Is downtown Tokyo’s crazy cheap 290-yen bento boxed lunch shop still around, and is it still cheap?

Mr. Sato goes to check on Nihamaru Bento in Shin Okubo.

In Japan, you’ll sometimes see budget-friendly restaurants trumpeting their “one-coin” meals. This means it’s a meal that you can purchase for 500 yen (US$3.60), with the name coming from the fact that the 500-yen coin is the biggest coin Japan has.

But for the truly value-conscious, it’s even better if you can not only pay for your meal with a single 500-yen coin, but also get some change back, and that frugal ambition is what had our ace reporter Mr. Sato recently reminiscing about Nihamaru Bento, a bento boxed lunch takeout place in downtown Tokyo’s Shin Okubo neighborhood. Nihamaru Bento has a special place in Mr. Sato’s memories because of their boxed lunches that you could buy for only 290 yen (US$2.10)!

We’re not talking about minuscule portions and barely edible elements, either. On Mr. Sato’s last visit, he got this perfectly tasty karaage bento, with four pieces of fried chicken, rice with black sesame seeds, and some pickles for 290 yen.

With his stomach and wallet both feeling uncomfortably close to empty, Mr. Sato thought a return trip to Nihamaru Bento was in order, but he wasn’t sure one was going to be possible. See, the last time Mr. Sato hit the place up was in August of 2016, when he took this snapshot.

Since then, though, we had a pandemic that severely damaged the restaurant industry, followed by the worst inflation Japan has seen in generations and an extended rice shortage this past summer and September. Add in the normal high-competitive among food and beverage businesses in downtown Tokyo, and Mr. Sato figured there was a very good chance that Nihamaru Bento had closed down since he’d last been there.

So imagine his relief when, after getting off the train at Shin Okubo and walking about 10 minutes east from the station, he spotted Nihamaru Bento’s sign still there, and the place still in business!

But it was still too early to celebrate. Like we said, inflation has been running rampant in Japan for more than a year now, and Mr. Sato braced himself for the potential shock of Nihamaru Bento having raised their prices. Sure enough, as he got closer he could see signs confirming that fear, but the blow was considerably softened because…

…they haven’t raised them very much at all.

OK, so it turns out the price increase is actually to a little more than 298 yen. Since 2016, Japan has had some changes to its consumption/sales tax regulations, and businesses are now allowed to display their prices in pre-tax form, which is what the 298 yen is indicating on Nihamaru Bento’s signs. Still, even after tax that works out to only 320 yen (US$2.30), just 30 yen more than eight years ago and still a ridiculously good deal.

Mr. Sato’s wild emotional rollercoaster ride continued when he walked into the store and saw that they now have a two-tier price system for boxed lunches, with 320 yen being the lower-priced option and premium bento costing a still very cheap 420 yen. The more expensive bento supposedly are made with more expensive ingredients, but even at the 320-yen level Mr. Sato could choose from boxed lunches with hearty main dishes like hamburger steak or the chinjao rosu (Chinese-style stir-fried beef, green peppers, and bamboo shoots) that he chose.

And perhaps because he was so happy to find Nihamaru Bento still doing business and working so hard to provide affordable food to its customers, Mr. Sato decided to add on a few side orders too, grabbing a pack of Taiwanese-style ji pai fried chicken steak for 210 yen…

…and a dried tofu strip salad, which like all of Nihamaru Bento’s salads is priced at 150 yen.

Even with these add-ons, Mr. Sato’s whole spread came to just 680 yen, while a bento and two side orders will run you closer to 1,000 at major convenience store chains.

With Nihamaru Bento not too far from SoraNews24 HQ, Mr. Sato might be making it part of his regular lunch run (or dinner run, since it’s open 24 hours), and the rest of us may be tossing him a few coins to bring back bento for us too.

Location information
Nihamru Bento / ニハマル弁当
Address: Tokyo-to, Shinjuku-ku, Shin Okubo 1-6-12
東京都新宿区大久保1丁目6-12
Open 24 hours

Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Credit: