A dreary sunday afternoon, and expectations finally
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.
First food in Japan
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.