Japan's Faster Food

America may have invented fast food, but the Japanese are taking it a step further, reports CBS News Correspondent Barry Petersen.

At the Togenkyo Restaurant, a buffet lunch costs around $17 -- unless the intrepid diner is willing to play a gastronomic version of "beat the clock." In that case, hungry patrons can punch in on a timer and inhale their food for just 30 cents a minute.

The idea of faster food is spreading in Japan, where a banking crisis has dramatically slowed the world's second largest economy. Tokyo insists that a bailout package -- with a major infusion of government cash - will revitalize the shrinking economy, but experts are divided on whether the plan will work.

In any case, Togenkyo manager Hiroshi Kaneko says the recession is helping the restaurant's business.

The record for a lunch was only seven minutes, the kind of "lunch hour" only a boss could love.

Reported by Barry Petersen
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