This post was written in 2006. Shop details and prices may have changed since then.
I got to Hakata Station, the western end of the Shinkansen line, at 9 in the morning. Looking around for something to eat, I found a few places in the station basement serving breakfast. I guess that’s what you get at a major transport hub. And these station restaurants are nothing to sneeze at. Of them, I went to Hasegawa, which is supposed to be an uni-don specialist.
No photo of the entrance ^_^
The uni-don.
It’s 1,000 yen, but there’s a generous amount of uni. The squid was fresh and had a nice bite, and went really well with the rich, smooth uni. At 2,000 yen you apparently get a premium uni-don with fresh uni covering the whole bowl of rice, but I didn’t feel like going overboard first thing in the morning, so I ordered the regular one.
The uni-don set.
The side dishes were tasty too. The overall portion is a little on the small side. They also had a 500-yen grilled fish breakfast set, which looked pretty good as well ^_^ If you arrive at Hakata Station in the morning and can’t find a decent place to eat, this looks like a great option.