Plastic food samples

When you travel to Japan, you see many plastic food samples at restaurants and food stalls here and there. These are so real and very helpful for those who don't speak or read Japanese language. There is no record that shows origin of it but it's said it started sometime around 1920s to help customers at a restaurant to order easily and quickly. If you go to Kappabashi kitchen street where you can find EVERYTHING that relates to food industry, you can find two plastic food sample shops. The samples are very expensive, all hand made and often made to order, but they do little inexpensive off-the-shelf things too such as slice of bacon book marker, sushi magnet, soft serve key ring etc that makes great souvenir !