Billy's Thoughts

Tokyo - Food, Coffee, Games

Posted on Nov 30, 2019 — 12 mins read

2023 Update: Check out my latest recs here!

In the span of two weeks, 3 friends asked me for Tokyo recommendations from my trip earlier this year. So I’m putting those recommendations here as a sort of log / for future reference.

Here are some general tips on how to travel to Tokyo. The rest is all about food, coffeeshops, and games (the majority of time spent during my recent trip).

Inspired by my friends’ recs (thanks Ophelia), The Cup and the Road blog (kinda broken now), and the random Swiss guy who told me about Kanemasu over tempura.

Logistics

Flights
There are two airports you can fly to: Haneda airport (HND) and Narita airport (NRT).
I’d recommend HND over NRT if you have the choice.

HND is closer to Tokyo (45 mins to 1h for ~600 yen by subway) vs NRT (1h to 1.5h for ~3500 yen by NRT Express + subway).

Getting around Japan (some prep required)
If you’ll be in Japan for over 7 days and plan to take the Shinkansen (high speed trains) between Tokyo, Kyoto/Osaka, and beyond, I’d recommend getting the JR Pass.

This pass includes access to the Shinkansen (non-express lines) and any JR subway lines in Tokyo. You can still buy these tickets yourself without a JR Pass, but buying the pass will likely save you some money in the end.

You can order the JR Pass online to either be shipped to you beforehand, or to be picked up at the airport. They come in 7/14/21-day options.

Stay
I’d recommend staying in Shinjuku or Shibuya. These areas have many subway lines in the area, lots of restaurants, and malls/shops.

For lodging, I’d recommend either a hotel or Airbnb (some trade-offs mentioned below).

Internet / Pocket Wifi
The most common way to have an internet connection during your trip is to get a Pocket Wifi – essentially a portable mobile hotspot.

You can order one online for pick-up/drop-off at the airport, and they cost ~$8 USD / day. In the past I’ve rented from Ninja Wifi and Wifi Hire without issue.

The battery life on these things tend to last most of the day, but you may want to bring a portable charger or switch it off when you’re not using it just in case.

Note: some Airbnbs offer a complimentary Pocket Wifi for their guests, so you may not need to order one separately.

Money
Japan is still a very cash-heavy country, with many small shops and restaurants not accepting credit card (larger establishments likely will though).

To exchange currency, the best places I’ve seen are at these orange little FX exchange stores in the city, near the big train stations (e.g. there’s at least one right by Shinjuku Station). Apparently HND and NRT airports also provide pretty good rates too. In the worst case there should be Travelex’s around the city as well.

Getting around Tokyo
May Google Maps guide you.

The subway system in Tokyo is extremely robust (with all signs translated in EN too) and reaches any popular areas. I got around mainly by subway, or walking short distances. I took the bus once.

If you don’t have a JR pass, you can get a metro card (either PASSMO or SUICA, but they function the same) at the airport or any subway station, and load money onto it as you’d expect (cash only). This lets you ride any subway line in Tokyo (vs the JR Pass only letting you ride on JR lines).

Subway fares are usually around 200 to 300 Yen one way.

Restaurant reservations
In my experience, the easiest way to do this (without paying for additional services) is to have your hotel make the reservations for you by having the hotel staff call the restaurant to book.

Districts

Recommendations:

Food

Here are the places I ate at during my latest trip that I would recommend. Most have English menus, unless otherwise stated.

Coffee/Kissaten

A large chunk of my 2019 trip was sitting down at various coffeeshops with a good book. Thankfully, from a friend’s recommendation, I discovered the Kissaten scene in Tokyo.

Kissaten are Japanese-style tearooms/coffee shops. Most are from/based on the Showa Era in Japan (1926 - 1989), and have signature wood counters and serve you pour-over coffee in a china teacup.

Cafés, in descending order of how much I liked them:

Arcade Games

The other large portion of my time was spent at the arcade, mostly playing a rhythm game called Chunithm.

This game is both fun to watch and very fun to play. Chunithm involves tapping/holding notes, plus raising your hand in the air and lowering it on beat to hit “air notes”. See some high level gameplay here.

Besides rhythm games (including piano-, guitar-, drum-, and DJ-based games), arcades have online arena games (e.g. Gundam battles), token games (where you buy tokens to play games that give you tokens, but tokens can’t be traded in for real money…), and photo booths. And, of course, crane/prize games on the 1st floor.

My go-to arcade is the Taito Station Game World near Shinjuku Station. It was close to my hotel, close to food/boba, and had 5 full Chunithm setups (with phone mounts) and 3 Love Live setups.

P.S. Please send any Tokyo recommendations you have! I’ll be going again in 2020 to watch the Olympics and I’m always interested in trying new/cool things.
DM me on Twitter @billyisyoung or shoot me an email at [email protected].