This might make you hungry...

This week in Tokyo: convenience store sweets and udon bento

May 22, 2021

Hello from Tokyo!

Japan recently started to vaccinate 65 year olds and above. However, daily COVID cases have been peaking as Japan is going through its fourth wave. Nevertheless, things still seem normal. The humidity has slowly been raising, meaning the rainy season is soon approaching.

As Japan struggles with COVID and things seem bleak here, I would like to talk about something nice. (In theme with last week), let’s take a look at convenience store sweets…

Konbini1 sweets

Check out this equation.

Convenience store + sweets = _______

Delicious
Gross
Cheap
Amazing

Answer: A & D

(Sorry I know it was pretty tacky). Not only is it convenient and affordable, but it is delicious. Unlike the US, these packaged “sweets”, actually taste amazing and are of mind blowingly good quality.

the english translation doesn’t do this sweet any justice

How can something be packaged at scale and be of such high quality? I guess that is the power of Japan (and additives).

case study

I was watching a Japanese TV show where they were showing Family Mart’s (one of the big convenience store chains) popular items.

The best selling sweet is the Souffle Pudding. It is exactly what it sounds like — a souffle, on top of a pudding.

It was so popular that it won the 2020 top 30 trendy sweets.

So why is it so good? One of the “secrets” is that each batch of souffle is mixed by hand. By hand. Can you imagine the scale of this product — selling it country-wide — and they are mixing the souffle by hand? Not only that, Family Mart is selling this for 258 yen. Which is about $2.50. Tell me this is not a good deal.

Souffle Pudding right on prime shelf space

why are konbini sweets so popular?

Well, it’s not surprising that these delicious desserts are popular considering the price and quality. But convenience stores love them too. “Of course”, you say, “it's another item to sell.”

Not only that, one characteristic of konbini sweets is that each convenience store offers different items. Ahh, so you see, it's one way the convenience stores differentiate themselves.

At Seven Eleven, for example, they have collaborated with famous pastry chef Pierre Herme to bring a strawberry eclair and cupcake strawberry (kind of like a parfait) for the season - priced slightly higher, of course (~$3).

“rich vanilla cream with accents of strawberry”

Furthermore, there are often seasonal (e.g strawberry flavored things in spring) and limited edition items.

Convenience stores on average have around 100 new products per week. Can you imagine that? To give you an idea, there are around 3000 products in each store. How many of those are sweets, I am not sure. Nevertheless, there is relatively high turnover.

So once you find that sweet you like, you better take advantage of the opportunity. I think I ate one Magokoro Ichigo a week for 2 months. Or maybe it’s a good thing, most are limited.

unsolicited recommendation #5

Currently, I live near a larger train station. Of course, that could mean many things, but one in particular is chain restaurants.

Not going to lie, I ordered this twice within 10 days...but before you judge (too hard), I do have a busier job and also was deprived of good tempura while living in the US.

Anyway, I present Marugame Udon's (Udon chain with over 1000 stores internationally) bento.

First, it is odd that udon is a bento. Bento is almost always rice in Japan. And Udon is usually its own dish itself. However, I suspect that the pandemic is increasing demand for takeout and thus Marugame is reacting to consumer behavior. And thus…

…the udon bento:

Let me tell you, it’s a good deal.

If I went to the grocery store and bought a piece of shrimp tempura and whatnot and did all this myself, it would cost more than $5, at the least just about. Even if it’s the same price, believe me, Marugame’s flavor is superior.