Salva Mubarak Senior Features Writer

When it comes to technology that makes our life infinitely easier, Japan is always ahead of the game. Take this restaurant helmed by a robot chef for instance. E Vino Spaghetti restaurant in Tokyo has an AI-powered chef that cooks pasta dishes for its customers.

P-Robot, as it’s called, was co-developed by Japanese cafe operator Pronto Corporation and robotics firm Tech Magic. The ‘P’ in ‘P-Robot’ stands for Pronto and not pasta as one might have believed.

This robot chef can not only boil water and cook pasta, but also clean up after itself.

“The cooking robot is a fusion of hardware and software. The point is to reproduce the taste of a skilled chef,” said TechMagic CEO Yuji Shiraki, “In the realm of self-driving cars, countries like the United States and China lead the industry, but in the world of cooking robots, Japan can compete by combining its manufacturing and food culture.”

P-Robot does seem like the future of the food industry with its superior technology that allows it to cook meals in, as little as, 45 seconds. The robot has been equipped with four pans so it can cook and prepare these pasta dishes in little time.

The way it does so is by starting with frozen pasta and defrosting each portion for 10 seconds. It then proceeds to heat the dishes while simultaneously adding the sauces during the cooking process. This way, it can cook around 90 meals an hour.

The robot, which has been in development for the past four years, was created to solve “human resource development issues” in the food industry, according to Japan Today. But despite being developed as an alternative to actual human workers in restaurants, P-Robot has several human colleagues.

The restaurant is not fully automated as the fourth-gen robot has been known to malfunction occasionally, requiring human intervention. It also is not equipped to handle plating and garnishes, needing human assistance for it. The waiters in the restaurant are also not of the AI variety, but actual human beings.

So, would you eat food prepared by robot chefs?