Tourist-friendly Shibuya shopping center hosts senbei newcomer-friendly event, and it’s completely free!

“All you can eat” is one of those deals that sounds great in theory, but usually also comes with a few catches that make the reality maybe not so appealing as it initially seems. All-you-can-eat offers are just about always priced higher than a regular, single portion of the food in question would be, so you’re going to have to eat a whole lot of it to get your money’s worth, and even if you’ve got the stomach capacity to do so, you might get tired of the taste of something if you’re eating it nonstop for a a full 60 minutes, the length of a lot of all-you-can-eat promotions.

In other words, while unlimited sashimi or yakiniku are undeniably tempting, you’re going to already know you’re a serious fan of them before taking the plunge on those all-you-can-eat deals. It turns out, though, that there’s an all-you-can-eat event going on right now in Tokyo that’s super friendly to absolute newbies and their wallets, and it’s even in one of the most popular tourism neighborhoods in the city.

Based in Niigata Prefecture, Iwatsuka Seika is one of the most popular makers of senbei, Japanese rice crackers, producing dozens of different types of flavors. Variety may be the spice of life, but that much of it can overwhelming if you’re a newcomer to the world of senbei, but Iwatsuka has opened a popup called Osenbei Taste Test Land inside the Shibuya branch of department store Parco in downtown Tokyo, the same building that houses the Nintendo Tokyo specialty shop and the Shibuya Pokémon Center superstore.

At Osenbei Taste Test Land, you’re given 10 minutes to enjoy as much as you like of the 40 different types of senbei on offer, so getting bored with a single taste isn’t something you’ll need to worry about. What’s more, it’s completely free!

▼ The sign for Osenbei Taste Test Land with its nonchalant mention of “admission free” (入場無料)

All-you-can-eat sessions are held every 20 minutes between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. We showed up just a little early, which gave us time to look at the displays chronicling the history of Iwatsuka, which was founded in 1947, and some of the snack subsidiaries it’s started since.

But we were here to eat, not to read, and our hearts raced and stomachs growled as we were ushered into the room where the senbei were waiting for us.

Participants are asked to take just one of each type at a time, then go back for seconds after they’ve eaten it. Obviously, we wanted to try them all, so we sampled one of each kind first, using the suppled tongs to pick up the senbei that don’t come individually wrapped..

With 40 different types to try, doing a complete sweep took us about eight and a half minutes. The across-the-board-quality was excellent, and we still had some time left over for repeats of our favorites.

Though senbei are a one or two-bite-sized snack food, 10 minutes eating them is plenty of time to fill you up but not so much as to make you feel uncomfortably bloated. So while we weren’t hungry after our all-you-can-eat session was done, we knew we’d be craving senbei again soon.

Thankfully, Osenbei Taste Test Land also sells the senbei that are part of its all-you-can-eat offer, and while there’s no obligation to buy anything, we picked up three packs to take home: the outstanding shrimp-flavored Zuika (476 yen [US$3.15]), the excellent edamame-flavored The Hitotsumami (232 yen), and Zarameaji, crisp and spinkled with granulated sugar for a lightly sweet flavor that we’re absolutely going to pair with a cup of nice green tea.

▼ Left to right: Zarameaji, The Hitotsumami, and Zuika

Osenbei Taste Test Land will be ending its run in Shibuya Parco’s 8th-floor Hobo Michiyoubi event space soon, though. Its last day is scheduled for November 9, and while walk-ins are welcome on the 7th, reservations will be required on the 8th and 9th, and can be made online here and here, respectively.

Related: Shibuya Parco
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