After the flight from the states and the long train ride from the airport, I was really too tired to go look for food. Fortunately there was a combini literally a block away from the place I am staying. The great thing about these places is they are everywhere open 24 hours and stock a good selection of snack foods. This is definitely a boon for high density Tokyo where there are a lot of small apartments some with little or no kitchen. It’s definitely a staple for the single guy who cant cook, which seems common in Japan, if not in the entire world.
When I got there the selection was a little sparse, my guess I was a little early for the restocking truck to come by. Combini usually restock several times a day, they keep on hand quantities low to insure freshness of the product. At most there is usually 10 of a single item, for popular things like onigiiri, and average of 3-5 for other food products.
I picked up a bottle of lemon water, a onigiri, and a melon pan. The lemon water is by far one of my favorite drinks I have come across. It is a slightly sweet, slightly lemony drink. All the major Japanese drink manufacturers have their own brands and I’ve tried them all, but my favorite of all of them is the House Wellness brand of the stuff. It has just the right combination that I am looking for. Sadly for me, when I’m in the states they rarely import the stuff, so it’s really difficult to find. Strangely almost all the other brands are available at one time or another.
The onigiri was the only one they had in stock. Onigiri are rice balls with filling inside of them and wrapped in nori or some other product like beefsteak leaves, though they aren’t always shaped like balls, usually you see them as triangles. They’re portable easy to eat and cheap. I’m not exactly sure what it was when I had it, but it had a tart taste to it. I think it was on the shelf for a while because the rice had gotten all mooshy and gummy so it was kind of hard to eat, the filling was good though. As a side note, the Japanese markets in America also sell onigiri too, but they are horrible at packaging. They tried to replicate the packaging done in japan to separate the nori wrapper from the rice to keep it crisp until serving, but when you try an open the american version it always breaks the nori apart, Japanese wrapping doesn’t seem to have this problem. This is due to the placement of the stickers on the american version and also the materials used in said sticker don’t tear easily as Japanese counter parts.
Finally was the melon pan, this is one of those strange Japanese dishes the emerged as their unique take on western foods. Contrary to the name most melon pan does not have any melon in it. The name comes from the shape of the bread which resembles a melon. Melon pan consists of two parts a sweet bread at the core similar to a sweet dinner roll and the outer crust which similar to a cookie. Due to the different cooking times for the different parts the outer cookie crust never fully cooks through which results in a sticky outer layer. The melon pan I had tasted like many of the prepackaged breads available in the states, kind of dry and not fresh. That lack a freshness I feels is part of all the preservatives that are usually included in packaged items to extend their shelf life. Even though I don’t think that any of the items on the shelf have been made more than a day ago. Maybe it was the jet lag or maybe just after all the food and drink from the flight, but I couldn’t finish it.
Final rating
Lemon Water: 10/10
I love the stuff, its perfect.
Onigiri: 5/10
The filling was good, but I couldn’t get past the texture and consistency of the gummy rice.
Melon Pan: 5/10
I’m not a big fan of packaged breads. The melon pan was dry and bland, it tasted too similar to the dinner roll I had on my flight over to japan.
Overall: 6.5/10
Originally I was going to give it a 5.5, but I’m going to give some of it the benefit of the doubt. Due to the flight and the lack of appetite I think my taste buds were just tired out.
