The Art of Cheap Eating

You know how you go to Japan thinking you’re gonna eat healthy, all that sushi and fish and perfectly portioned everything, and then you immediately get knocked over by the sheer abundance of delicious things waiting to be eaten? Yeah, that happened to me. Somewhere between my first bowl of ramen and discovering okonomiyaki, I just kind of surrendered to the fact that I was gonna try literally everything.

So that’s what I did. I went on this beautiful, reckless food tour through the country, eating my way through cheap fast food joints and upscale restaurants and tiny bars that smelled like grilled meat and soy sauce. Tempura, yakitori, karaage—all of it. The kind of eating where you’re not thinking anymore, you’re just experiencing, just tasting, just existing in that moment where something really good is in your mouth.

The problem—and this is where the dream crashes into reality—is that Japan, despite being absolutely incredible, is also aggressively expensive. Like, stepping into a random supermarket and seeing prices on fruit that make you audibly gasp kind of expensive. I’m a broke student, which means my wallet has actual limits, and those limits were being tested daily.

But here’s where it gets good. Every single night, this guy shows up. The supermarket savior, basically. He walks through the aisles with his little stickers, slashing prices in half on all the bentos and sushi and prepared food that’s about to hit its expiration window. And then it’s like watching nature’s most primal instinct kick in—everyone descends at once, this beautiful chaos of people grabbing the deals. If you’re fast enough, patient enough, you get to eat incredible food for basically nothing.

That’s how you survive eating well in Japan on nothing. You just have to believe in the sticker man.