Meal Ticket Restaurants

I have read that such restaurants sell cheaper food and was wondering, is it a commonplace around Tokyo? Any recommended "Meal ticket" restaurants?

Do you mean the type where customers at the entrance buy "meal ticket" from a vending machine first then go inside and give the ticket to the staff to be served? This type is common in noodle shops, sometimes curry rice restaurants too, at train stations and in small shopping centers adjacent to train stations.

Yup. That's correct. So it is a commonplace in Tokyo for such meal ticket practice yeah?

Any specific shops that tourist on a budget should go to? Or everywhere should be the same price to buy food?

I can't think of any specific places.... As I mentioned, typically this style is for noodle shop (or noodle "stand" I should say, because you get to eat standing at a counter) or curry rice restaurant (well, they tend to have stool seating around a counter), for a quick bite at stations/locations near stations, where people tend to pass through.

So you just need to look around and see if you see any smallish food stands with food photos on the window that you might want to try - remember that the ticket vending machines (as far as I know) come only in Japanese, so you might have to ask for help (get on of the staff and point at a photo on the window or something) to buy the right ticket. Also you are supposed to simply eat 'n' go, not linger around too long :)

Cool stuff, AK. Much appreciated with your answers.

I did some Japanese in school before and will be revising that before going. :)

And yeah, I would reckon it will be terribly foreigner-unfriendly for such places when you do not know the language.

lefei8,

Well, the whole idea of this quick-noodle/food-on-the-go is mostly for locals, and mainly for busy commuters who come in alone, eat and then get going, and the restaurants are saving cost by (of course providing decent food but) skipping on services that can be skipped, like the staff showing you to your seat, bringing you a glass of water (depending on the place), bringing the bil to you for payment, cashier, etc. Thus the idea of self-service tickets :) Now I recall that some shops (I'm thinking of a major Yamanote line station that I go through quite often) had colorful pictures on the vending machine buttons, so that would help :) Enjoy your visit to Tokyo!

A lot of fast food chains use meal tickets. Yoshinoya, Sukiya, Matsuya etc., as well as the soba noodle stands at train stations, and also all the ramen shops at Ramen Museum in Yokohama.

Yoshinoya does not use meal ticket.

Yoshinoya does not use meal ticket.

Come to think of it, you're right. My bad.

(1) This reminds me that when I was little, department stores have a restaurant at the top floor (quite different from the restaurants they have these days) and at such a restaurant we bought tickets for each dish at a cashier before being seated.
I do not think department stores have such system nowadays, though.

(2) There's a bar (to be precise, it's more like izakaya) called "Kamiya Bar" in Asakusa, which is the oldest western pub in Tokyo and famous for "Denki Bran".
They still use the ticket system.
They serve a lot of nice food as well as drinks.
http://www.asakusa-umai.ne.jp/umai/kamiya.html