Report

Swing by the Ebina Service Area, Japan’s largest Service Area (SA) of expressways!

Mako

March 21, 2020

Swing by the Ebina Service Area, Japan’s largest Service Area (SA) of expressways!

Where is Ebina Service Area?

When you rent a car and run an expressway, there are Service Areas (SA) and Parking Areas (PA) in Japan where you can take a rest. Facilities and sizes vary among them but usually Service Areas (SA) have restaurants, stores, food stands, a gasoline stand, and toilets. Parking Areas (PA) generally only have toilets and some vending machines.

This page would be a brief report of Ebina Service Area, one of the biggest SAs in Japan!

Basic Information

1) Where is Ebina Service Area?

Ebina Service Area is located at Ebina city in Kanagawa prefecture which is right next to Tokyo. Its official name is EXPASA Ebina and located on the Tomei Expressway that connects Tokyo and Nagoya. When you would like to visit Tokyo from the western Japan such as Osaka and Kyoto, you will definitely pass through this Ebina SA. Many expressway buses also take a rest at this Ebina Service Area. (If you’re taking an overnight bus, please note that most of the stores are closed at night…)

2) Ebina Service Area’s size is Japan’s largest!

Ebina SA is very famous for its size and variety of stores that is often introduced by Japanese media. It is known as one of the sightseeing spots in Japan as well. The total number of visiting people for both inbound and outbound lanes is 60,000 on average. It has more than 50 stores always crowded with lots of people! Please be careful of taking too much rest when you only want to take a little rest!

Report

This time I went to Ebina SA on January 2nd, the second day of 2020! I arrived at around 15:00 in the afternoon on the inbound lane to Tokyo.

Even you can tell that this inbound lane to Tokyo is crowded, the road to Ebina SA was not crowded that much.

This is the parking area! It had lots of cars but it was less crowded than I expected.

Many food stands are lined up. This is a shop of skewered beef and pork. It smelled so good…!

Let’s go inside! Local products fair is always held at the center.

I didn’t have a lunch yet so went to the food court on the 2nd floor first! 2nd floor has a space to eat what you bought and take a rest. It was not crowded as it was already around 15:30.

This is Ebina-An where you can enjoy Soba noodles and Udon, Japanese noodles.

This is Gatten Zushi where you can eat seafood meals including sushi.

This is M1 Plate where you can enjoy western style meals.

I couldn’t make up my mind easily among many other nice stores… Finally, I decided to have Ramen at Taizan! Always ending up at Ramen…

Ordered Shrimp Salted Ramen (JPY 900) and mini fried rice(JPY 300)! Only waited for about 5 minutes to get the dish after ordering! They look just so delicious…

Shrimp Salted Ramen’s broth from shrimp tasted very good!

And this is fried rice! I couldn’t stop eating this delicious meal!

I wanted to eat a little more so bought steamed meat dumpling from PAOPAO on the 1st floor. It was very juicy!

This is PAOPAO. PAOPAO is also famous for its steamed meat buns and deep fried buns and is always filled with many people.

You can take a look at the cooking scene from this big window!

Now I’m full so let’s take a look at other stores. This is Shiokagen, a store of Japanese pickles.

Japanese pickles are called Tsukemono in Japanese and is a very traditional meal. Tsukemono is made by marinating vegetables in salt, vinegar, or sake lees. Japanese love to eat them with rice or as nibbles of sake.

You can try some tsukemono at the store! The cost is about JPY 400 per 100 grams. The shop keeper measures the weight.

And these are what I bought! Szechwan pickles in the front, seasoned bamboo shoots on the upper right, and green vegetables on the left. They all perfectly went well with a highball.

This is Kaido no Ichi which has various souvenirs!

Expressways’ service areas have plenty of souvenirs from surrounding prefectures. For example, Ebina SA has Unagi Pie on the left which is Shizuoka prefecture’s classic souvenir and Tokyo Banana on the right which is that of Tokyo.

This is Ganko Ichiba, a souvenir shop specializes in products of Shizuoka prefecture and Kanagawa prefecture.

A number of delicious stuffs from fish pastes, sausages, to hams! All would be nice Japanese souvenirs.

This is a famous Japanese sweet, Dango. It is a rice dumpling in a sweet soy sauce or sweet bean paste. I love eating Dango with Japanese green tea!

These are fried chicken and french fries!

At IDEBOK, you can enjoy lots of sweets such as ice creams and crepes!

Summary

How do you think about Ebina Service Area? Ebina SA has various attractions that make expressways more enjoyable. We introduced only some of the stores at inbound lane but both inbound and outbound lanes have more and more recommendable stores like melon shaped bun, Takoyaki, and curry bread…!
If you have a chance to drive or use expressways, please visit Ebina SA!