Start Your Day Right: Morning Sets in Tokyo

When you are feeling peckish in the morning, and the hotel or guesthouse do not serve breakfast, there is a simple way to go in Tokyo: Go to a nearby cafe and order a ”morning set” (often abbreviated to just morning or ”もにんぐ”).

Toast on the Run: The Classic Japanese Breakfast

For people on the run with a few minutes to spare and time to sit down, a piece of toast with jam, an egg, and maybe a small yoghurt or salad to go with their morning coffee is the way to go to fill you up just enough for the activities of the day. And as meals in Japanese restaurants go, it comes relatively cheap.

 

Usually, the morning sets come in under 500 yen, although the creeping inflation has put pressure on prices and made many things optional which previously were included. And if you go for fancy alternatives, which include scrambled eggs and bacon, the price will run away. But as a simple alternative for starting the day, it is the best.

McDonald’s and Fast Food Morning Options

If you are looking for something more than a toast with your morning coffee, it may quickly become expensive, unless you go to one of the few restaurants open for breakfast and serving Westernized food between two slices of bread. Yes, McDonalds.

 

Their morning sets are the same as in other parts of the world, although this being Japan, they taste much better. Especially the scrambled eggs are prepared with a care and finesse that puts their offerings in other countries to shame. If you have kids, the morning meal may be a good time to order a Happy Meal, as the toys in Japanese McDonalds are uniquely Japanese and even may have collectors value once you get home.

Cafes and the Best Places to Work

But McDonalds is not the only breakfast option. As a matter of fact, if you plan to work, other places might serve you better. While wifi is now as much a part of coffee service as the small cups of gum syrup you get with your java in any coffee shop nowadays, the quality varies as well as the offering. As workplaces, the traditional cafe chains are much better than McDonalds, offering secluded booths with charging outlets for the businessman on the go.

 

The ubiquitous coffee store chains in Japan all have their own take on morning service. The Dotour group of coffee chains serve a piece of buttered toast, Pronto goes for a slightly more upscale image, Tully’s serves something that is almost a lunch. The only coffee store chain which does not have a morning special is Starbucks.

Mom-and-Pop Cafes: A Nostalgic Breakfast Experience

But if breakfast is what you are after, it is worth looking around the neighborhood for places that are not chain stores, but traditional cafes. You can still find them in older neighborhoods, serving coffee all day, and simple meals like Japanese curry for lunch. Make an effort to find them, because this is not only a uniquely Japanese experience, they are also a dying breed, the small independent shops rapidly being replaced by chain stores as the owners become too old to continue the business. Or not being replaced by anything, just joining the line of shutters that line many of the slowly dying Japanese shopping streets around Tokyo and all of Japan.

 

But if you find one, go in the morning and order the morning set. The ”morning” tradition in Japan started in Nagoya, the industrial city halfway between Tokyo and Osaka. Here, if you go into a coffee shop in the morning and order a coffee, it automatically comes with a generous piece of toast, and often more – at no addition to the posted price. When it comes to morning service, most coffee chains pale compared to the Nagoya native offering. All but one.

The Nagoya King of Morning

The king of morning is without doubt the Komeda’s Coffee chain. They have taken their Nagoya origins and by strict standardization managed to turn the humble toast and coffee into an ubiquitous business. It helps that they are offering a ”third place” for studies and meetings, including free Wi-Fi that usually works better than the Starbucks service – so well that they have placed stickers on the tables to request customers to refrain from holding video meetings, since those often become noisy and disturb other customers, many of whom come to study since they do not have any dedicated study spaces in their cramped family apartments. Keeping your voices – and especially those of your children – down is a simple way of both doing like the locals, and showing that you are considerate.

Komeda Coffee: The King of Morning Sets

The morning set in Komeda’s Coffee, served already from their opening at 7 AM until they close at 10:30 PM, is certainly worth it. You get a choice between a largish slice of generously buttered toast with egg salad, an egg, jam, or anko – the Japanese bean jam. It may sound weird, but goes extremely well with toast. And of course, coffee.

 

Komeda’s Coffee is not a specialty roastery like Starbucks, offering a variety of specialty coffee roasts and drink blends. Here, the drinks have a definite ”showanyoi”, feeling of yesteryear. The word refers to the Showa period, which actually included WWII but in practice refers to the economic wonder period of the 1960’s. A coffee(”blended coffee”) is a big mug of coffee – not as weak as in the mom-and-pop coffee stores, but European strength.

 

Showa Nyoi glass cups in the morning

The juices and milk drinks are served in funny little glass cups that look like the same model as 60 years ago, and are sure to delight any children in the company.

Showa nostalgia is rife in Japan and the feeling is embodied in the Komeda’s stores, albeit with a modern twist. They serve lunch and dinner too – simple fare consisting of salads, ham sandwiches (if you have kids, do not forget to say ”karashi nuku” – without mustard); and fried chicken, tonkatsu sandwiches, and often other sandwiches as well.

The desserts, however, is why many people come to Komeda’s Coffee. The combinations of Danish pastries and ice cream, often with different jellies (including the perennial Japanese favorite coffee jelly) and sauces will satisfy both an appetite and sweet tooth. But their biggest appeal is that they are cheap. Fitting a student and tourist budget alike.

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