Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
convenience store (Page 8)
What started off as a basic robbery attempt turned into a mortifying experience for one wannabe robber in Fukuoka Prefecture. Seriously, either the konbini gods were conspiring against him or he met his ultimate match in an old woman, but either way, his attempt at crime was completely foiled thanks to an unusual series of events.
Do you ever wonder what Teddy Roosevelt’s favorite kind of juice was? It’s hard to imagine the 26th President of the United States having to do anything as trivial as deciding between orange and apple, but after a long, hard day of riding moose and judo-tossing William Howard Taft, no amount of influence and respect is going to keep you from getting thirsty, and it’s a choice that has to be made.
But while the late Teddy’s fruit nectar preferences may be lost to antiquity, we can now say for certain which brand of tea the Dalai Lama reaches for when he visits a Japanese convenience store.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been buying beer, bread, or ice-cream at my local conbini and thought to myself, “If only I could scream a few lines of verse into a microphone without having to leave the building.” In the past, the closest I could ever get to combining convenience store shopping with singing was choosing karaoke booths located immediately next door to a 7-Eleven, but now all that is about to change.
In a special collaboration between Japan’s third-largest convenience store chain FamilyMart and nationwide operator Karaoke Club DAM, a one-of-a-kind conbini x karoke parlour will open its doors on April 17 in Tokyo.
Yes, thanks to Japan you can now shop and sing all in the same place.
Have you ever loved something so much, you just had to shout it out to the whole world? Well these guys certainly know that feeling. A group of foreigners created this video for the one true love in their lives – Japanese convenience stores.
Tuesday is known as New Bento Day at major convenience stores across Japan. As we’ve highlighted before, convenience stores in the country put a lot of effort into their ready-to-eat creations. What’s more is they cycle through new flavors on a weekly basis. This can be a double-edged sword as your favorite dish can disappear tragically fast, but you can also count on something equally good coming along as well.
As regular consumers of convenience store bento, the editorial department of RocketNews24 Japan has come together and ranked the top 5 new additions to 7-Eleven, Lawson, and Family Mart for the week of 14 January, 2014. Please refer to it for your own convenient dining pleasure.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Especially for everyone’s favorite, Häagen-Dazs. Even in the middle of winter, we can find happiness by eating ice cream in a warm room. We were curious what Häagen-Dazs’ new, hard-to-pronounce flavor Forêt Noire tasted like, so we tried it ourselves. Prepare to be tantalized by the following enticing photographs.
You have probably noticed that we here at RocketNews24 are huge fans of Japanese convenience stores. And if you have ever lived in or visited Japan, odds are you too came to love these amazing places. But what exactly makes Japanese convenience stores so different and special compared to those overseas? Click below to see five reasons why we think these “conbini” totally live up to the hype!
Following last year’s wildly popular potato chips collaboration product, Calbee and KFC are back again to ring in the new year with round two. Introducing new Colonel Crispy Chicken flavored potato chips!
Convenience stores play an integral part of life in Japan. The various chains themselves appear to have a life and ecosystem of their own sprouting up and dying off all over the urban landscape in fierce competition. Regardless of which one you choose, be it Lawson, Family Mart, 7-Eleven, Mini-Stop or one of the other countless chains, you can always expect to find some high quality stuff.
No one knows this better than our food reporter Kuzo who has sampled every form of junk food the nation’s convenience stores have to offer. This time, however, he leaves the shores of Japan to test the wares of a remote branch of the famous Lawson Station chain in Hawaii.
As the temperatures gradually sink into a chilly winter, convenience stores all across this great nation start to kick their oden pots into high gear. For those unacquainted with this Japanese dish, oden is basically any type of food soaked and simmered in a flavorful broth. The type of soup used varies by regions but is usually very savory.
Although not the only place to get oden, convenience stores are thought of as the first place to get it. That’s why Japan’s three biggest convenience stores – 7-Eleven, Family Mart, and Lawson – are all competing to find that perfect ingredient to simmer and sell to the hungry masses.
To help kick-off this year’s oden season in Japan, Excite News has released the five most popular oden foods at each of the big three stores. First up is Lawson!
Walk into any convenience store in Japan and you’ll see the staples: magazines, drinks, snacks, and the ubiquitous onigiri. And when it comes to onigiri, the world-famous rice ball wrapped in seaweed, one of the hands-down most popular is the salmon variety, with salty, sweet, succulent flakes of orange salmon at its centre.
