Restaurant quality food from a convenience store.

Kyoto is home to many famous foods, such as yatsuhashi, a traditional Japanese sweet, and restaurants, like the omurice eatery Kichi Kichi. However, not many people would think to associate Kyoto with Chinese food.

Among the many offerings that the city’s popular Chinese restaurants offer, one of the most iconic dishes would be karashi soba. Karashi is a type of mustard that is commonly used in Japanese cuisine, typically spicier than the usual Western mustard, and it’s mixed into the noodles before being topped with sauce and other tasty ingredients.

Our Japanese-language reporter K. Masami has, in recent times, started a hobby of trying out different karashi sobas whenever she finds herself in Kyoto. She’s even attempted making it herself. She was satisfied overall with how the noodles turned out, though it just couldn’t match what the restaurants were offering. For top-quality karashi soba, a trip to Kyoto was the only option—until she discovered that Lawson had recently started selling it.

Upon searching the shelves at Lawson, she soon found what she was looking for, and it came with a price tag of 646 yen (US$4.51). Lawson has consulted with one of Kyoto’s most popular Chinese restaurants, Homairo, to produce this addition to its product line-up.

Homairo often draws a large crowd of customers, not just for its karashi soba but for the rest of its menu too. The store has recently moved to a new location and our reporter had just visited there only a short time ago, noting the improved location and ambience.

▼ Karashi soba served at Homairo

Each restaurant’s version of the dish is a little different, and Homairo’s can be likened to the taste you would experience at a high-class hotel. With this in mind, despite her high hopes for Lawson’s product, she couldn’t help but feel that they would have to make certain accommodations in order to cater to the taste buds of the majority. So, just how much did they have to reduce the heat of Homairo’s distinctive spiciness?

Not a lot, it turns out. It’s probably not recommended for people who can’t tolerate spice at all, or children, since it is sufficiently spicy. Looking closer at the ingredients, there was lettuce, shrimp, wood ear mushrooms and steamed chicken, much like you would find in the store itself. Although the amount was a little less than she was used to, the cheaper price more than compensated for that.

The noodles were perhaps less firm than she would have liked but they were within a good range for a convenience store product, and, when lifted, they brought with them the sauce, leading to a taste and texture extremely similar to Homairo’s.

There were still indications that the flavor was stronger than the original restaurant’s, possibly due to the amount of sauce, and that it was in fact food from a convenience store. However, it still had enough of the original Homairo flavor that she found it extremely satisfying.

As Lawson is only selling this in the Kinki region (Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Hyogo, Wakayama and Shiga prefectures), you’ll need to be in the area or head over there if you want to taste it. And, since you’re there, maybe try out the original version from Homairo as well.

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