Yayoiken Karasuma Oike — Restaurant in Kyoto

I absolutely adored eating at Yayoi. This Teishoku set-meal restaurant is definitely dominated by locals, and offers very inexpensive but still great quality food. They have a vending machine at the door where you order first (takes a variety of payments and is fully digital so it has an English option). You get the tickets, wait in line until they find a place for you to sit.

We went for lunch and it was just full of local office workers grabbing their lunch. Silence other than the sound of happy eaters. It was wonderful. I highly recommend the stir-fried pork as well as the hamburg steak. You can refill as much rice as you want from their machine, though it comes with so many side dishes and soup that you probably won’t need to.

Amazing value for money and amazing food. If I lived in Kyoto, I would...

Great place for a family. The machine you use to order has a button that will translate to English but the staff when we went didn't speak much of it.

When you enter, you are seated and then place your order. You do this by inserting money into the machine then making your selection. It spits out tickets which you take back to your seat, then the waiting staff check the tickets and bring you your food.

Super fast service, tasty food, cheap meal and our little boy was kept happy (the restaurant provide a booster chair and child plate / cutlery). We'll go back when we need...

Affordable and surprisingly delicious meal. We enjoyed the fried chicken and shrimp, and the pork cutlet was good too. The miso soup was a welcome side dish on a very cold day.

It was our first time ordering from a machine in a restaurant in advance, but it was pretty straightforward. The set menu offers free white rice refills, but we were stuffed just from what we ordered. Highly recommend this spot if you’re hungry and...