Something felt off on my first meal out in a while
The other day I went to a drinking get-together near Dotonbori. Since it was a rare meal out, I arrived a little early to stroll around the area before heading to the venue. And at shop after shop, I kept being surprised: "Wait, was it always this expensive?"
¥1,600 for plain soba — and still not enough
The first place I went into was a soba shop. I ordered mori soba (plain chilled soba), and the price came to ¥1,600 — about twice what I'd expected. And even though I'd ordered the regular size, the portion was, frankly, far from filling. Maybe walking in with the image of an old-fashioned soba shop made me a bit out of place.
The tonkatsu menu was almost all in English
Next I stopped by a tonkatsu (pork cutlet) restaurant. With rice, miso soup and several sauces, it was ¥2,000. The taste itself was satisfying, but what surprised me was that almost the entire menu was written in English. For a moment I even wondered, "Is this place really run by Japanese people?"
It was delicious, and I don't think it wasn't worth the price. But it felt like "going out for a slightly fancy meal." The atmosphere was clearly different from an everyday set-meal diner. Have Tokyo prices spread to Osaka, or is it a price rise across the whole restaurant-chain industry? Probably both.
The "¥199 a drink"
trap
The last place I dropped into was an izakaya that sells itself on being cheap. Lured in by a sign saying "¥199 a drink," I ended up with a bill of around ¥1,500. Maybe places where you can drink cheaply have almost disappeared. You might still find them if you look for small independent shops, but part of me feels a bit hesitant about drinking without a care at those prices.
Why "drinking at home is enough"
feels so right
Faced with prices like these, the feeling that "drinking at home is enough" grows stronger than ever. If all you want is a quiet drink on your own, the need to go out seems to be fading more and more.
That's when the idea of an "online bar" occurred to me. Everyone connects online and eats and drinks whatever they like. In fact, scrolling through social media, you can already see signs of that kind of demand.
Seeing bartenders waiting with nothing to do
Walking around town, I saw bartenders waiting idly inside at almost every bar. Honestly, I found myself wondering, "How can they just wait there so patiently?"
Then why not connect with someone online, I thought. Of course, whether connecting online actually turns into money is a completely different matter. Still, if things continue this way, won't the town's bars gradually dwindle in number?
Maybe it's time to think seriously
What I felt on my first meal out in a while was surprise at the prices, and the air of a town that had, before I knew it, transformed into one "for foreigners." I feel the time has come to think seriously about where the restaurant industry is headed.
