Whenever we travel to a country, we love to visit their convenience stores to see what special food/beverages or stuffs they offered in it. And since Korean, Japan and Taiwan all have convenience stores like
Seven Eleven (7-11),
Lawson and
Family Mart it makes us thrilled whenever we visit these stores because we could often find similar stuffs that we tried and miss having it.
I am not sure about your habits, but for us we always like to stock up some bites and beverages from these convenience stores for our bus journey as well as supper in the hotel room. And as you view through this post, you could find all kinds of food and beverage they offer in the stores as compared to what we have in Singapore.
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| Assorted Onigiri (rice balls) |
Most of the convenience stores has wide range of meals, snacks and sweets, such as onigiri (rice balls), sandwiches, bread, chips, candy, obento (lunch boxes), instant ramen and hot foods like steamed bun, oden and etc. Microwave is also available to heat up cold food like onigiri and microwave meals by the store staff.
We even bought raw eggs from the convenience stores to cook in the hotel room because my kid just simply love eggs. To our surprised their eggs taste different from what we had over here and indeed they are much fragrance and tasty too.
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| Array of Beverages |
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| Some of our favourite beverage such as coffee and smoothie. |
Nothing beats a bowl of hot Oden (おでん) which is a popular Japanese winter dish that consist of ingredients like hard-boiled eggs, daikon radish, konnyaku, processed fish cakes, sausages and etc in a light soy-flavoured dashi broth. You can also find similar things like this in Taiwan known as 関東煮. in my Taiwan travelogue here.
Mum loves their steamed bun and surprising it taste good like our Asian steamed bun which assorted fillings like red bean, chestnut, meat and etc.
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| Array for Waffles, Donuts and Snacks |
Other than those bread that we usually grab from their bakery in the mall, these from the convenience stores also taste great for breakfast or supper too. My kid loves their chocolate swirl bread which is soft and fragrance.
BAKERY
I always heard good reviews about Japanese pastries and it's always my dream to try as many as I could if I have a chance to visit Japan. But when I was there last November (2012), instead of having cakes I ended up munching with their bread and pastry which I could not resists. And my favourite are their Japanese Steamed Cake, Pumpkin Bread, Curry Bun and etc.
SNACKS FROM JAPAN
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| Always love their packaging which makes it a great gift set. |
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| [Must Try] Tokyo Banana (東京ばな奈) |
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| [Must Try] Limited edition Giraffe Print Tokyo Banana |
Tokyo Banana (東京ばな奈) is consider as number 1 souvenir choice when you are getting something back as a gift from Japan. These cute banana shaped sponge cake is filled with banana flavored custard which is sweet ans soft. The one shown above is the limited edition Giraffe Print Tokyo Banana which cost ¥ 1,050 (SG$12.80) per box of 8 pieces.
I also bought this Kyoho Cheesecake (¥550 / SG$6.70) during our visit to the Chateau Kastsunuma Winery (株式会社シャトー勝沼 ) on a day trip. Although it does not taste as good a those freshly baked cheesecake but it does make a decent gift with it beautiful wrapping and local flavour.
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| Yuzu Honey Sweet which I bought from 7-11 @ ¥198 (SG$2.40) per packet |
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| [Must Try] Hokkaido Milk Candy |
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| Okinawa Black Sugar Candy |
As for local candy you could easily get it from any supermarkets or even convenience stores like 7-11 or family mart. You would be surprised with the varieties of candy available some are really too cute to be eaten too. For me, I love their milk candy and matcha kit kat, what about you?
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| Sakura Matcha Kit Kat @ ¥157 (SG$1.90) |
[Must Try] Matcha Kit Kat is one of my favourite grab whenever I spot them in supermarket or convenience stores in Tokyo despite from wide range of kit kat they have in store. And before catching our flight back to Singapore, I was thrilled to spot the above Sakura Matcha Kit Kat from the Duty Free Shop in the airport.
When compared, the matcha taste was lighter and it was also infuse with a light Sakura fragrance which is something new and rare to find in Singapore.
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| Assorted Nama Chocolate from Royce @ ¥695 (SG$8.50) |
[Must Try] Another must buy souvenir from the airport before flying off is their well-known Royce, Nama Chocolate. I bought the Nama Chocolate [Au Lait] which is a blend of milk chocolate and fresh cream that makes it rich and smooth and Nama Chocolate [Champagne Pierre Mignon] which are name chocolate with fragrance of Champagne Pierre Mignon. Each box cost around ¥695 (SG$8.50) with 20 pieces and it contains Liquor in it too.
With this post, I conclude our travelogue for Japan trip and if you are keen to read more about our experience in Japan. You can refer to the links shown below.
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