New sushi restaurant hidden inside Tokyo Station is a secret gem

https://ift.tt/ah6rPkC Oona McGee

This standing bar serves up omakase-quality sushi at conveyor belt prices.

When you’re rushing to get a train and looking for a good place to eat, where should you spend your valuable time and money? Well, if you’re at Tokyo Station and hankering for sushi, Hinatomaru is a good place to satisfy both your taste buds and your wallet.

Hinatomaru recently opened on 25 December in the Yaekita Shokudo area on the first floor of the Gransta complex at Tokyo Station, in amongst a large number of other restaurants.

Compared to other restaurants, Hinatomaru is a secret gem that’s hard to find, as it’s tucked away in a secluded spot between the Yaesu North Exit ticket gate and the Nihonbashi Exit Shinkansen ticket gate.

▼ The restaurant is circled in red on the map below.

Hinatomaru is a standing sushi restaurant, which makes things handy for travellers with heavy luggage as you can simply walk in, order and eat with your cases by your side, but those who prefer to sit and eat can do so, as there are three tables at the back left-hand side of the restaurant.

Sushi prices start at 70 yen (US$0.55), which is cheap by even Japanese standards, while standard offerings like salmon, scallop and prawn are priced at 250 yen, and the most expensive sushi on the menu, including sea urchin, is priced at 650 yen.

If that’s too much choice for you and you simply want to eat something quick and delicious, you can order the “Tuna Five-Piece Nigiri” for 1,350 yen, which is incredibly popular.

▼ The set consists of five hand-moulded sushi: medium fatty tuna, fat underbelly tuna, red meat tuna, broiled fatty tuna, and tuna fat.

While the sushi at standing sushi joints is sometimes sub-par, that’s definitely not the case here. The rare addition of tuna fat below, for instance, was a nice surprise, and it had such a premium, melt-in-the-mouth quality that it seemed almost a crime to eat it while standing.

▼ Sushi this good deserves to be eaten while seated.

The brightly coloured medium fatty tuna was also a delight for the taste buds, and the fact that it’s usually priced at 400 yen on its own makes this set great value for money.

The sushi was so good that we couldn’t help but order two extra morsels for lunch — the amberjack and striped horse mackerel, both priced at 250 yen each.

The mouthfeel of every single bite was excellent, and the quality and flavour was a rank above what you’d normally expect to be served at a standing sushi restaurant.

After doing a bit of research, we discovered the reason for the great quality might be tied to the fact that Hinatomaru is a sushi restaurant directly managed by Uogashi, which originated in Tokyo’s Asakusa, and has expanded to include standing restaurants in Ginza and Shimbashi as well.

To be able to expand in Tokyo with so much competition in the sushi world is a testament to the quality and value-for-money offered by Hinatomaru. With sushi this good, it’s not going to remain a secret for long, so next time you’re passing through Tokyo Station be sure to keep an eye out for Hinotamaru, and you can follow it up with Japanese whiskey and sweets at these one-stop shops at the station.

Restaurant information
Standing Sushi Hinatomaru / 立ち喰い寿司 ひなと丸
Address: Tokyo-to, Chiyoda-ku, Marunouchi 1-9-1 (Inside the Yaekita Shokudo area on the 1st floor of Gransta)
東京都千代田区丸の内1丁目9-1 グランスタ1階八重北食堂内
Open 11:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.
Closed only on days when the complex is closed

Reference: Gransta (1 , 2 )
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