Inamo: London's First High Technology Restaurant

For my birthday treat, my husband brought me to this newly opened Japanese restaurant in the Soho area called Inamo. It just opened last month and it was only by chance that I learned about this restaurant while randomly surfing on the Digg site.

Being a foodie, I consider anything to do with food, dining, and the like always news worthy. But Inamo is truly interesting because it's the first to apply this sort of technology in order-taking and bill-settling in the London restaurant industry.

The hurdle with using technology in such businesses like the restaurant industry always has to do with cost. Sure, adopting technology can at times lead to savings by replacing manpower or improving efficiencies in processes. But sometimes, the technology can still be so expensive that investing in them can be difficult to justify.

Well, in the case of Inamo, they were able to do it. What exactly is so special about Inamo? Well, let's put it this way, if Aladin had his magic carpet, Inamo had its magic tables. Here are some of the high tech powers of our table at Inamo:

• The design of our table's cover changed every 2 minutes (talk about giving people with ADD a truly precious experience, haha).
  
• We don't need hard copies of the menu. Our high tech table can also provide this info to us.
  
• We can place our order and give it straight to the Chef; no chance there of our order not being taken or being wrongly noted down by the waiter.
• We can see life-size photos of the different foods on the menu in front of us, as if on a plate.
  
• We can see inside the kitchen without leaving our table.
• In case we'll go to another gimmick place afterwards, we can retrieve a city map through one of the buttons on our table.
• If in case we got bored, our table can provide games.
  
• When we had to pay, we didn't need to summon the waiter for our bill. There's also a button for getting the bill total.
  
• And should you and your company go dutch, you can view your bill already properly divided among you and your friends.

These are some of the capabilities of the restaurant's high tech tables. When I first saw this on Digg, the first question I wanted to ask was how these tables could be used for such purpose as eating when these tables have sensitive surfaces. You know, like touch-screen surfaces. Or even more high tech, if they use the Microsoft table technology (can you eat on those?). Well, I was mistaken. The tables were seemingly ordinary tables. But directly above our table and every other one were installed projectors (discreetly hidden of course) which were responsible for casting the various images that we saw on the tables. On the right side of each diner's side of the table, there's a recessed circular area which serves as a mouse which you can use to retrieve the info you need from the resto's system (i.e., menu, games, map, bill). Hubby predicts that the only touch-sensitive part of the table is the mouse.

Our experience at Inamo was truly unique and memorable. What I liked most about the concept is the inherent efficiency of the ordering process. No rushing and waiting for giving food orders. The food just gets to your table as if the Chef read your mind. The menu was concise too which was perfectly suited for this restaurant since this is really a new way of dining; putting too much information may just further rattle tech-wary diners.

For restaurant owners and even employees, I'm sure that the ordering system is also a welcome change. It avoids unnecessary wastage from wrong order-taking and there is potentially faster table turnover with zero time wasted on relaying of orders from diners to waiters to kitchen staff.

The food at Inamo are also very attractively priced. In my case, I ordered the pre-theater dinner meal which was value for money at GBP10. Hubby's soft-shell crab maki and unagi maki totalled about GBP15. The food was perfectly seasoned (though I would have appreciated a slight hint of sweetness in some of the food items just for balance; most items on my combo plate tilted towards the salty side of the flavor spectrum).

I would recommend Inamo to anyone. I have no doubt that this will be the inevitable future of the food service industry. You might as well give it a try while things are still at the Table 1.0 level;-)

P.S. The resto has proven to be quite popular and just dropping in would likely see you waiting in line for a table. It would be best if you reserved in advance. And yes, reservations can be done online too :-)