Zev’s 7-Eleven Challenge

*originally posted on ripcityramblers.wordpress.com on April 8, 2017*

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As an American, I am deeply envious of the Japanese ability to get a satisfying meal out of a convenience store.  In America, we equate 7-Eleven food to, “I’m so hungry I could eat a 7-Eleven hot dog without holding my nose.”  With that said… *drum roll, please*…

I thereby accept my self-imposed challenge of eating well for the next 48 hours with only Japanese 7-Eleven food.

Will I make it?  Or will I break, accept defeat, and stuff my face with 焼き鳥 at a local izakaya?  Let’s find out…

But, first, before I begin this challenge, my family threw down some guidelines that I am supposed to adhere to.  In theory, each meal should be:

• Healthy
• Balanced
• Not too junky
• Only contain one dessert a day
• Include a drink if I choose; and be
• Budget-minded

Here we go-o-o…

Day One: Saturday, March 18th

Breakfast:

• 1 onigiri with wakame (seaweed)
• 1 three-pack of inari (fried tofu pouches stuffed with rice)
• 1 small loaf of chocolate bread*
• 1 Café Au Lait coffee drink

Cost: ¥543 ($4.96)

All in all, this was a good start to my challenge.  The onigiri was savory with a nice wakame crunch, and the inari is highly recommended for convenience store fare.  In fact, I can’t tell the difference between this inari and inari from a sushi restaurant, which isn’t saying much because inari is so cheap and basic there isn’t really a “high quality” inari that I’m aware of.

And, then there is my sugar n’ caffeine bomb.  See, I have a strange weakness for those sugary, loaded-with-chemicals coffee drinks.  I think it started with the fact that:

1. I love coffee ice cream and,
2. We used to have these drinks in the basement fridge that were basically melted coffee ice cream in a can.

Somebody bought a massive pack of them around 2004, and left them in our fridge.  The expiration date was 2010, but we had those sitting in our fridge until July of 2016. When we brought them camping, my buddy Gen (isn’t he great folks, give him a hand) became as addicted as I am.  Fortunately, not just Seattle’s Best makes deliciously nasty coffee drinks like that.  Thankfully, there are drinks like it in every Japanese vending machine.  And I found them for only ¥114 ($1.04).

*My breakfast was so filling that the chocolate bread was consumed by my fat butt around 9pm the same day.

7-Eleven opened in Tokyo in May, 1974.  It was Japan’s first convenience store.  Over the next 43 years, convenience franchise numbers ballooned to over 50,000 stores in Japan.  7-Eleven leads the way with an estimated 18,000 locations.  As of 1996, Japan has one convenience store for every 2,000 people, while the United States has only one per 8,000 people.  Clearly, Japan likes things to be convenient.

Lunch:

• 1 package of spicy cucumber pickles
• 1 large portion of yakisoba (fried noodles)
• 1 pack of yakihotate (dried scallop, I think)

Cost: ¥715 ($6.53)

See, when the NCAA basketball tournament was looming, Doug and I both filled-out brackets predicting the outcome.  And, instead of betting money like normal people, we wagered that the man with the fewer points had to eat the weirdest thing the winner could find in a Japanese convenience store.

Well, unfortunately, Doug won because my predicted champion (Villanova) lost in the second round.  He selected the bag of dried scallop stuff thinking it was going to weird me out.  But it didn’t – I had a few bites of it, and it was okay.  I do not recommend it to people who don’t like fishy fish.  (If you’re really bored, or need to see a horrendous bracket to feel better about yours, see my train wreck of a bracket here, and Doug’s fairly decent bracket here.)

In other lunch news, I put the yakisoba into a pan and re-fried it which, in hindsight, was pure genius.

You might be asking yourself, well, how big of a deal is 7-Eleven in Japan?

This is a (slightly outdated) map of all the 7-Eleven locations in Japan by prefecture.  The prefecture where Jo lived 20 years ago, Iwate,only has 49.  We wonder how she survived.

Dinner:

• 1 pack of edamame (young soybeans)
• 1 cup of Ippudo instant clam chowder cup noodle
• 1 package of kinpiragobo (burdock stir-fried with sesame oil)
• ½ of a salami and cheese platter (Maya had the other half)

(The chocolate chip cookie and soba pictured below are part of Maya’s dinner)

Cost: ¥559 ($5.10)

Ipuddo is the name of a popular ramen joint with locations all over the world.  The one in New York often has two-hour waits.  How surprised was I, when browsing the instant noodle aisle, to discover an Ipuddo cup noodle!  Fascinating!  We have no idea why it is labeled “Ipuddo, ‘from New York’” when it is supposed to be clam chowder, which everyone knows is from New England.

If I was a classy chain of ramen restaurants, I would stay far, far, far, far, far away from instant noodles, but that’s just me.  Nevertheless, I purchased it out of curiosity.  If given the chance, I most likely would not get it again, but it was still better than any other instant ramen I ever had, for whatever that is worth.

Edamame is something most of you are familiar with.  I got a frozen bag of ’em and just boiled them (alive… muahahahaha).  This was actually my first time having kinpiragobo, and I have to say, I would definitely have it again.  I think it’s meant to be served as an appetizer, but you can eat it at 2:45 in the morning while you watch Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery for all I care.

