Company cafeteria

Hi I found the original movie of figure skating pile driver on this site. Check around 2:25 and 5:40. orz...after skating, they were in bad mood.

I was envious to read that every meal are free on Google and pretty shocked to see how their foods are so nice too. You know, lunch is important and it's an oasis time of working day. NHK has a comedy salary man TV show and they have feature "company cafeteria of the world". They visited Nestle (all plate look yellow, pasta, potato, beans), montblanc (potato, potato, potato), Grohe (potato, potato) , of course Google (oh looks very healthy) and Intel (Sushi cook!!).

I check the Internet and found ZD net Japan has a series project "Let me in to your company cafeteria". Since ZD net is an IT news site, they went to IT or high technology companies.
NEC : fried rice with miso soup is 466yen. Hmm cheap.
Richo : all bread and drinks are 100yen. nice!!
Japan Motorola : Everybody loves curry, 480yen. (so so)
Hitachi software : Japanese healthy Bento 540 yen. Hmm not so reasonable.
Japan Unisys : Each small Japanese meals are 50-100yen. This is nice for me.
Japan IBM : IBM has Chicken Umeshiso sauce (umeboshi and perilla leaf) in Japan. looks yum.
KDDI : A price is decided by weight of food in KDDI.
Intel Japan : Intel has IKURA DON (salmon roe on sushi rice bowl), 180yen? Super cheap.
Rakuten : Rakuten is in Roppongi Hills, so their view is nice.
Softbank : I like this place best, Nice view, nice menu, nice mood.
However any place can't win against Google! Let me in to the Google cafeteria!!

This is not company cafeteria, but I will link to a completely opposite type of place from nifty Portal Z. This is a kind of roadside restaurant for drivers and truckers. A numbers of colorful panels, a lot of vending machine, ooh la la game machine, incredible cheap price, very kitsch.

Comments

[New Balance Sneakers]

Life finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth by the claims of love.Do you understand?

[Mari]

Hi There
Ken, thank you very much for the link to roach coaches. It's funny.

[Dictionary Boya]

I always thought Japanese IT startups were a bit harsh on their employees. All you can eat ikuradon? Uuuughhh...

[stuz]

hehe why are so many japanese people (incl me) obsessed with food and what it costs? :) it's funny...

[Eddy]

During the bubble economy here in the Silicon Valley, many start ups and large companies offered free lunch, free drinks, free pizzas. At that time the large companies in the Valley also improved their cafeteria services competing with each other to attract the best talent. I haven't been to Google but I've been to Intel, Cisco, Microsoft and Sun. The best one for me (5 years ago) was Cisco's. I also had the chance to visit high-tech companies in France, and they easily get my votes for best cafeterias with gourmet foods, great selections of wines, bread, beer, and desserts of all kinds... Cheers! and thanks for the nice blog!

[Ken]

Do you also have "roach coaches" in Japan -- i.e. food trunks that drive around during breakfast and lunch. In addition to selling packaged foods, they will also make some hot foods such as hamburgers, burritos, etc. all within their truck

Not very good, but cheap and convenient since they will drive to your company at fixed times of the day. They are called "roach coaches", because often times they don't look very clean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_truck

[bshock]

The figure skating piledriver video was classic. I am still not exactly sure what those two were trying to do, though. It seems like a very strange, awkward move for the woman to hold the man upside down, but on the video this appears to be what they intended. Originally I was convinced that the man had tried to pick up the woman but somehow failed.

As for the Hirata Shokuji Center, is this sort of place unusual in Japan? In the U.S., there are quite a few giant truck stops. However, I don't think any U.S. truck stop has a catch machine with schoolgirl uniforms inside!