Cheap Supermarket in Shin-Nakano

Hi guys, I just came to live for a few months in Tokyo, in shin-nakano area. Local supermarkets that I found seem to be extremely expensive - 1 lettuce 3.5 euros, 2.5 euros for a sweet pepper, 3.5 euros for a bag of onions... Would anybody know where I could find a cheap supermarket in the area? It would be a great help...

What are the "expensive" supermarkets you have been shopping at? Is this one of them?

http://tinyurl.com/2vnv7c7

Have you tried the 99 Shop towards Highashikoenji station?

http://tinyurl.com/3a3nlrq

Failing that, try adjusting your diet and eat cheaper "local" produce.

mmm I would not know exactly the name of supermarket, but I'm gonna check it. It's a 24 hours and there is something like a yellow dog as a symbol of the chain. I was advised to go there, but I found it unbelievably expensive - today I took photos of prices of fruits for sending them to my friends :) (including the photo of 1 tomato for 2 euros)... Adjusting my diet to local one is not so easy for me: I'm vegetarian and I wouldn't know how to cook Japanese food (which mostly includes fish however). So normally I'd go for Italian food. But I'll try the 99 Shop that you advised me and I'll tell you how it goes. In the while, thanks for your help :)

I don't recognize the supermarket you describe, maybe you can provide a Google map link?

Here are some more supermarkets, mostly in the Nakano station area:

Coop, south of Nakano station:

http://tinyurl.com/3yyww66

Life Supermarket, just northeast of Nakano station:

http://tinyurl.com/344kfhz

Toyku Store (maybe a little upmarket) north of Nakano station:

http://tinyurl.com/3x469rw

Finally, and this might be a good one to try, Ozeki supermarket northwest of the 99 Shop:

http://tinyurl.com/2v2hxuv

Note also the greengrocers on the left, could be worth checking out.

Do you know of the vegetable tempura sold in the supermarkets? Also, if you shop late in the evening, supermarkets usually reduce the price of fresh foods (bento, etc) by as much as 50%.

RobBeer-san,

How do you get google map to do half screen and half map?

Thanks!

When you go to streetview, click on the two chevrons at the top left of the map box (bottom rightof screen) and it will expand to fifty/fifty view. If you need to send the info, the link is top right, it will be based on whatever you see onscreen.

Hope that helps.

Be adventurous and try some of the Japanese vegetables (hakusai, daikon, gobo, moyashi, chingensai, komatsuna and many others) which are usually much cheaper than things like tomatoes and red peppers. You will find plenty of recipes on the internet in English for most of these veges, many of them vegetarian.

Also, since people who can advise you on this topic are mostly those who live in Japan, maybe you can post the actual prices in yen rather than euros so it's easier for us to compare and see if what you are paying is higher than usual? I don't know what a euro is worth right now without going to a conversion site.

Thanks, RobBeer. Much appreciated.

Guys thank you all very much for all your help and sorry for the delay in my reply. I actually tried today something with daikon :) I will try to get some further recipes with the local vegetables that you mentioned. And I'd love to have vegetarian tempura... 2 days ago I went all the way to Nakamise Dori on purpose for eating at Daikokuya that apparently does one of the best tempura in Tokyo (at least my lonely planet says so). Unfortunately they didn't have any vegetarian option :( Where to find the vegetarian tempura? I also found the discounted food in the evening and I will print a map an look around in the supermarkets that you advised me hoping to find something cheaper. Sorry for the different currency, well what I saw was as far as I remember: 350 yen for a lettuce, 250 for a tomato, 250 for a sweet pepper, 350 for a bag of onions, 850 for a package of grapes (!!). The supermarket that I meant is this (even though in the evening they may have something cheaper - but not too much): http://maps.google.com/maps/mm?source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Shin-Nakano...

I personally would not call the place you have been shopping at a supermarket, more a glorified greengrocers.

As for the vegetable tempura, as I said before, you should find it on sale at any of the supermarkets I listed earlier. Japanese supermarkets usually have a fresh cooked section with things like breadcrumbed fried fish, fried chicken, etc, and you usually find the tempura in or near this section. You will need to make sure you don't get anything containing fish.

I'll be interested to hear which of those supermarkets turns out to be the cheapest.