NAKAMURABASHI: Kusaka-Tei Chinese Restaurant... wonderful 700 yen lunch special. (SONY RX100)

I rarely walk into these tiny Japanese restaurants as I'm always worried how they will react to a foreigner going inside... especially in a town where there are no tourists.

Upon entering the elderly waitress was friendly and immediately started chatting me up in Japanese with no hesitation.  I asked for the daily special "higawari teishoku" but needed to choose from 3 types of fish... I am pretty bad at remembering fish names.  

So I left it to the elderly chef... and he brought out this white meat fish. Nice!

Sumo on TV.  There was a couple drinking shochu, a single man with a bottle of beer reading comics and 2 men in the back ordering quite a few dishes.  Everyone seemed like regulars.

Man next to my counter seat reading comics.

You sure do get a generous amount of food for only 700 yen and they didn't ask for 8% consumption tax.   The elderly couple in the kitchen and old lady waitress were just so sweet... I will be back to enjoy the next daily special.

UPDATE: The 2nd time I visited Kusaka-Tei the assistant chef was making these wonderful round hamburgers that were fresh and huge! I totally wanted to try that!  But when I went back and ordered the burger lunch set the meat seemed like pre-packaged processed just microwave kind of supermarket meat.  I was soooo disappointed...   I think the best thing so far was the fish.

My little sister ordered the daily lunch special and it looked way better than the hamburger I got.

Restaurant: Kusaka Tei Restaurant

Tabelog Foodie: 

Address J: 東京都練馬区向山1-13-4

Address E: Tokyo, Nerima-ku, Koyama 1-13-4
MAP: https://goo.gl/maps/7KAVrqenY7KJvFr7A

クサカ亭, 中華料理, 中華麺, 餃子, 中村橋, Japan, Japanese, lunch, dinner, izakaya, foodie, yelp, tokyobelly, chinese, washoku, sake, beer, cozy, inexpensive, cheap

HIGASHI NAGASAKI: Sekizawa "Mon & Pop" Shokudo for One-Coin Teishoku... wow cheap!

Happened to make the long trek to Higashi-Nagasaki on the Seibu Ikebukuro line to check out highly ranked Cest Bien's "hamburger steak" lunch but it wasn't on the daily menu today... so decided to look for another spot and happened upon another highly ranked mom and pop Shokudo.

I'm a huge fan of one coin "500yen" lunches.

U shaped counter seating inside...

I stepped in a few minutes after their noon opening.  It was just so very old skool and lots of famous autographs along the walls.  One old guy making all the food and there were 2 mama'sans assisting him... all very polite with "irashaimassen" and "arigato-gozaimasu" ringing about.

Self serve water at the entrance.

The 500yen lunch included a large rice, miso soup, veggies and a huge block of tofu...

Then my menchi-katsu showed up... nice and crispy on the outside and super hot as it comes out freshly made from the oily pit.

There were easily 25+ items on Teishoku menu and everything was under 500yen.  

Cost performance was very high and a place that probably see's very very few foreigners... give it a try!  If you get lost just ask for the "One Coin Teishoku" but a few guys ordered the "Katsu Curry."

Shop: Sekizawa Shokudo
Foodie Website: http://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1321/A132101/13021203/
Address J: 東京都豊島区長崎4-28-10
Address E: Tokyo, Toshima-ku, Nagasaki 4-28-10
MAP:

View Larger Map