Originally Posted by
bmwe92fan
lunch to me is the best deal in Tokyo - every place has lunch sets and they are a really good value - the same food at dinner would cost much more. For dinner you have to be more careful and selective, but I think Tokyo is only slighly more expensive than NY, and I find it less expensive than in London - and the food is SO much better! Don't forget to try all of the different types of noodles when you are in Tokyo - especially Soba. So good!
Good advice regarding lunch set menus in Jpn. There're many restaurants in Jpn where I've only ever gone for lunch for this reason. For example, at Kani Doraku, you get a 6~7 course crab lunch for $25USD. It's a pretty elaborate affair, usually in a private tatami room, that takes a good 90min and produces tons of dirty dishes. You wonder how they make money on this. Something comparable in US would be way more. A similar offering at dinner time is at least 50% more expensive.
However, there're many great cheap food at dinner time, too. That's the thing about Tokyo. If you look around a little bit, you will find very good cheap food in Tokyo, even for dinner. It's probably hard to find great cheap dinner in NYC.