No trip to Japan is complete without the obligatory sweets shopping. From iconic products like Tokyo Banana and Royce Chocolates, to local snacks and city-exclusive items, if you plan on grabbing a bunch of ‘em, it’s always a good idea to drop by a place with a lot of options.
Over at Tokyo Station, you’ll find two areas – Tokyo Gift Palette and Tokyo Okashi Land – fully dedicated to sweets and snacks from Tokyo and Japan. Featuring both take-home snacks as well as freshly baked goods, it certainly looks to be an interesting place to stop by. But what exactly are some of the products you can expect over here, and is it even worth the visit? Let’s get to it. How Good Is Tokyo Gift Palette & Tokyo Okashi Land Actually?
–Tokyo Gift Pallete: Tokyo’s Signature Sweets–
–Butter Butler–
–Gift Kiosk–
–Other Shops–
–Weekly Palette–
–NY Perfect Cheese–
–Tokyo Okashi Land: Famous Snacks from around Japan–
–Tokyo Banana–
–Yoku Moku–
–Shiseido Parlour–
–Calbee Plus–
–Calbee Plus Shop–
–Pop-Up Shops–
–Other Shops–
–Full Review: Tokyo Station—
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🍫 Tokyo Gift Palette 🍫
Starting off on the 1st floor, Tokyo Gift Palette is one of the places to grab a variety of sweets and snacks only available in Japan (and for some, only in Tokyo.) And like a lot of places, if your purchase exceeds ¥5,500, you can also get tax refunds off your items.
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🧈 Butter Butler 🧈
Starting off with my personal favorite snack from Japan – Butter Butler. They have quite the number of butter-centric snacks to choose from, but by far my recommendation would be their signature item, The Butter Financier.
Here’s a quick price breakdown for each of the box sizes (Butter Financier)
8 Pieces – ¥1,620
12 Pieces – ¥2,268
16 Pieces – ¥3,240
No surprises here, I got myself the 16-Pack to share with the family when I head home, as well as a few 8-Packs as souvenirs for my friends.
Side Note – Huh, apparently the 12-pack gives you the best overall value. (¥189 vs ¥202 for the 8 and 18-pack) Maybe consider that when you decide on which to buy.
Now for the taste. In a word (and I’m trying not to exaggerate here… but you judge for yourself,) “godly”.
Upon opening the package, you’re immediately greeted with this sweet, buttery aroma of the Financier. The top of the cake has this glittery effect from the sugar, and when you finally bite into it, the cake is intensely buttery, with moist pockets of maple syrup adding yet another element to it. It’s my favorite Japanese sweets by a mile, and if I had to recommend one thing to take home, this would be my choice, bar none.
You can find Butter Butler right around the outside corner of Tokyo Gift Palette (the side closer to the building entrance.) You can also find Butter Butler at the Gift Kiosk shop (see below), but if you plan to come back for more, I suggest buying directly at their shop for their point card. (¥500 per stamp, x2 points on the 8th, 18th, or 28th of every month)
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🍫 Gift Kiosk 🍫
If you want to purchase a bunch of sweets in a single shop (and reach that Tax-Free amount,) then Gift Kiosk is the shop to head to.
Here, you’ll find an assortment of different sweets and snacks from different stores (some you can find as individual shops here.)
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🍫 Other Shops at Tokyo Gift Palette 🍫
At the main area of Tokyo Gift Palette, you’ll find a wide variety of Japanese sweets and snacks in individual kiosks.
From sweets designed to take home as souvenirs, to freshly baked items to enjoy during your stay, have a look around to see what interests you. (I’m definitely checking out Sugar Butter Tree the next time I visit)
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🍫 Weekly Palette: Cannelaine 🍫
Located towards the front of Tokyo Gift Palette is their Weekly Palette, where you can find rotating pop-up shops featuring different types of snacks. For my visit, the shop was Canelé specialty shop Cannelaine.
I’m a massive fan of Canelé, so you know I had to go grab some.
There’s actually a lot of available flavors to choose from here, from the classic Nature, to others such as Matcha, Salted Caramel, Raspberry, Early Grey, Coffee, and Chocolate. (As well as some combo options.) As for today’s order, I decided on the Nature and Matcha. Let’s see how they taste.
