While summer in California means heat, beaches, great weather, and if your in San Francisco it means cold, and fog. In japan it means overbearing heat, humidity, and the rainy season. The month of june brings an almost unending supply of rain to the country, and a blanket clouds that seem to never break. The night I arrived it seemed pleasant enough no rain, mild heat, and a slight breeze. Today I awoke to rain, and giant wall of humidity. This really didn’t motivate me to get out and see the city. So I stayed in caught up on some writing and again went to the trusty Family Mart to get some lunch.
Today was a lot better then yesterday as far as selection. There was a good supply of almost everything on the shelves. So I picked up a couple of onigiri, a bag of chips, sushi set, and a drink.
The drink I picked up was called Paradise Tropical Tea, it described itself as “A choice blend of natural premium teas and tropical fruit taste”. I’ll believe the first part, but I didn’t taste the fruit described in the second. Instead I got some floral taste to it, which is something I associate with a more herbal tea, so getting that flavor profile with a black tea is something that was strange. It tasted good, though it was unsweetened which is another thing that surprised me. Usually when I see fruit in a tea I expect it to be slightly to really sweet, this was neither.
Next up the two onigiri. I picked up a salmon, and a tuna mayo one. These were really great. A big step up from yesterday. The rice was nicely cooked and the fillings were great. The nori had lost its crispness since there packaging was not the kind that that separates the nori from the rice. I tried the tuna mayo first, the filling looked brown so that was my first sign that it wasn’t only tuna and mayonnaise. It turned out to be soy sauce. The combination was really good the saltiness of the soy sauce and the richness of the mayo combined well with the tuna. The only complain I had was that I wish there was more tuna in it. The salmon onigiri was also good. Its’ consistency was different the usually flakiness that I’ve come to expect from a salmon onigiri. This one was a little more moist similar to the tuna mayo.
Afterwards I began on the sushi set. It consisted of two pieces of inari, two tamagoyaki nigiri, and two different maki rolls. Like the onigiri the rice was nicely cooked. However, the flavoring of the rice was kind of bland. There wasn’t a good vinegar or sweet taste to it. The inari was okay just like I expected, better than equivalents you can get in the states. The egg in the tamagoyaki was good, nice and moist with a good level of sweetness. The two maki were okay there was little in the center.
Finally there were the chips. The flavor was Grilled chicken and Garlic. Calbee is a brand of chips that I am very familiar with. They are usually sold in many Japanese markets in San Francisco as well as other places in the city. The taste was great, it had that flavor of grilled chicken but without a strong meaty taste that some chips have. The garlic flavor was also good, it wasn’t overpowering. The primary taste you got was of the chicken seasoning flavor, then at the end you got just a hint of garlic.
Final Rating
Paradise Tropical Tea: 7/10
Flavor was good, but didn’t live up to expectations and promises on the label.
Salmon Onigiri: 7/10
Average for a salmon onigiri.
Tuna Mayo Onigiri: 8/10
I enjoyed the combination of the tuna, soy sauce, and mayo.
Sushi set: 7.5/10
As a whole the set was a lot better than what you could pickup at Safeway. I would say it was about the same or marginally better than what you could get at a Japanese market in Japantown. The variety in ingredients was nice.
Calbee grilled chicken and garlic potato chips: 8.5/10
These were really good. After eating over three quarters of the bag the flavor became too intense, it was a little hard for my palette to finish the rest.
Overall: 7.5/10
This was a big step up from yesterdays choices, I can see why the things I choose yesterday were the last on the shelf. The food I had today was what I was expecting to see from a combini. Nothing really blew my mind, but everything was good, or great.
