All you can eat........and drink!

Perhaps it’s the fact Japan has been in an economic downturn for almost twenty years
now, or maybe it’s because Japanese people love to eat, drink and be merry, but there can be no mistake that affordable "all you can eat and drink" plans are extremely popular in Japan.

Tabehoudai (all you can eat) and nomihoudai (all you can drink) are the virtual
cornerstone of partying in Japan. Space is always at a premium in Japan so house
parties are almost non-existent. The result is that most Japanese people like to party it up in an izakaya (a Japanese style bar) or restaurant.
Izakayas and restaurants are everywhere in Japan and competition for customers is intense. As a result many izakayas offer affordable "all you can eat and drink" plans.

Such plans usually adhere to a strict time limit of two hours. During this time it’s as the name suggests; all you can eat and drink inside these two hours. Keep this time limit in mind as the time limit is usually very strict.
Staff will alert you twenty minutes beforehand so you can make last orders.

Most plans typically start at prices of two thousand yen per person for a simple
nomihoudai. A lot of izakayas have plans of three thousand yen per head for "all you
can eat and drink". Of course, these are the cheapest examples and it can sometimes be a case of “you get what you pay for", especially in large chain izakayas. For the
most part though these plans have decent quality. In more recent times, the "all you
can eat or drink" phenomenon has spread to certain restaurants too, most of which are yaki-niku (barbecue style) restaurants.

The old assumption of Japan being an expensive place to visit is not so true as it
once was.
Nomihoudai and tabehoudai are part of the culture and are only becoming more and more common in the current global economic climate.
Eating and drinking in Japan couldn’t be cheaper or easier as it is today.