Late night dining near Shinjuku?
 

Our flight arrives at Narita at 7:15 PM on a Saturday night so I figure we probably won't be checked into our hotel, the Tokyo Hilton in Shinjuku, until around 10pm.

I'm sure we're going to want to go out and get some food. I don't know anything about the area around the hotel and was hoping someone could recommend something within walking distance.

We're looking for something inexpensive and easy for our first jetlagged meal; maybe a good bowl of ramen, or...?

I asked this question on Chowhound and only got 1 reply. I'm hoping my Fodor's friends will offer more options.

Kristina, We usually just wander around, especially in a busy area or at that late.

I hope you get some other tips. make sure you have a little maps to anyplace you plan to go. Finding specific addresses is often harder than it's worth.

At least it's easy to "window shop" restaurants as you'll be able to see the pretty accurate food models and prices in the windows of the restaurants.

H Kristina
I am in Shinjuko right now! There are plenty of restaurants as you can imagine. Most restaurants seem to have last orders at 10 or 10.30 fr what I have seen and they are pretty strict on te. We ate in the restaurant park at Takayama Times Square building. Others I am sure will have better more specific advice.
There will always be the vending machine option.

Yes most restaurants take last orders at 10 on weekdays and 10:30-11 on Fri & Sat but some ramen shops are open till the wee hours along with the bars.....

You will probably be checking in closer to 11 if arriving at 7:15 unless you hit no snags.

There are a few ramen shops I can think of off the top of my head in Nish-Shinjuku. Go out the Hilton door and walk across the street towards the Hyatt. Walk straight down that street passing the Hyatt and the Tokyo Metro building for about 200 meters till the end of the street(the Washington Hotel will be right across the street). Turn left and walk two blocks crossing two intersections.

At the second light you can turn left then take the very first right lane or continue on a short ways straight ahead until you hit another lane and turn left into the shopping and eating place of Nishi-shinjuku. Its only about 4 blocks square so you can easily walk around and see what's up.

Look for a Tennkaipin Ramen restaurant or a 297 Ramen restaurant. I think its 297. It used to be 295 for years but last year Dec when we were there the place changed names and I can't remember the numbers correctly but its 3 numbers in a row. Anyways at Tenkaippin you can pick your broth that goes with your ramen. Their house specialty is the "Koterri" base which has a very meat garlicky flavor which I like. Linda like the Shoyu base.

At that hour no one will be speaking much English so knowing what you want will help speed you along. Basically most places will have a shoyu soup base and a miso soup base. If they don't speak English in a ramen shop we order those two items. I just say "miso ramen kudasai" and for Linda its "char siu shoyu ramen kudasai" that's with a piece of pork. If you want an side order of gyoza just say "gyoza kudasai" or if you also want some Kara aage chicken(little morsels of deep fried chicken)just repeat with the kara aage kudasai(please) and wait for the food to arrive. Water is usually self serve in a lot of ramen restaurants. You will see a setup of water, glasses and ice if it is self serve, just help yourself.

Serious Ramen restaurants abound in all parts of Japan. Different districts have different soup bases that they are famous for. Their is the tonkotsu in Kyushi that is out of this world. Their is a white pork bone base they use in Hiroshima that just makes my mouth water thinking about it. Up in Hokkaido Linda still talks about the shiro crab base they used for her in one restaurant. There are ramen stadium restaurants (Fukuoka comes to mind) where they have 12 or 15 different ramen restaurants together featuring all the popular ramen flavors from the different regions of Japan.

When leaving from Narita right after you check in and before you go through immigrations there will be a small shopping mall on the same level right after check in. There are a couple of shops there and one in particular that sell some of these ramen brands boxed for take home cooking. At one store they even rank their top twenty sellers with a display so you can see what their rank is with a sample of the box.

All that said I bet the Hilton room service will have a good ramen dish on their 24 hr menu ;)


Aloha!

Oh I forgot to mention.....after you turn left by the Wahington Hotel you will pass a Lawson's drug store on the left. Inside they will also have some hot fast foods they serve along with some Japanese convenience items one of them being hot ramen.

Aloha!

HT, thanks for all the info. I will certainly check out some of those places. I even looked at bento.com and in the immediate area of the hotel they have almost nothing listed so I appreciate the ideas you gave us.
We arrive on a Saturday night so I'm hoping places will be open later.

There is a Denny's family restaurant across the road from your hotel that stays open 24 hours.

Denny's is similar in concept to those in US but have a selection of Japanese dishes as well. You should be able to eat for around 1000 yen (no alcohol - just drink water).

And they do ramen for 680 yen (+10% after 11 pm).

As a follow up question (and I know this is a long shot) but might anyone know of a cafe with free wifi in the area of the Hilton or Hyatt in Shinjuku?

The Hilton charges almost $20 a day for internet access in the rooms and I don't think it's free anywhere in the hotel. I've been told to look for a McDonalds or a Starbucks but from what I can tell the wifi in those locations is also for a fee.

Suggestions?

There is free wifi for hotel guests in the Hilton lobby according to Justin(Rentaphone Japan owner)......and I know and trust Justin ;)

http://www.rentafonejapan.com/Hotel-...n-Charges.html

Mc D's wifi in Japan is via yahoo but they do have dedicated sections....Doutour coffee shops are another popular free wifi spot but the problem with Starbuck's and Doutour is that Japan is still a cigarette smoker's paradise and the non-smoking sections are rarely ever separated so although you may be in the non-smoking section you can have smokers right on the next table that are in the smoking section.

Aloha!

HT-
I was so excited when I saw your post and followed the link.
Unfortunately, I don't think the information is accurate.

I emailed the hotel to ask them if free wi-fi was available anywhere in the hotel and they told me "If you stay in the room of Executive floor, internet access is included in the room rate." We won't be staying on an executive floor unless we are miraculously upgraded. :-(
I emailed back to confirm about wi-fi in the lobby, but I don't know why they would not have said so in the first email if it was available.

Our hotel in Kyoto (the Westin) does not appear to have free interent either, but at least there I have SPG Gold status and have a tiny bit of hope for an upgrade.

Confirmed, no free internet access at the Hilton.
"We are sorry, but it is not free.
If your room is not on Executive floor, it is 1,680 yen per day."

We, too, stayed at the Hilton and had trouble finding restaurants open at that time of night. I asked the concierge and was directed to a food-court of sorts.

Yes, there was WiFi in the Hilton lobby.

sdfamily- You found free wifi in the Hilton lobby? How long ago?
Why would they tell me there was no free wifi anywhere in the hotel? Hmmmm...curious.

"Lost in Translation" ;)

In preparing to go to Japan next month, I was also doing some research on wifi freespots. Check out the following website.

http://www.freespot.com/users/map-e/map_tokyo.html

Unfortunately, I'm illiterate in Japanese, so the map in Japanese was not easy for me to interpret. But I was struck by the fact that freespots are relatively sparse, but available. Needless to say, a smartphone will be easier to carry than a notebook. I have a Garmin 295w that has wifi and will scan for networks as I walk down the street. That might be my way of doing this.

I've seen that site too, and found it equally difficult to comprehend the maps.

BTW, for anyone keeping track, a poster on FlyerTalk told me there <i>was</i> free internet in the lobby of the Hilton. So now I guess I'll just have to wait and see when I get there.