So which convenience store sells the best salmon onigiri? We decided to conduct a taste test in our offices to declare a winner, pitting the top three – 7-Eleven, Lawson and Family Mart – against each other in a battle befitting the rice ball’s feudal origins. With a set of scales, the slice of a knife and a merchant tester, we begin.
The country may not be especially well known for its confection and frozen treats, but you’d better believe that Japan loves its ice cream. Whatever the season, there are hundreds of varieties to choose from, and chain stores like Baskin Robbins and Ben & Jerry’s attract enormous lines on a daily basis, constantly whipping up new flavours to appeal to the Japanese palate.
Today, we’d like to take you on a tour of the konbini aisu, or convenience store-bought ice cream, of Japan. They may not be quite as sophisticated as your top-of-the-range Häagen-Dazs offerings, but boy are they tasty, and since they’re available for just a couple of hundred yen each you can afford to treat yourself pretty much every day this summer. We hope you’re hungry!
Sometimes the heat here in Japan really does get too much, but this mystery guy’s cool-down method seems to have backfired. Angry Japanese Netizens are up in arms at the possibility that the selfish iceman may have sullied precious ice-cream with his stinky sweat.
Whenever I’m forced to suffer the humid heat of Tokyo’s hot and rainy summers, I’m grateful for the large number of vending machines and convenience stores, all ready to sell me a nice, cold drink. It seems that not everyone shares my excitement, however, as a large percentage of Japan’s residents have shown distaste for chilled beverages. Some quote health reasons, while others just don’t like cold drinks. Lucky for them, the convenience store, Daily Yamazaki, is ready to meet their call.
Never shy of running a cool promotional offer or two, Japanese convenience store Lawson has announced that it will be transforming one of its Tokyo outlets into a video game castle to mark the launch of the Nintendo Wii U version of hugely popular game Dragon Quest X. Even better, visitors to the store will be able to bag themselves a whole host of themed goodies and even unlock in-game items during the promotional period.
On 6 February, Osaka Prefectural Police announced that a 45-year-old man working for the Osaka City Construction Bureau had been arrested on suspicion of destruction of property.
In what could best be described as “register rage” the man was upset with the speed of the cashier and took his aggression out on the store’s age verification check with his fist.
Just over a month ago, the poor relation of the convenience store chain family that is Save On unveiled a dish that it hoped would appeal to the hungry man on a budget and entice customers through its novelty value: an enormous 1 kg (2.2 lbs) tub of curry and rice. Even by western standards, the dish looks intimidating, sitting there taking up nearly twice the shelf space as its brethren and with a deep dish brimming with thick, dark-brown liquid and gut-filling fluffy white rice.
Since the dish is not yet available in all Save On stores, the gluttonous RocketNews24 team — famous for its food challenges like the 1,000 cheese slice Whopper and the 30 patty cheeseburger eatathon — was itching to try it but hadn’t been able to track one down until recently.
Luckily, late last week our reporter Yoshio was able to pay a trip to Saitama prefecture to pick up one of Save On’s monster curry tubs. And, even better, they were on sale for half price! Without stopping to wonder why such a gargantuan amount of food could possibly be on offer for such a meagre sum, our hungry writer bent at the knees, grabbed one with both hands and headed to the register.
Back in high school, the best my friends and I could come up with to cause a ruckus was a little underage drinking, but kids these days can manage to bring countries to the brink of war with their shenanigans. Lawless whippersnappers!
When I was a kid, there was a period of about a week in school when everyone became obsessed with making “jokes” using “What’s the definition of…?” set-ups.
As well as failing to make anyone laugh, they rarely made much sense and were always both immensely long-winded and contrived…
Allow me to share an example:
“What’s the definition of ’cheeky’? Throwing a brick through someone’s window, then knocking on the door and asking for it back!”
Oh my sides….
Thankfully, though, a 16-year-old in Wakayama prefecture, Japan has done us all a favour and made an example of himself, putting an end to the eternal mystery “what’s the definition of ‘stupidity’?”
Although it’s sometimes forgotten about, Shikoku, one of the four large islands that make up mainland Japan, is as much a part of the country as Hokkaidō in the north and Kyūshū to the south. People eat rāmen, do karaoke and play pachinko, exactly like everywhere else. Take a drive around the island and, just like every other part of the country, you’ll find literally hundreds of convenience stores. Lawson, Family Mart, Mini Stop, Coco Store; they’re all here.
All, that is, except 7-Eleven…. Read More
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