On the second floor of Act Tower, there is a restaurant named “Act Shain Shokudo 3-Chome (アクト社員食堂3丁目).” Shain shokudo means a staff canteen, and chome is a unit of address. Despite of its name, the restaurant welcomes everyone, not only those working in the building but also people from outside. Like a real staff canteen, it is a self-service restaurant.
The menu items are Japanese home-style dishes. On the wall outside the restaurant, there was a poster presenting small dishes that cost only 110 yen. The one in the center with tomato slices looked delicious, and I entered the restaurant with some expectation.
Near the entrance, there were sauce and dressing, as well as interesting objects such as the mascot Peko-chan of Fujiya, a popular confectionery company, two river imps called kappa, and a photo of sunset. I thought "3-Chome" of the restaurant name might have come from a Japanese film "Always: Sunset on Third Street (Always Sanchomeno Yuhi)" that depicted people’s lives in Tokyo in 1950’s. It was a nostalgic film and won great popularity.
Since it was a little over 11:00 on Saturday, there were only a few customers inside. I took a tray, half-split chopsticks, and a paper napkin and checked the dishes in cases. Each dish was covered with plastic wrap, and the staff wore masks. I asked one of them about the dish with tomato slices that I saw outside. Unfortunately, the dressing was not animal-free.
I could have four vegan menu items. Since It was Saturday, there were less rice ball options than on weekdays. I chose the one with a pickled plum. Though it wasn’t covered with dried laver, it was tasty with sesame sprinkled on it. The dish on the right of the rice ball is deep-fried tofu. When I brought the tray to the cashier, one of the staff members was going to pour sauce on this tofu. I stopped her immediately because the sauce was very likely to contain dried bonito broth. In supermarkets, deep-fried tofu like this is always flavored with such sauce. What a relief that the sauce was not added from the beginning this time! I ate it with soy sauce on the table. It was warm and seemed to be freshly fried.
The other two were pickles and salad. The pickles were nukazuke or vegetables pickled in salted rice-bran paste. Nukazuke is a common type of pickles, and this dish was not very special. But the salad contains 10 ingredients including lettuce, purple onion, cucumber, corn, green soybeans, paprika, etc. For salad, there were four types of dressing: French, yuzu soy sauce, sesame, and green perilla non-oil dressing. I wasn’t sure if they were animal-free, so I added a little soy sauce to the salad. In Japanese restaurant, vegans have to be always careful about sauce and dressing. The salad itself was satisfactory with a variety of vegetables.
Unlike a real staff canteen, this restaurant has some alcohol beverages. I had a cup of free cold green tea during the lunch and hot green tea after finishing it.
The restaurant was cozy. Even though it was Saturday, some groups of people including families with children came while I was eating. They got dishes to go. Near the pillar, there was a microwave oven so that customers can warm up their dishes. I wondered how crowded this restaurant could be on weekdays. This time, the total of the four dishes I had was 539 yen. It may be a little more expensive than a real staff canteen but was quite reasonable.
Act Shain Shokudo 3-Chome
Address: 111-2 Itaya-machi, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka Prefecture
Tel: 053-453-1833
Opening hours: 11:00 - 15:00
Closed: Sundays
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