So, 68 syllables?

A Japanese McDonald's Ebi Filet-O — a fried shrimp patty burger with lettuce and special sauce sitting on its opened wrapper.

I'll tell you what, for all the time I've spent bitching about fast food hegemony, the truth is it's a good thing the Ebi Filet-O isn't available in the States or I'd weigh 700 pounds.

Oooooohhhhh, that's gonna be about 72 syllables, isn't it?

How do you say “I don’t know where the bearer bonds are” in Japanese? Asking for a friend.

What up, Robicelli? Nice to see you pop up ;-)

Monogrammed titanium.

Titanium.

I am now stepping into the elevator the jumpsuit guys were working on. Been nice knowing y’all.

A straw with plain printing on the wrapper that reads “ECONOMY STRAW.”

“Straws?! In *THIS* econom— oh.”

I mean, it’s about as likely.

Oh shit! Another dozen in hard hats and headlamps staged just around the corner waiting for go time!

Just left my high rise hotel for a late night bite and passed three separate groups of guys in high-viz jackets and masks carrying tons of gear walking into the building on my way out. Some Nakatomi Plaza shit about to do down in Shiodome.

This is a perfectly good article that is over two decades late.

Put another way, your screen is ALWAYS filled with ads. It's just a question of whether you're being explicitly told or not.

Counterpoint: I like lots of visible ads in a non-subscription site, because that tells me their revenue is coming from ads and not from paid placement.

But also, most of the time you're going to spend longer wandering around looking for something else than you are just getting in a short line. And anybody who tells you that waiting in line for a meal makes you a sucker is... well, we'll keep it polite and say they're underinformed. (/fin)

Which is fine! There are SO MANY great restaurants in this town that if you don't want to wait in line, you don't have to wait in line, and only you can decide what the best use of your limited vacation time is... (11/12)

So no, that line doesn't necessarily indicate that the place is an overhyped influencer joint and that you're a fool to eat there. Usually, it's just a tiny, healthy Tokyo restaurant working exactly as designed, and by avoiding that short wait, you're skipping over a lot of great spots... (10/12)

You're effectively waiting the same amount of time that you would in a restaurant back home, you're just doing that waiting outside in a line rather than inside sitting at a table. And sure, sitting at a table is nicer and more comfortable, but look around. Space is kind of a premium here... (9/12)

This also means that most of the lines are a lot shorter than they look. During the lunch rush, most of these spots will turn seats in 15 minutes, give or take. So if you balk at a dozen customers in line, if there are a dozen seats inside, that entire line will turn in just 15 minutes... (8/12)

This is why you'll see many of them with a dedicated employee to move people in and out and take orders from people as they're waiting in line outside. Restaurant margins are razor thin, turnover in a tiny space is everything, and every second counts... (7/12)

So these restaurants are effectively *designed* to have a line. Your tiny little kitchen spits out food as fast as it can, and your customers move through, assembly-line style, as quickly and efficiently as possible so you can serve enough people to make your rent, no hype machine involved... (6/12)

So if you only have a handful of seats in your tiny restaurant and want to keep your prices nice and low for the tons of people who don't want to cook in their also tiny Tokyo apartments, the only way to make the math work is **turnover**. Get people in, get 'em out, as quickly as possible... (5/12)

What some people fail to understand is that many perfectly snoozy little Tokyo restaurants routinely have lines out front for a simple reason of restaurant economics — to wit, they're tiny. Even larger restaurants tend to be quite small by non-Japanese standards... (4/12)

First, sometimes copycat influencer hype machine restaurants actually ARE pretty freaking outstanding and worth the trouble. While this is very rare in my experience, it does happen. But I'd like to address ANOTHER thing that can be true about Tokyo restaurants with a line... (3/12)

It is absolutely true that many Tokyo restaurants are vastly overvalued by the copycat influencer hype machine, and you can frequently (though not always!) get food that's just as good or better from a nice, quiet joint down the street. But this is where "two things can be true" comes in... (2/12)

There persists a popular online sentiment that any Tokyo restaurant with a line out front is an overhyped influencer hotspot that you can safely skip. While this is SOMEtimes the case, it's usually false, deeply misleading, and ignorant of basic restaurant economics. Lemme 'splain... (1/12)

Re: the former, honestly, it’s just as well. Now that I think about it, Fieri could be considered the apotheosis of American bacchanalia. Dionysus may, in fact, be a kindred spirit.

Such a transgression surely requires the sacrifice of a whole beast. Preferably a lamb or suckling pig. Or Guy Fieri if you can manage to catch him. (That would please *all* of us, honestly.)

Honestly, skin protection is only the second-best aspect of wearing those. Carry around a five iron and memorize a few Bill Murray quotes and you're golden.