Inamo

Last week we went out for dinner in town with a couple of friends who always take us to interesting places. This time we were booked in to go to Inamo which is a Japanese restaurant in Soho.

The difference with this restaurant is how you order your food, it's a bit tricky to explain but I'll give it a go.

You're seated at a table which is normal except for a small mouse pad in the bottom right hand corner, above the table is a projector, which projects onto your table. With the mouse pad you control a cursor which you use to select from various icons on the screen which is projected on your table. The icons allow you to view the menu, you can select a dish from the menu and the projector displays an image of the dish on your plate, so you can see what you would be ordering. When you are ready to order you simply select the order option using your mouse and then as if by magic your order is delivered to your table by a waiter.

Other cool stuff you can do included

• changing the 'table cloth' which was basically the main image that was projected on to your table
• watch 'kitchen cam' which was a live camera of the kitchen
• play games - just a memory game but we all played it
• view a map of the restaurant and bar
• call for the waiter
• request the bill

Mouse pad at bottom of picture with menu at top, this image shows the drinks menu

Jackie ordering up large

An example of a meal being projected onto the plate, this was an image of tuna benito maki, which we did end up ordering

The system works quite well, although I expect they get a lot of people that order way too much food. The food comes out quite quickly so you can kind of order one or two things, eat them, see if you're still hungry and then order some more if you want to but I don't think everyone is so restrained.

The food was good but not exceptional and the price is on the high side, you're definitely paying for the experience as much as the food but I'd say it was worth it as a one off kind of thing.