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When I need beef, lamb, or pork for roasting, I go to Nissin or Hanamasa. Costco would be my pick, but I feel I cannot justify spending 2 hours round trip just to get roasting meat. Hanamasa is a wholesale supermarket which started as a butcher shop in 1923 and expanded to over 60 stores in the Kanto area. This store reminds me of Trader Joe’s for some reason, although, the two are quite different. One thing they have in common—they are both cheap. The other thing is that both have a lot of frozen food and cheap wine.

I do not like their vegetable selection or prices. Seafood is OK, but there were times I was unhappy with the quality.

Most of the stores have good meat selection: from thin-sliced beef or pork to 10 pound chunks of beef. Each store carries a bit different selection, which appears to cater to the needs in the area. For example: the Ginza store is large and has good overall selection, whereas the Okubo store carries more Korean and other Asian food and meat cuts.

A couple of interesting points if you are hungry for BBQ: Hanamasa owns all you can eat BBQ restaurants in Ginza and Asakusa called “Carne Station”. At Ginza Carne Station, Lunch is 1200 yen and for dinner all you can eat and drink is around 3000 yen. Drink selections are sake, hard liquor, and wine. It’s definitely a bargain.

Ginza Carne Station is always crowded with busloads of tourists, and they all stop by at Hanamasa, next door from Carne Station, to pick up snacks. I would recommend checking out Ginza Carne Station as an adventure. Asakusa Carne Station is even a bit cheaper.

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