Here are a bunch of ideas for teaching about ordering food. Activities are organized under different headings, but some can be used at various stages of a lesson, and adapted to other lessons too. Choose the activities that you feel suit you and, most importantly, your students best. Arrange them in a lesson plan as you see fit alongside your own activities. Be sure to give students as much help with the target expressions/language as they need. Feel free to improve the example handouts as much as you like.

Greeting/Introduction Ideas:

1.)       ALT talks about the food they like / a traditional dish back home / their impressions of Japanese food / the differences between Japanese and western diets, etc.

2.)       ALT and JTE perform a short dialog about the food they like / what they ate recently, etc.

Warm-ups/Vocab Activities:

Food Jeopardy (or any other quiz):
Play Jeopardy in teams, with the questions/clues being about food. Teams can choose the next question according to how many points it gives. The more points, the more difficult the question. The team with the most points wins.

Food Taboo:
One student draws or describes a food and the other students in the class try to guess the food. Can also be done in teams.

Draw that Food:
ALT calls out food with strange names (e.g. ants on a log, pot stickers, chicken fingers, s'mores, pigs in a blanket). Students (individually, in pairs, or in teams) try to draw the food. ALT then draws and explains the food.

Food Category Row Races:
Each row is a team. The first student in each row stands up. The ALT calls out a food category (e.g. fruit, vegetables, grains, protein, carbohydrates, etc.) Using chalk as a relay baton, the teams try to write as many foods that come under that category as they can on the blackboard. Each team gets a point for every correct word. ALT then explains difficult words and calls out the next category.

Chinese Whispers:
Students play Chinese whispers in rows as teams. The ALT tells an expression to the back students who then send the message along the rows to the front students who tells the JTE. All messages are expressions that are commonly used when ordering food, e.g. "May I help you?" and "I'd like the steak, please." After each expression, the ALT can write it on the blackboard, explain it and give alternatives, before moving on to the next expression. If done in order, eventually a basic dialog made from all the expressions could be written on the blackboard ready for class practice and the next activity.

Practice Activities:

Pairwork:
The ALT and JTE should demonstrate the dialogue on this handout. Then the students should use the menu to order. Here is an example Menu. Also, here is an example order form so that waiters and waitresses can record the orders.

Team Menus:
After practicing a dialog, students work in small groups to create their own restaurant menu. When they are finished, the ALT/JTE acts as a waiter/waitress and takes the whole group's order. Try to include main dishes, side orders, desserts and drinks. You could also give them an example menu first, or have them use it instead of making their own.

Foreign Menus:
Take menus from back home to class. Explain difficult vocabulary and practice a dialog with the students. Then have the students work in pairs, taking turns to order from the menu. Students will enjoy using the real menus and will really feel like they are capable of ordering food abroad if they can do it successfully in class.
Here is a sample McDonald's Menu.

Consolidation/Filler Activities:

How Much?:
Have some students order from the ALT or from each other in front of the class (if they are not shy). You could also use hot potato to decide the 'volunteers'. While these students are ordering, the rest of the class listens and tries to cost their order, using the menu. The first student to do it and shout out the answer wins points/a prize etc. (as do the students who perform).

Journals:
If students keep a journal for the ALT, have them write about the food they like and dislike.

Advanced Activities:

Menus and dialogs can be made more complicated to really re-create the real thing.

Students can be asked to order food without a dialog, using the menus only.

Tipping can be incorporated into the activities.

Skits:

Students can write and perform skits about ordering food.

Easier Activities:

Dialogs and menus can be made really simple for lower level schools.

Any of the food quizzes above are suitable for lower level schools.