used "waterless printing naturally".

See the black square? If you hold a cell phone up to that, you can visit the restaurant's website. That is a Monarch butterfly sitting on a rudbeckia. There are no Monarchs here, but I have an old pot of rudbeckia. They come up every year.

The toothpicks are individually wrapped.

Look at how much effort went into making these toothpicks! Most toothpicks are like this here.

New Beginnings

When new shops or restaurants open, big flower arrangements are sent to the owners. They are set outside. There are white signs on them that tell who sent them. This is a small neighborhood restuarant. There isn't a sign for the restaurant yet. There are small apartments above the shops.

Details of a Neighborhood Restaurant

This is the lock to the front door.

Detail of the front door.

The edge of the roof.

This is a common symbol. Houses sometimes had the family's crest here.

A detail of the front wall.

The metal light on the wall. The name of the shop is in kanji .

More KFC

Here is another picture of KFC. I'm not promoting it. It's just that the Colonel is a familiar face. He stands here in his white suit in all seasons. During the Christmas season, however, he's dressed like Santa.

I mentioned before that KFC is a popular Christmas dinner. Here's an ad for the barrel of chicken he's famous for. Above the barrel, it says "Party Barrel" in katakana. The barrel sells for 3950 yen. Do you know how to find the current exchange rate to calculate the price in your currency?

Here are some advertisement banners outside the restaurant. The red one says "Kentucky For Christmas". The foreign words are written in katakana. This is what it would look like in romaji or the roman alphabet : kurisumasu niwa kentakii.

KFC for Christmas

Eating KFC for Christmas dinner has been popular in Japan for a long time. KFC has different sets to choose from. This year, they are giving away Raymond Brigg's The Snowman mugs and plates.

Tony Roma's Aoyama, Tokyo

Since we were in the neighborhood yesterday, we decided to go to Tony Roma's.


This is a detail of the light outside the restaurant. We thought it looked cool.


A coaster with the restaurant's slogan. Their food is good.


We washed our hands at the table before and after this meal. This was a nice service. After eating with your hands, you need to wash your hands well. They gave each of us a small metal bowl with water and a slice of lemon floating in it. Also a wet towelette. Do you get the same service at Tony Roma's in America? Wet towelettes are given before a meal in Japan. Nowadays most of them are paper. Some restaurants still have wet cloth towels. In the winter they are hot. In the other seasons they are cool. These wet towels are called oshibori.



This is an American-style restaurant so paper napkins are provided as well. Some Japanese restaurants provide them, too.

A Nice Gesture from Mos Burger

We called Mos Burger, a Japanese fast food place, to order lunch. Then Papa went to pick it up. They gave him this small envelop with a 10 yen coin in it. It was to pay for the phone call he had made to order the food! It costs 10 yen per 3 minutes to make a phone call within Tokyo. Calling outside of Tokyo is more expensive.

This is the Mos Burger trademark. There is an "R" in a circle at the foot of the "r" in "burger". That is the symbol for "trademark".

Japanese Restaurant

At this Japanese restaurant, we had to take our shoes off. Fortunately, there were locked compartments for our shoes. (My shoes were taken by mistake while we were on vacation in August. See "Inside a Thatched Roof House".)



This is the key in the lock. We put our shoes in two separate compartments and removed the wooden keys.



There were no slippers provided so we walked through the restaurant on shiny, beautiful wooden floors. Papa had socks on, I was barefoot. We sat near the windows. These are the seats across from us. We stepped down to sit. There was a well under the table so we didn't have to sit Japanese-style (on our shins). We sat on cushions on benches. There was tatami or grass mats under the table.


There was a shoe horn provided to use on the way out.



In the vestibule, there was a place to put umbrellas. It wasn't a rainy day. These cheap white umbrellas were left here.

Japanese Restaurant: Lunch

We sat down and were immediately served tea. Chopsticks and wet towelettes were on the tray. Usually wet cloth towels are given, especially at a traditional Japanese restaurant. We were given the lunch menus. We were asked to push the black button when we were ready to order. While we waited, I took pictures of the things on the table.


These were some of the choices on the menu. This is the season for mushrooms.


This is the name of the restaurant printed on the chopstick cover. Notice anything familiar?


This is a common sight on a restaurant table; soy sauce, toothpicks, and a bottle of seasoning flakes for rice. Paper napkins are sometimes on the table. They are a recent addition. In the past, a wet cotton towel was the only thing offered. It was supposed to be used to wash your hands before eating. Everyone carried tissue and a handkerchief everywhere they went. We were given a wet disposable towelette, and there were napkins on the table at this restaurant.



I took pictures of the shoe box keys.



This is the back of the keys.



I was busy taking pictures and Papa was busy making a chopstick rest out of its paper cover. People sometimes simply tie the paper cover to rest their chopsticks. This cover, however, had instructions on how to make a bird. It was time-consuming, but he did it! I was going to post the instructions, but then I noticed the © . Remember, that means that it is protected by copyright.



I ordered this set lunch. There was fish, rice, pickled cabbage, miso soup, and a savory egg custard. There was also a lightly fried tofu in sauce with crisp strips of seaweed on top.















These are pieces of ginger on top of grated daikon, the big white Japanese radish. It is a garnish for the fish.



This is what Papa ordered. There was a separate plate of fried fish, pickled vegetables, and miso soup.


There was a fried fish head.



The main dish was a seafood mixture on rice. There was one whole shrimp on top. There were also fish eggs and raw fish in it.



The bill was put in this. We took this to the register and paid.