An excruciatingly comprehensive recap of everything I ate from Japanese convenience stores
Only god can judge me
Greetings from the depths of a jet lagged fugue state! I’ve been home for almost a week, but it very much feels like I’m still in transit back to my regularly scheduled programming. I have crossed plenty of oceans, but I have never had such a hard time getting back into sync; maybe humans weren’t meant to travel half way around the world in flying metal tubes? I’ve always been a fussy sleeper, but the current state of affairs is pushing things to a new level — I managed to mostly stay up from sunrise to sunset yesterday, so hopefully I’m rounding the bend.
I didn’t want to write this post on account of it being the most boring and/or predictable thing imaginable, but I decided to push through because it feeds into something bigger: the next Café Cremi menu. I had sort of decided a while ago, but now it’s official that the central theme will be konbini sandos and related snacks… so you can consider this post to be my research notes.
It will seem like a lot of precious stomach space was used up during this research, but keep in mind that walking a billion steps a day requires a lot of energy, and food options anywhere, even the largest city in the world, are quite limited at 6 in the morning. Not that I need to defend my travel diet to you, friend / internet stranger.
To each their own, but I’ve never understood traveling somewhere with a vibrant food culture only to eat the familiar flavors of home (McDonald’s, Starbucks) everyday. With that being said… the North American tourist’s konbini obsession is comprised of a markedly similar energy. It’s rooted in the same creature comforts: always available, consistent and predictable, remarkably affordable to those spending USD, and requires zero use or knowledge of the Japanese language to navigate. Not to mention the food — even if largely still junk food adjacent — is… quite delicious, or at the very least: of good value. This is not to say konbinis aren’t also well loved by residents, but they aren’t the ones I’ve observed recording elaborate TikToks1 of their daily egg sando in the narrow sandwich aisles.
Without further ado, let me jump into the categorized rundown. I was hoping to do this elsewhere and link out to it, but it is surprisingly challenging to make an easily shareable nested photo album? I’ll try to be brief but by now you probably know this is not my strong suit. I only went to 7/11, Lawson, FamilyMart and Daily Yamazaki — no disrespect to Mini Stop or Seicomart, I just didn’t see many around. Also, I know I say this every post, but these are literally some of the worst photos imaginable, many of them taken in dark hotel rooms where I could snack like the monster I am in peace before starting my day.
Sandwiches
Yes, the infamous konbini sando is alive and well. I had really lowered my expectations this go around… I am an older, wiser, better fed adult man, surely this 3 dollar sandwich will not taste as good as I remember? Well dear reader, I don’t know what they put in the strawberries over here, but it's still a fantastic and necessary little morsel of food. I already know what twist I’m going to introduce to the ones I’m making for the cafe (you can probably already guess…). The addition of peach also worked well, but didn’t outshine the holy trinity of cream, custard, and berry. The egg sandos were still solid, some better than others. I liked the addition of chicken teriyaki, and the ‘fancy’ and dangerously close to room temperature one from Daily Yamazaki was the only miss. Shrimp cutlet was fine, unexpectedly made me miss a shrimp burger in Brooklyn I used to really enjoy.
Rice
This is probably my favorite category of konbini food, I could eat rice, seaweed, and fish every morning for the rest of my life without complaint. Also every evening… because the amount of grocery store oshizushi and nigiri I ate this trip was also not trivial. Am I eating too much rice? Onigiri is pretty self explanatory so I won’t drone on too much, but the 7/11 inari, tuna / wasabi hand rolls, and soy / pork / egg onigiri were favorites of mine. The FamilyMart premium onigiri were also good, featuring a significantly larger hunk of fish. This “taco rolled sushi” was a surprise hit, novel in that I virtually never eat food involving “taco seasoning”.
Choux
Of the four konbini chains I visited multiple times, Daily Yamazaki came in with some of the best and worst items, a real wildcard situation. It is noticeably a little less put together than its contemporaries, but also does things like bake bread on premise at some locations. It really stood out in the cream filled pastry department, this cream and custard filled chocolate eclair was bomb. The cruller a little less so, but still quite enjoyable. Lots of cream puff type action spotted across the board, but I barely partook.
Pastry
Some very serviceable pastry. This kouign amann was a better effort than many I’ve had from bakeries recently… not to be shady, it’s a hard thing to perfect! I will say, there is an undertone of what I can only describe as ‘butter flavoring’ in a lot of these. This sounds disgusting but actually works well in this context for whatever reason. It’s worth noting: most of these pastries had expiry dates no more than 48 hours way, tops, so these are not your typical shelf stable Twinkie adjacent treats. I had read about2 this chocolate bread and was profoundly disappointed… like, did I miss reheating instructions somewhere? This Lawson strawberry whipped cream pie cornet evoked strawberry pop tart in a major way.
