British food in Kinokuniya

That’s the international supermarket rather than the bookshop!

You can get most of this elsewhere and the prices are nothing special, but I was just in the smaller Omo branch in Akasaka and there will might be more in the big branches like Omotesando.

Food of possible particular interest to Brits

Kraft Macaroni cheese

Smoothies

Aooni IPA (a great Japanese India pale ale, though more American style than British)

Duchy Originals biscuits

Tim Tams (similar to Penguins)

Walkers shortbread

Cadburys

Clipper tea

Carrs crackers

Getting there

English language map for the Omotesando branch

Store guide in Japanese

British food in Meidi-ya

Generally I wouldn’t recommend Meidi-ya, as it’s expensive and really caters for the Japanese taste in Western products. There are a few things that are difficult to get elsewhere though (near the top of this list):

small Walkers rich fruit pudding 1260 yen

Colman’s mustard 450 yen

Pataks curry paste

Robertsons mincemeat 699 yen

Vegemite 420 yen

damson jam

green pea soup

Quaker oatmeal

Scottish porridge oats

lemon curd

Harrods tea, coffee, pickles and brown sauce for silly prices, e.g. about 1400 yen for the brown sauce

Cadburys

fake After Eights

I went to the one in the basement on Maru Biru (opposite Tokyo station) and there are four other large shops in Tokyo:

English language store guide (click on the photos for Japanese-language maps)

British food in Kaldi Coffee Farm shops in Tokyo

Most of the tea they sell is horrible (including the apparently British Brodies), but Twinings is reasonably priced and so are most of the other things they sell. Their special offers can be very cheap indeed. There are 57 stores in Tokyo, most of them close to stations and quite easy to find.

Sweet stuff

Cadbury’s Twirl

Milky Way

Robertson’s mincemeat 598 yen

Dairy Milk 450 yen

Terry’s chocolate orange 567 yen

Tim Tams (similar to Penguins) two packets for 550 yen

Toblerone 330 yen

fudge 480 yen

Others

Vegemite

horseradish sauce

Brand’s A1 brown sauce

malt vinegar 304 yen

mild cheddar

blue stilton

pita bread

sliced beets

How to get there

Ones I know how to get to

Oimachi – Come out of the North exit and it’s upstairs in the same building, next to Tsutaya

Shinagawa – Come out of the main JR ticket barriers and turn left. Go down the stairs out of the building and its in the basement of the department store on your left (past the Keikyu station)

Nakameguro – Come out of the station and turn left. There is a large building with a shopping centre beneath it very near the station. It’s near the back of that complex up some steps.

Other information

Kaldi store guide in Japanese (click on Tokyo on the map to narrow it down)

Kaldi site in English (no store guide)

British Xmas food in Tokyo

So far I’ve only found:

- Foreign Buyers’ Club turkey roast page

- Xmas pudding (small one for over 1000 yen) from Walkers (the shortbread company) in Meidi-ya in the basement of Maru-Biru (the Marunouchi Building) opposite Tokyo station,  Seijo Ishii,  Nissin and to be delivered from Foreign Buyer’s Club. Alternatively, there was a one person (i.e. tiny) microwaveable Tesco Xmas pudding in Tsukameya (owned by Tesco) and I would imagine the larger Tesco stores.

- Walkers 9 mincemeat tarts 945 tarts* and Glenfiddich 6 luxury mince pies 1365 yen* from Nissin

- frozen turkey from 2000 yen in Nissin

- jars of Robertson’s Mincemeat in the same Meidi-ya, in my local Kaldi Coffee Farm , from Nissin and from Foreign Buyer’s Club.

- (tinned, American) S&W cranberry sauce in Daimaru Peacock in Shiba-ura Island, Miura-ya above Iidabashi station, Queens Isetan, from Foreign Buyer’s Club, Nissin and most other import shops

- Walkers rich fruit cake (400g so small, but looks like a Xmas cake without icing) for a rather outrageous 1260 yen from Sony Plaza and in Nissin

- Sugared orange and lemon slices in Tesco

and general stuff for a roast:

- gravy powder in Daimaru Peacock, Queens Isetan, Nissin (Lawry’s turkey gravy)

- Colman’s English mustard in Meidi-ya and Nissin (both jar and powdered)

I’ll post more things as I find them, and please also add your own finds in the comments section.

Relevant-looking links:

Tokyo’s best Xmas dinner

10 Tokyo Xmas feasts on TimeOut Tokyo website (2010 but mainly still relevant)

Xmas in Tokyo on sunnypages, including tips on getting turkeys

British food in Daimaru Peacock supermarkets

As I wrote when I gave my rather disappointing list of Waitrose food in Daimaru Peacock, actually most of the stuff of interest to my fellow countrymen in that store comes from other companies, and here it is:

Brand’s A1 brown sauce 498 yen (bought this but haven’t tried it yet, so don’t know if it will be as close to Daddy’s Brown Sauce as my taste buds usually demand…)

S and W tin of cranberry sauce 420 yen (actually American)

McCormick brown gravy mix 145 yen (ditto)

Stilton for 365 yen

Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce 400 yen

Clipper teas

Campbell’s chunky soup for around 400 yen for a big can

Australian red cheddar 880 yen

porridge oats from 385 yen

Sharwood’s mango chutney 558 yen (available for much cheaper elsewhere, e.g. in Kaldi)

McVitie’s digestives and chocolate digestives (available many places and the same price here)

Walkers shortbread (ditto)

Carr’s crackers (ditto, if fewer places than the two above)

Wilkin and Son jams

Guinness

Getting to Tesco Mejiro

It’s pretty far from the station but probably the easiest Tesco to find – come out of JR Mejiro station (there’s only one set of ticket barriers) and turn left onto the main road then walk straight down that road for about 10 minutes. It’s on the other side of the road.

