Home

Yet another famous restaurant near the Waseda University campus, Sanpin Shokudo has been open since 1965 after the current owner’s father closed down what used to be a hat shop. 

It is essentially on campus with how close it is, and so it is mostly filled with students and faculty members, though I have seen other office workers and such come as well. 

They are only open from the peak hours of 11-2:30, so it can be a bit of a struggle to get in without a line, but if you come a bt before 12 or a little after 1 you shouldn’t have an issue – just do know that the restaurant’s interior isn’t super big so you may be sitting right next to someone you don’t know. 

The staff are all super kind, and it seems they have a really cool history. This youtube video goes into depth about it so if you are curious give it a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVoS5BR9-84

What they serve is something I have yet to see anywhere else, though they are on their own very common dishes.

It is both Japanese curry, and gyuudon (simmered beef and onion).

You can get these two individually which wouldn’t turn any heads per-say, but what has them stand out is that you can get a “mix” bowl which combines the both of them together. 

This is by far the most popular dish they serve and it is because it is really unique – combining two extremely common foods into one, seemingly quite simple but not in the least bit common.

Naturally, this is what I ordered, and I will be honest, I was a little sceptical of how it was going to taste. 

I thought that the two bold flavours might not go well together, but it was incredible. 

The gyuudon was really rendered down, almost to the point where it was a little crispy, and the onions were caramelized to perfection. This on its own surpassed any gyuudon chain I had been to in Japan. 

The curry literally looked like liquid gold, and the taste was pretty close too. It was creamy and with a slight hint of spice, but mostly sweet. There were some generous pieces of carrot and potato throughout, as well as the star of the show – the pork katsu. 

It was covered in the curry and yet still remained crispy throughout the whole meal – I am unsure of how they managed it. 

I also think the history behind the place adds a layer to the meal that you do not get at most restaurants.

The fact that this started as a hat shop that the owner’s father converted when he decided to try something different, and that it has been feeding Waseda students ever since, gives it a kind of accidental legacy that no amount of branding can replicate.

The students sitting around me when I went clearly had a relationship with the place — ordering without looking at the menu, chatting with the staff — and being a newcomer in that environment is one of my favourite things about eating in Japan. You feel like you have stumbled into something real.

At ¥1,000 or less for a bowl that combines two of Japan’s most comforting dishes at a quality level that beats most dedicated curry or gyudon restaurants, Sanpin Shokudo is one of the easiest recommendations on this entire blog.

Regardless of what piece of the meal you mixed together it tasted great, and this is definitely a place I have been meaning to go back to since I went for the first time. 

I love Japanese curry and gyuudon, so much so that I would probably put them in my top 10 Japanese foods, so being able to eat both of them at once, and at extremely high quality at that, it is somewhere I recommend to people without question. Go check it out if you have the chance!

One of several Waseda-area shops in my guide to where Tokyo locals eat.

Thanks for reading – if you’d like to support and follow along: 

More about me

Different types of ordering systems in Japan explained

Purchase an onigiri to keep me fuelled throughout my journey 🍙