Things to do in Shinjuku

Eat omurice at Coffee Seibu (珈琲西武)

About a 10 minute walk from Shinjuku station is a really cute coffee store called Coffee Seibu (珈琲西武). Their speciality is omurice, and the portion size was really decent for only 1300 yen.

Looking at Google reviews, it looks like it can get quite crowded if you try and go in the morning when it opens at 11am and/or around lunchtime - which is to be expected, since it is a cafe - but we went at 7pm on a Tuesday night and had no problems getting a table. It seemed like it got slightly busier as the night went on, since I guess people come here after eating dinner somewhere else.

As well as omurice and other savoury dishes like sandwiches and spaghetti, they also are known for their parfaits. We decided to go with the parfait set, with comes with a little mini parfait along with your meal. I will say that this fairly boring - it was just vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and some cornflakes at the bottom. I would probably give it a miss, but definitely would come here again just for the lunch.

The vibes are also very cute with the stained glass windows on the wall and ceiling!

Check out Isetan’s depachika

Isetan is a department store in Shinjuku that sells a lot of luxury brands. They also have a basement food court, called a depachika or “department underground” and there’s a lot of tasty stuff you can buy here.

Have a picnic and walk in Shinjuku Gyoen

Shinjuku Gyoen is quite a spacious park close to Shinjuku. It costs 500 yen to enter, but there’s a lot of walking you can do so it’s well worth it.

I haven’t tried it yet, but my next idea is to buy lunch at Isetan and then take it to have a picnic at Shinjuku gyoen. I’ll have to come back and update this page once I do it!