Map (in Japanese)

More on Tesco in Tokyo

How to get to Kasuga Tesco

Tesco in Tokyo

British beer and food in Yamaya Wine Shop, Tokyo

Yamaya is almost certainly the cheapest import shop in Tokyo- example prices given below. I was also very impressed with their British beer selection when I went in to the Omori branch today, probably the second best I’ve seen in Tokyo.

British beer in Yamaya

Greene King Strong Suffolk Vintage Ale 398 yen

Bishops Finger 548 yen

Boddingtons 448 yen

Murphys Stout398 yen

Spitfire 548 yen

London Pride 348 yen

Abbot Ale 398 yen

Old Speckled Hen 398 yen

Greene King IPA Export 398 yen

Belhaven St Andrews ALE so so 398 yen

Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA 398 yen

Bass – 248 yen

British-style Japanese beers in Yamaya

the fabulous Ginga Kogen pale ale – 268 yen

Echigo Stout

Kirin Ichiban Shibori Stout 198 yen

UK food (and food of interest to Brits) in Yamaya

Sharwoods Madras and Tikka masala cooking sauce 548 yen

corned beef 398 yen

tinned peas 98 yen

Campbell’s soup 198 yen

Best Foods mayonnaise 498 yen

Brand’s A1 brown sauce 398 yen

Lee and Perrins Worcestershire sauce 348 yen

Terry’s chocolate orange

fun size Mars, Milky Way, Bounty and Twix fun size

Quaker Oatmeal

red cheddar from 248 yen

Directions

The ones I know how to get to:

Shinjuku – follow directions for Tokyo Opera City and it’s on your way.

Omori – It’s opposite (or possibly next to, depending on how you look at it) Ito-Yokado. Come out of the East exit and walk directly away from the station for about 5 minutes and you should be able to see Tsutaya video shop and then Ito Yokado in the distance.

Japanese language guide to the 12 shops in Tokyo

 

Waitrose food in Tokyo

The upmarket supermarket chain Daimaru Peacock has some kind of tie up with Waitrose and so a fair few Waitrose goods are available in them. The bad news is that quite a bit of that is pasta, pasta sauce and olives (just like in Tesco, for some bizarre reason), and that not all branches have the whole selection. The best one I’ve found is in Shibaura Island, 5 minutes from Tamachi station:

Directions to Daimaru Peacock Shibaura Island

Come out of the East exit of Tamachi station. After you go down the stairs continue in that same direction, across the bridge between two towers. Daimaru Peacock is just past the tower on the left.

Directions to other stores

Store guide in Japanese

Azabu Juban map in English

Aoyama branch map in English

Waitrose food in Daimaru Peacock

In approximate order of how interested I was to see them:

- Waitrose teas from 298 yen (including Waitrose Gold tea bags, my new favourite everyday tea, and some pretty good Assam)

- Waitrose jam from 348 yen (but the Tesco ones look nicer and are around the same price)

- Tinned mixed beans (for a salad, I guess)

- Waitrose club soda

- Waitrose sardines in olive oil 205 yen

- Waitrose olives

- Waitrose spaghetti and pasta sauce

- Waitrose tinned chopped mushrooms

I also think I’ve seen Waitrose breakfast cereals there before.

All a bit underwhelming now I come to write it down (apart from the tea), but there is also a fair amount of other British food there, listed in this post:

British food in Daimaru Peacock.

British food in Hanamasa

Hanamasa is a big chain of shops with some cheap stuff (although not usually as cheap as the appearance of the shop would make you imagine), and some imported stuff like Brazilian stew that is difficult to get elsewhere.

Not much of specific interest of those from the UK during my last visit, unfortunately, but here it is:

-cottage cheese 368yen

- New Zealand red cheddar 500 grams for 980 yen

- two small nan for 200 yen

- apricot jam 138 yen

Also often reasonably cheap porridge oats.

Store guide (in Japanese) here.

Ones I know how to get to:

Omori – inside the station building. Go out the North ticket barriers, turn left, go down the escalator to B2.

Ichigaya – Go along the canal and rail lines towards Iidabashi for about ten minutes, or go in the opposite direction from Iidabashi station, which might actually be slightly closer.

Ginza – very near Don Quijote, and so actually nearer Shimbashi

The best tea in Tokyo coffee shops

No, not the tea ceremony – I personally seek out the nearest I can find to a cup of Yorkshire Tea between lessons. Here are my personal selections:

1. Excelsior Assam – 280 yen

2. Doutor “hot tea” – 200 yen (and pack of teabags sometimes available to try and sometimes your best option that way too)

3. KFC Assam – 200 yen, or with a meal in place of Coke

4. Jonathans drink bar – around 400 yen for drink all you like for as long as you like

5. Starbucks English Breakfast – 390 yen for a “grande”

6. Starbucks Earl Grey

7. Other Excelsior teas

8. The more expensive teas in Tullys

Just about bearable

1. Blenz orange pekoe

2. Mos Burger tea

3. Tullys hot tea

4. Gusto drinks bar tea

5. Zoka Coffee tea (nice but very weak indeed and in those annoying big but shallow cups that go cold in seconds)

6. Bagel and Bagel tea (no worse than the bagels)

5. Mr Donut

The worst

1. Uejima “hot tea” – 390 yen for a tiny so called L size, with luke warm water and crappy quality tea

2. Kohikan – similar

3. Caffe Veloce – only 210 yen, but there are days I wouldn’t drink it for free (although I used to, maybe I just overdid it)

4. Macdonalds – only 100 yen, but Lipton Piss-coloured Label and you can taste the cup. Nice hot water though.

5. Renoir – And incredibly over-priced

Can’t remember/ not sure

Pronto

Royal Host drinks bar