Teishoku (set meal) (定食)
Teishoku is a style of serving food frequently found in Japanese restaurants. As well as the main dish, the set menu usually includes white rice, miso soup or another kind of soup, and pickles, while in Kansai they sometimes serve salted konbu seaweed or boiled konbu dish instead of the pickles. Therefore this does not mean that all set menu are teishoku. As limiting the variety of dishes served makes cooking more efficient, teishoku are usually cheaper than buying the dishes alone, and are therefore very popular with students and company employees.
Restaurants offering teishoku (set menus).
Restaurants mainly offering teishoku (set menus) are generally called 'teishoku-ya' (teishoku restaurant) or local eating places.
Many Japanese style bars located in office districts offer teishoku at lunchtime which is otherwise a low turnover time. Most do not limit the time that teishoku are offered the way 'morning service' menus are offered only up to a certain time.
Teishoku are also often offered at company and school cafeterias.
Regional characteristics
In cafeterias in Okinawa prefecture, if a customer orders a side dish or fried bitter melon dish, it will usually come with rice and miso soup, so it is basically like a teishoku. This is because the custom has taken root in Okinawa from mainland Japan. If a customer orders a side dish, miso soup and rice, then they will be served with three plates of rice, two dishes of soup (one large and one small) as well as the side dish.