My favorite lunch places in Tokyo
There are always three lunch menus with fish. Lunch menu includes main fish plate, a salad, tofu and one more small plate. Rice is cooked with vegetables. Coffee or coffee flavored jelly is served after lunch. The price is only 980 JPY. Amazing. They offer different fish plate every day, grilled, boilled and seasoned, etc. As this place is very populer, if you arrive late some menus might be sellout.
花未月 Hanamizuki
3-8-5 Shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Mon-Fri 11:30-13:30
Sea bream rice is the specialty of Uwajima city in Ehime prefecture. The raw fillets of sea bream are marinated with sweet soy been sauce with raw egg, sesame and dried seaweed. You mix them up and put them over rice. The sweet soy sauce is marvelous and you can’t stop eating rice.
Tai Meshi (Sea bream rice) 900JPY
宇和島 Uwajima
Lunch: Mon.-Fri. 11:30-14:00
3-9-2 Shinbashi, Minato-ku ,Tokyo
5 minutes from Shinbashi Station
My favorite lunch place in Yotsuya 3-chome. There are 4 to 5 lunch menu with 1,100 JPY. All lunch menus are with the salad buffet and soup. The salad buffet is very rich and you can enjoy various vegetables with different seasoning. I always take too much salad and when the main dish is served, I’m not so hungry anymore. But it’s really nice to have so many vegetables. The soup also contains a lot of vegetables and it helps to soften the spicy taste of main dish with Sichuan style.
遊猿 Yu En
Lunch: Mon. Tue. Thu. Fri. 11:30-14:00
Garden Tree 2F
6-39 Arakicho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
3 minutes from Yotsuya 3-chome Station
Yakitori-don is various yakitori over rice. A chicken wing, some pieces of liver and of leg, and “tsukune”(chicken ball) grilled over charcoal with sauce have a savory smell and taste so nice. Especially liver grilled medium rare is fabulous. And braised minced chicken seasoned with soy sauce and sugar matches perfectly with rice. This lunch including miso soup and pickles costs only 1,000 JPY so I frequently visit here more than 10 years.
Another menu I like is the set of small yakitori over rice and “Inaniwa Udon” (Japanese noddle with soup). The soup is well flavored with chiken and matches very well with thin noodle.
Yakitori-don 1,oooJPY
Inaniwa Udon 1,000JPY
Toriyoshi
1-1-11 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo
4 minutes from Toranomon Sta.
Mon-Fri 11:15-14:00
Shrimp Garden is the restaurant specialized in shrimp dishes. I always choose Shrimp ramen at lunch. This soup is very thick and well flavored with shrimp. There are three fried shrimps and fried onion as the topping which match very well with this ramen. After eating noodle, you can also enjoy the soup eating the bread soaked in the soup. The omelet and carrot rape salad are also included in the menu.
Ebi (Shrimp) Ramen Set 1,050JPY
Shrimp Garden
Iino Bldg. 1F
2-1-1 Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
connected directly to Kasumigaseki Sta. 4 minutes from Uchisaiwaicho Sta. and Toranomon Sta.
Mon-Fri 11:30-15:00
When I want to eat Yakitori in Ginza, I go directly to this restaurant which dated in 1931. Three yakitories, chicken wings grilled with salt, chiken meat ball with sauce and chiken meat are grilled over charcoal when you order, so you can eat them hot. For grilled vegetable, you can choose Shiitake mushroom or asparagus. This set menu includes grated radish, pickles, and a rich soup well flavored of chicken. What I love in this restaurant in addition of tasty yakitori, is the fried rice with chiken meat, onion, and curry powder. This fried rice matches very well with the taste of yakitori.
Lunch Set 1,400JPY
Ginza Torishige
6-9-15 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
5 minutes from Ginza Station
Mon-Fri 11:30-14:00
Sato Yosuke Hibiya is the restaurant of “Inaniwa Udon”. “Udon” is the traditional Japanese noodle made by wheat and “Inaniwa Udon” is the noodle made at Inaniwa village in Akita prefecture and known as one of the three most famous udon in Japan. This noodle is thinner than other udon and very smooth.
My favorite menu is the soup noodle with plum pickle paste and seaweed. You can enjoy the taste of udon itself in the soy sauce based soup. I often eat this when I have a hangover. When it’s very hot outside you can order cold udon with two different sauce, soy sauce and sesam sauce. The sesam sauce is so rich and tasty that I even can drink!
There are also some menues with Thailand curry sauce which is also delicious.
Ume Oboro Udon (plum pickle paste and seaweed) 1,100JPY
Futaaji Seiro (with soy sauce and sesam sauce) 1,100JPY
Sato Yosuke Hibiya
Hibiya Central Bldg. B1
1-2-9 Nishi Shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Mon-Fri 11:30-14:30
*There are same restaurants in Ginza, Akasaka and Asakusa. Prices and menu are slightly different according to the places.
There are several set lunches with fish. My favorite is the fried flatfish with vegetable sauce on it. Fish are deeply fried so you can eat even bones. The thick sauce includes carrot, shiitake mushroom, other green vegetables and is well flavored. There is also a piece of fried rice cake in it. A set lunch includes two side dishes (they changes from day to day) rice with boiled and dried baby sardines, miso soup, a small piece of omelet and pickles.
Fried grilled salmon and grilled codfish are also fabulous.
Set lunch
-grilled salmon 1,200JPY
-fried flatfish 1,200JPY
-grilled codfish 1,300JPY
Ichiraku (一楽)
4-6-5 Shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
5 minutes from Shimbashi Station
Mon-Fri 11:30-13:30
I love this noodle! When oyster season comes, I go to this restaurant located in Tsukiji. There are five big oysters inside and the salt base soup is fabulous. It’s also nice to take many vegetables like onion, bambo shoot and leek. You can eat this noodle only from October to March.
JPY1,300
Tsukiji Shijo, Uogashi Yokocho 8 goukan
5-2 Tukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Mon- Sat 4:30-13:00