Starting off with the Nature. Flavor-wise, it’s everything you expect from a good canelé – sweet, rich, with a strong hint of vanilla (basically a really nice baked custard.) And as for the outer crust, I’ll admit, it wasn’t as crunchy as I would’ve liked – a bit on the softer side, but still a decent difference between the crust and center.
For the Matcha? Well, the crust is more or less the same, but the switch from sweeter vanilla to the more earthy notes of matcha really works wonders here. Overall? Maybe not something you should go out of your way to track down, but if you ever find a shop near you, I say try it out! It’s not bad at all.
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🧀 NY Perfect Cheese 🧀
While not exactly within Tokyo Gift Palette, I figured I should also cover some of the other shops you can find inside Tokyo Station – specifically the area *after* entering the station.
While I was in Tokyo, my friend would constantly remind me to go try out NY Perfect Cheese (without explaining where the shop was…) So with that, I made it my mission to find it and try out their signature item, the Langue De Chat. I’ll save you through the headache of finding it… you can find the shop between Platform 4 and 5, right by the JR Yamanote Line.
I arrived at the shop at around 3 P.M., and not only were the lines quite long (they move quite fast, though) but almost all the available sizes have already sold out. But after just under 10 minutes in line, I managed to grab an 8-pack for ¥1,166.
So how was it? Let’s go over the premium-looking package real quick. Regardless of box size, the Langue De Chat comes in a gold foiled wrapper, packaged in a fancy gold box. And for the product itself, it’s a thin Gouda Cheese biscuit, served with a mix of white chocolate, nuts and a sweet Cheddar Cheese blend.
Flavor-wise, the cheese takes on a sweeter profile, while being savory enough to contrast with the all-sweet white chocolate. And combining with the crisp and slightly salty biscuit, you have a really tasty snack that’s just a pleasure to eat.
Is it worth the time tracking this place down? Yeah, I say so. It’s not topping my #1 favorite snack here, but by itself, I was very impressed.
Here’s a quick look at the pricing for each box size.
5 Pieces – ¥831
8 Pieces – ¥1,166
12 Pieces – ¥1,749
15 Pieces – ¥2,187
18 Pieces – ¥2,624
Every box but the 5-Pack one averages out to about ¥146 per piece, so there’s no loss in grabbing a smaller box to try out first.
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🍭 Tokyo Okashi Land 🍭
Heading downstairs from Tokyo Gift Palette, we arrive at Tokyo Okashi Land. Technically, the area is separated between “Tokyo Okashi Land” and “other sweets shops,” but I’ll combine them together for this review.
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🍌 Tokyo Banana 🍌
One of Tokyo’s most iconic sweets, you can find Tokyo Banana at both Tokyo Okashi Land and Tokyo Gift Palette. You have their classic Tokyo Banana (Banana-shaped sponge cake with a banana custard filling) of course, but also some of their other sweets as well as some collaboration goods with Pokémon (both Pikachu and Eevee ones,) Doraemon, and Toy Story.
Surprisingly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever tried Tokyo Banana before, but it’s a snack that my friends would constantly ask me to grab for them, so I guess they have to be quite good.
There’s also a Tokyo Banana baked goods shop over at the Tokyo Okashi Land store – featuring some interesting exclusive products like their Banana Curry Bread and Banana Red Bean Donuts.
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🍭 Yoku Moku 🍭
Yoku Moku is most famous for their Cigare – crispy rolled butter cookies – and you can find that and their other varieties of cookies here at Tokyo Okashi Land.
And like a lot of the other stores we covered, Yoku Moku also has some exclusive sweets to be found. For ¥432, you can grab their Handmade Crispy Cream Puffs – a choux pastry filled to order with vanilla custard cream.
Apparently these things sell out really fast, too. I went back and checked, and it turns out I took the photo at 1:13 P.M. and they’ve already sold out their 1 P.M. batch. So if you really want to try them out, maybe show up a bit earlier than that.
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🍭 Shiseido Parlour 🍭
And for another popular sweets shop, you have Shiseido Parlour and their famous cheesecakes. (among all the other sweets they have here) I’ve never bought these myself during my visits here, but a friend of mine bought a box of the cheesecake for me to try.
Presented as a bite-sized cheesecake, it’s actually quite a nice tasting snack. The flavor profile was very rich, yet not too sweet, and the cheesecake base (while not as crispy as your usual baked cheesecakes) provides a great contrast with its flaky and salty flavors.
