Japanese People depend largely on public transportation. Each person spend average of 2 hours and 40 minutes in commuting so in-between waiting and changing trains, they grab food from shops at train stations. Luckily, there are a lot of options.
Inside the station gate, there is a food court with shops that offer Japanese bento, sit-in restaurants both Japanese and Western style, book store, simple souvenir shops, beauty stores, and so on. Outside of station gate, but still inside the station building, there's supermarket, Italian restaurant, cafe, a shopping mall with another supermarket, bakery, and another book store. Choices are plentiful.
I got some fruit and cream sandwich from a sandwich shop. It sounds bazaar to put fruit and cream in-between 2 slices of toast, but it is really good. Not too sweet nor heavy. It's a perfect snack and very fulfilling. Some Japanese bakeries in American carry them too. These sandwiches are quite popular.
Outside of the station, there is the Shinagawa Intercity. It's a multi-function building with offices, restaurants, convenient stores, post office, salon, and conference rooms. Shinagawa is separated into A, B, and C buildings. Restaurants are scattered throughout. We found an Eco themed restaurant on B1 that seemed somewhat interesting. It turned out to be a popular spot for salarymen after work. Salarymen means Japanese White-collar workers. They started to come into the restaurant by groups as it got later. Each party got a booth for privacy and each table had a button to notify the server that you needed assistance.
Overall the food was fresh, not over priced. We had Motsunabe that I had wanted for so long. Motsunabe is a Japanese hotpot cooked with vegetables and beef or pork organs. It really is not as disgusting as it sounds. It's cooked in high temperature and for a long time, the organs are fatty, chewy, and full of flavors.
We also ordered seafood hotpot, which came with oysters, snapper, and vegetables. It was a refreshing pot.
I think I also ordered chicken wings and they were quite good but we did not take photos. Shinagawa is not as tourist-y as Shinjuku, it's mostly office buildings and residential area. It had a very different atmosphere comparing to some parts of Tokyo. So, if you every find yourself planning a trip to Tokyo, make sure you do research on which part of the city you want to stay and see. Yes, transportation is simple enough, but you don't want to get caught during rush hour fighting other people to get on a train.
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