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Get Your Bento On! Tokyo Station’s Top 5 Recommended Station Lunches

Date published: 3 September 2018

Tokyo Station is the hub for several JR lines leading into Tokyo city as well as Shinkansen trains that will carry you all the way north or south of Japan. However, Tokyo Station is much much more. It is the key place to buy “Tokyo” souvenirs and station bento (lunch boxes). Here we will introduce the top 10 most popular souvenirs as well as the top 5 bento choices we recommend.

Asakusa Teppantei, Asakusa Imahan’s teppanyaki shop holds 5th place in the popular bento rankings with their iconic bento. This is a lavish meal with a plethora of Japanese black beef to satisfy your taste buds. They are made right there at the store so you can enjoy freshly grilled teppanyaki beef.

-Price: 1,295 yen
-Shop Name: Asakusa Teppantei

This is a popular bento made by Date-no-Gyutan, the shop that carries on Sendai’s legacy of beef tongue cuisine. There is a skilled professional cooking the beef tongue in an annex to the shop for everyone to see. You are able to choose from two seasonings for your beef tongue bento, salt or miso.

-Price: 1,380 yen
-Shop Name: Date-no-Gyutan Honpo

Using fresh ingredients straight from Tsukiji, the bento are put made right next to the store for everyone to see. The box offers tamagoyaki (a type of omelet sushi), as well as a wide range of sushi inside, including 5 pieces of tuna and other types such as salmon roe, deep-water shrimp, salmon, or amberjack - 10 pieces in total! This bento seems to always make into the top 5. It is only available at Gransta.

-Price: 1,550 yen
-Shop Name: Tsukiji Takewaka
*Depending on stock, the ingredients for each bento may vary.

This standard bento from the shop well-known for sukiyaki, Asakusa Imahan rose in the ranks this year taking the number 2 slot for popular Tokyo Station bento. Japanese black beef is coated with the shop's secret sukiyaki stock and piled onto a bowl of rice. Having been around since 1865, Asakusa Imahan knows how to do traditional Japanese beef bowls right.

-Price: 1,295 yen
-Shop Name: Asakusa Imahan

This bento filled to the brim with meat holds tightly onto the first place of popular bento. This Spanish ham comes from the black Iberian pig which is mainly fed acorns to give the meat its unique taste. The bento has held the top ranking at Gransta for 9 years in a row. The juicy meat will melt in your mouth while the salty-sweet seasoning will keep your mouth watering after each bite. Adding mustard will change the flavor up a bit, making it a meal that you just can't get enough of.

-Price: 1,100 yen
-Shop Name: Eashion

Gransta is a large-scale shopping center on the basement floor between the Yaesu exit side and Maru-no-Uchi line within Tokyo Station. In this central shopping area, you can reward your taste buds to freshly made bentos, side dishes, or even sweets you won’t find anywhere else. There is also a large magazine and cosmetics area where an enormous variety of goods are lined up. There are other services as well such as a station concierge desk, a place to temporarily store your luggage (for a small fee), currency exchange and a tax-free counter. On the 1st floor, there is a large-scale bento shop called Ekiben Matsuri as well to meet your bento needs.

Location: Marunouchi 1-9-2 Chiyoda-ku Tokyo-to JR East Japan Station B1 and 1F (Inside ticket gates)
Business Hours: 8am to 10pm (Closes at 9pm on Sundays and the last day of successive holidays)
*Hours for each individual shop are subject to change.
*Gransta’s new area hours are 9am to 10pm (Closes at 9pm on Sundays and the last day of successive holidays).

The Gransta Marunouchi is a new shopping district that was opened on July 27th, 2016 on the outside of the ticket gates near the Tokyo Station Maru-no-Uchi basement area. Shops continued to open all the way through August 30th, 2017, totaling 33 shops. Similar to Gransta’s new area, the concept of the area is based on increasing the time people spend in Tokyo and they aim to improve the lives of those who spend time in the station or the surrounding area.

Location: Marunouchi 1-9-2 Chiyoda-ku Tokyo-to JR East Japan Station B1 (outside ticket gates)
Business Hours: 10am to 10pm (Closes at 9pm on Sundays and the last day of successive holidays)
*Hours for each individual shop are subject to change.