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🥔 Calbee Plus 🥔
One of the main shops at Tokyo Okashi Land, Calbee Pus is the place to go for all your Calbee product needs.
From their iconic Jaga Pokuru and Jagabee fried potato snacks, to the different varieties of their Mugen and Essense potato chips, there’s no shortage of snacks to choose from here.
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🥔 Calbee Plus Shop 🥔
What separates Calbee Plus from your standard Calbee stores is their fried foods shop, where you can buy a variety of different Calbee-based fried foods cooked to order.
There’s their line of potato chips topped with either cream cheese and honey, pepperoni and cheese, or dried bonito flakes (Tokyo Station-Exclusive), as well as their Potato Churros and Poterico fried potato sticks.
A few of these are Tokyo Station-Exclusive, too, so make sure to have a look and see which one you like.
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🐼 Pop-Up Shop – PanDars 🐼
Japan really likes their pop-up shops, and here we have another rotating shop at Tokyo Okashi Land – this time featuring Dars and their PanDars line of chocolates.
You can only find these panda-themed items in Tokyo, so even if this shop isn’t around when you visit, it might be a good idea to track them down. (Maybe you can find them at the Morinaga shop here.)
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🍭 Other Shops 🍭
There’s also a few more stores within Tokyo Okashi Land that I didn’t have time to thoroughly check out today.
One of the other main shops of Tokyo Okashi Land, you can find Morinaga’s Sweets Shop a bit further inside – featuring sweets such as their Choco Ball and Hi-Chew. And like Calbee Plus, there’s also a dessert shop where you can grab some baked goods and ice cream.
And to round off Tokyo Okashi Land, Glico’s almond-themed shop – Almond Days. Here, you’ll find an assortment of almond snacks – from plain roasted almonds, to almond biscuits and their “creamwich” – cookies with an almond and cream filling.
And let’s not forget about their drinks shop. As you can imagine, it’s quite heavy on the almonds, serving up different blends of almond milk (featuring Californian and Spanish almonds,) as well as some unique items like frozen almond cream and almond coffee. (All plant-based ingredients)
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⭐VERDICT⭐
So how good is Tokyo Gift Palette and Tokyo Okashi Land actually? Between the two areas of Tokyo Station, there’s no shortage of great and iconic sweets here. So if you’re around the area – or are passing by Tokyo Station during your stay – make sure to drop by Tokyo Station and check out both Tokyo Gift Palette and Tokyo Okashi Land. You’ll get some souvenirs to take home, as well as some freshly-made sweets to enjoy while you’re here.
Worth mentioning, but most of the shops here, you can also find at the airport terminals. So while you don’t *have* to stop by here for your souvenir shopping, I’d still recommend you take care of it before you head to the airport – since the lines here won’t be as long. Plus, you can put all these snacks inside your checked luggage instead. And if you’re here, you can also visit Tokyo Character Street for a bit of shopping, and Tokyo Ramen Street for a taste of Japan’s different ramen variations
Full Review: Tokyo Station
Full Review: Tokyo Character Street
Full Review: Tokyo Ramen Street
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🚗HOW TO GET THERE 🚗
Both Tokyo Gift Palette and Tokyo Okashi Land are located right at Tokyo Station, specifically the Yaesu side of the Building.
If you’re coming from the subway (JR or Marunouchi Lines), once you arrive at Tokyo Station, head over to the Yaesu North Ticket Gate for Tokyo Gift Palette, and the Yaesu Underground Central Ticket Gate for Tokyo Okashi Land.
And if you want to travel between these two areas, they’re right around the same area (just on different floors.)
And if you’re walking from nearby, once you arrive at the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station, Tokyo Gift Palette should be right by the entrance gate (if not, about a minute’s walk to the right.) And again, for Tokyo Okashi Land, just head down one floor.
Tokyo Gift Palette & Tokyo Okashi Land (Tokyo Station)
🌏 Location 🌏
1 Chome-9-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 100-0005, Japan (Floor B1 / Floor 1)
🗺 Map 🗺
https://goo.gl/maps/BmDTQ1Jiy25efvbp8
⏰ Opening Hours ⏰
Tokyo Okashi Land – 9 A.M. to 9P.M.
Tokyo Gift Palette – 9:30 P.M. to 8:30 P.M. (Varies by store)
💻 Website 💻
https://www.tokyoeki-1bangai.co.jp/
