Plaidophile

I just had a rather interesting dining experience at the Shinagawa Prince Annex Tower mall food court.

When you enter, there is a sign saying "this is a self-service facility." There is nothing else to direct you. Looking around, there are a number of stations, next to which there are what look like touchscreen vending machines. You put your money into the vending machine, and make your selections; then it gives you your change and several tickets that you run to the stations. They give you a little call box to let you know when your order is ready, and you get it from the pass yourself. Then when you're finished with your meal, you take your tray to the bussing station yourself.

It all seems very Japanese, and once you figure it out it's especially easy because you don't have to deal with language barriers or whatever (the touchscreen ordering systems have menus in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, although it took me a while to figure out that's what the buttons along the bottom of the screen did - and the English text was pretty minimal, and even the button to complete your order is in Japanese the whole time).

Anyway, I got a Margherita Pizza, which was about the only thing I thought I could stomach (most of the menus were full of greasy fried stuff and rich seafood udon, and even the pizza menu was primarily made of, well, typically Japanese takes on pizza), as well a melon soda, which was very, very green.

おいしいでした。