Melon
I am a lover of Hokkaido melons and Japan does not fuck around about giving them the respect they deserve, at both the high and low ends of culinary experience. This melon roll from Daily Yamazaki was not at all subtle as some flavored Swiss rolls can be, very melon forward. I brought some of this FamilyMart white chocolate dipped freeze dried melon home, it is not the last you will hear of it. I never drink soda at home, maybe once a year, but I have a soft spot for melon sodas, which have a sort of ‘cream soda on flavor steroids’ vibe.
Matcha
Matcha flavored goods were out in full force, most of them not remarkable. Often paired with red bean, the FamilyMart snacks fell a little flat. The Lawson pastries fared a bit better, I liked this matcha dipped pain suisse. I’m historically a Coolish lover, did not have enough this go around — soft serve! In a bag! One big standout was this 7/11 matcha white bean agar jelly. I regret not hunting down a few more of these because it was delicious… I guess it was a mizuyokan made with white bean, which from what I understand is not uncommon but less omnipresent than the red bean yokan of typical strength.
Chocolate
These 7/11 chocolate covered grape gummies also crossed the pacific by way of my suitcase in reasonably large quantities, so I will monologue about them later. Chocolate wafers were quite sturdy and luxurious, if not especially unique, and the chocolate covered corn puffs had a very unexpected firm / soft texture pairing going on.
Perhaps my favorite konbini sweet treat was this chocolate ganache and coffee cream biscuit. So rich, so delicious, please observe just how thick this filing is.
Misc. Savory
Can you believe I didn’t have Famichiki the first time I was in Japan? It’s incredibly juicy for something that spends a lot of its short lifespan sitting under a heat lamp. I dutifully heated up this Yamazaki curry pan at my hotel and it was… not good. The only thing in this roundup that is technically not from a konbini but extremely konbini coded is this fried okra with plum and bonito. I didn’t realize okra was so popular in Japan, I also had a remarkable okra yuzu chawanmushi? I spent an embarrassing amount of time on my last day in Tokyo trying to hunt more of this stuff down — I’m sure ‘guy of Nigerian descent cleaning out the fried okra shelf at the grocery store’ was quite the scene. I like to imagine that the adorable frog cop gracing the packaging of Kyabetsu Tarō is more of a flavor officer, and not voluntarily involved in the prison-industrial complex, but regardless... these nori dusted corn puffs are great. I have some dried cheese snacks that I brought home but have yet to taste.
Misc. Sweet
It seems I forgot to take some pudding photos, but you aren’t missing much. I had thought that maybe a crème caramel would sneak its way onto the cafe menu, but I’m somewhat relieved to report that I was not moved. Setting 20 mini puddings in my little fridge sounds like a nightmare. The tastiest offering was this crème caramel custard that was wrapped in a crepe? It was inhaled in a literal single bite outside of the laundromat, where I felt like I should not be eating but was in desperate hunger straits. This milk bracken jelly + strawberry sauce was outstanding, I’m going to have to investigate and see if I can whip up something similar for my own personal consumption. Dried passionfruit wasn’t as flavorful as I had hoped, and I really thought these salt tomatoes would be savory, not a large raisin in disguise.
Drinks
I didn’t really drink much, lots of water3 and the tiniest thermos of green tea I carried around all the time. Due to a tax free purchase miscommunication, I brought home a variety of energy / hang over prevention / dubiously health oriented potions that I will consume at some point. This non alcoholic sparkling sake also weirdly hit.
I made this somewhat embarrassing konbini drink cheat sheet for reference before my trip, because I remain me.
There you have it, the cheap caloric sustenance that kept me going all of those early mornings. My general trip take away is that konbini food makes for great breakfast, but lunch at literally any noodle-based counter will be much more satisfying for an additional 300 yen. You’ll also notice I ate very little warm food4 — hot things wrapped in plastic freak me out these days, if I’m keeping it 100.
I know this Japan content is getting tiresome, I’m getting weary of talking about it… but I also haven’t even started to get into the food for real. What is a girl to do? Just let the heartwarming memories of many a delicious meal shared with friends I never get to see live on in my mind and in my mind alone???
-R
…or writing 1800 word roundups 🤡
Wow half way through this post and I haven’t even mentioned もぐナビ (‘mogunabi’, crude translation: …munch navigator?), an invaluable resource for scoping out what was hitting konbini shelves. Availability was so varied by location and time that I never really entered a store looking for a particular thing, it was more like: good to have these seared in my brain somewhere, in case I opportunistically run into them.
Including an unexpected glug of yogurt water I almost spat out in surprise. I wish I had know about this tomato water ahead of time because that sounds good as hell.
Multiple Famichikis not pictured
the famchiki + egg sando combo goes hard