Lean lunch Tokyo's workers search for a cheap meal

Even in a city of tens of thousands of restaurants, including a large number with Michelin stars, is it really possible in Tokyo to spend as little as ¥500 (£2.60) a day on lunch without eating the same modest meal day in, day out? The answer, according to increasingly cash-strapped office workers in the Japanese capital, is a resounding yes.

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After two decades of deflationary entrapment, Japan is being forced to acclimatise to rising prices as a result of the war in Ukraine, supply chain issues and the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

While it has been spared the worst of the soaring inflation rates that have afflicted other leading economies, households have still been forced to tighten their belts.

That means leaner times for legions of salaryman - male office workers who habitually eat near their places of work at lunchtime, perhaps saving the lion's share of their monthly allowance for obligatory after-work drinks.