Times will change, empires will rise and fall, but thankfully some institutions are set, if not in bronze, then at least in good old concrete. By this I mean the backstreet teishokuya (定食屋, diner), specifically the tasty one in my neighborhood. At lunchtime the place is crammed with businessmen and construction workers, huddled over small, greasy plastic trays and reaching over each other’s shoulders for the hashibako (箸箱, chopstick case). The feeling is: Who needs restaurants when you can get a cheap, caloric teishoku (定食, set meal) for under ¥1000, served in less than three　minutes?

One regular there is a burly construction worker, who can always be seen shoveling from a bowl of katsudon (カツ丼, deep fried pork boiled in sweet soy sauce with onions and egg dolloped over rice) with one hand while holding a large donburi (どんぶり, bowl) of ramen with the other. It’s a gravity-defying conjuring act. Between sipping the ramen soup straight from the donburi and chomping on the pork and rice, he occasionally stops to wipe his mouth with the ends of a towel draped round his neck. Inside of 11 minutes he’s done eating, has paid and is out the door with a tsumayōji (つまようじ, toothpick) between his teeth.

While other eateries have updated their enterprise, we can rely on the teishokuya to remain exactly the same. The oily patches of nicotine staining the walls, the mysteriously embarrassing holes punched out in the plastic stools, the never completely clean table surfaces and the sad, plastic plates on which the pote-sara (ポテサラ, potato salad) garnish has been resting since the night before — these are all necessary teishokuya accoutrements. And, of course, also a must are the huge pitchers of diluted mugicha (麦茶, barley tea) propped on the counter, which customers can pour into slightly greasy plastic glasses. The one thing you must never do is use the restroom. That is, unless you’re a connoisseur of military boot camp architecture in Manchuria circa 1940.