The Japanese retail group Seven & I Holdings Co., the parent company of Japanese 7-Eleven, is the fifth largest retailer in the world with 54,000 stores in approximately 100 countries.  They also own all the Denny’s locations in Japan.  In October 1990, the heavily indebted owner of American 7-Eleven, facing bankruptcy, transferred 70% of the company into the hands of Seven & I Holdings.  And, in 2005, they bought the entirety of the company.  In short, Seven & I Holdings Co. owns Japanese 7-Eleven, Japanese Denny’s, and 100% of American 7-Eleven.  Raise your hand if you knew that… *cricket cricket*

Day Two: Sunday, March 19th

Breakfast:

• 1 vanilla yogurt drink
• 1 pack of zarusoba (plain soba noodle with dipping sauce)
• 1 Starbucks sakura (cherry blossom) drink

Cost: ¥396 ($3.62)

You know how around Halloween pumpkin-flavored stuff starts popping up everywhere? Well, in Japan, around March-April, it is cherry blossom season, and that’s a huuuge deal.

Sakura 桜, cherry blossom, is Japan’s national flower.  It only blooms for a week or two, and it’s quite a sight to see, so there’s a massive amount of consumerism around it. Basically, the Japanese equivalent of a Pumpkin Spice Latte is a Sakura drink such as this one brought to you by your local Japanese Starbucks!  And, thankfully for me, it is carried by my local Japanese 7-Eleven – how convenient!

However, upon opening it, I discovered that it had a cream-top that I did not shake thoroughly enough.  Thus, it was slightly chunky, but had a subtle, pleasant cherry flavor.  I didn’t like it enough to get it again.

Unfortunately, the soba noodles had been in the fridge a bit too long.  That made them clumpy and hard to separate for proper dipping and eating.  As such, this qualified as the worst meal of the challenge.

On the other hand, the yogurt drink, something Gen introduced me to me last summer to beat the July Tokyo heat, is also quite enjoyable even inside my heated apartment in early spring.  And, yes, I spoiled myself by getting two drinks with one meal, but whatever, it was only $3.

Some of you might have heard of the Double Gulp, a 64 ounces cup available for purchase at 7-Elevens all over North America.  That same some of you might have even purchased one when you were extremely dehydrated.  For reference, a 2-liter bottle is 67 ounces, so a Double Gulp is just three ounces shy of being two liters.  If 64 ounces of soda bothers you, how about the Team Gulp, released in 2006?  It holds 128 ounces – one gallon – of soda!

Nothing like this exists in Japanese 7-Elevens – things like that are for Man v.s. Food, not for ordinary people.  The point is because we are used to seeing massive soft drinks, we normalize them.  But, in Japan, this is not the case.  As an honorary member of Japan, I’m pretty sure my fellow Japanese peeps would be shocked.  An average adult bladder can only hold 20 ounces of liquid.  Who needs more?  (By the way, at McDonald’s, an American medium soda is equivalent to a Japanese large soda.  No surprise here, ね?)

Lunch:

• 1 tonkatsu (fried and breaded pork cutlet with sauce) sandwich
• 1 bag of hijiki (sea veggie)
• 1 small bottle of Mitsuya Cider
• 1 small slice of chocolate cake

Cost: ¥476 ($4.35)

Doug found this sandwich for me in the “bargain bin”.  Normally, in a convenience store where everything is already cheap, I avoid the bargain bin.  In America, I’d think convenience store food is bad enough, what’s it like out of the bargain bin?  But a fried pork sandwich would probably be right up America’s alley.

The pork sandwich would probably have been much better hot.  Japanese 7-Elevens, like their American counterparts, do have microwaves to heat up your food.  I probably should have opted for heating this item.  With that said, I’m pretty sure it was still better in Japan regardless of temperature.

On the other hand, the cake was pleasantly moist – I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Fans of bubble gum?  Look no further for your beverage of choice.  Mitsuya Cider tastes almost identical to bubble gum without the weird pink hue.

If you think about it, are convenience stores at home really that convenient?  I mean, when’s the last time you drove past a 7-Eleven and been like: “Oh, I need _____, and here’s a convenience store!  How convenient!”  Does anyone go to 7-Eleven for anything besides things like gum, or candy, or junk food, or cigarettes, or Slurpees?  In other words, things that we don’t really need.

But in Japan, convenience stores are actually convenient.  People stop there to get milk, or eggs, or ingredients for a quick dinner.  If I handed you $10 and told you to shop at American 7-Eleven and then make an actual meal, chances are you’d be making nachos with fake cheese, or worse.  But, if I handed you ¥1,000, told you to shop at Japanese 7-Eleven, and then to make an actual meal, you would not have difficulty finding good, cheap, fresh ingredients. 

Dinner:

• 1 instant kitsenu udon (udon noodle soup with inari pouches)
• 1 five-pack of frozen gyoza (pan-fried potstickers)
• 1 six-pack of frozen shumai (small Chinese dumplings)
• 1 small tub of chocolate pudding

Cost: ¥1059 ($9.67)

Just because I have to get all my food from 7-Eleven doesn’t mean it all has to be ready-to-eat.  No problem with getting frozen dumplings to share and throwing them in the frying pan.  They were pretty good too, especially because we had some leftover sauce that Maya and I dipped them in.  Although the total price was slightly steep, it was kinda split between two people, so that makes it okay.

For those who don’t know (I say this phrase a lot), kitsune udon is just like regular udon, but with inari pouches floating in it (remember, we talked about inari earlier).  The flavor of the inaripouches mingles with the broth and it’s all go~o~o~o~od.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the team at the instant udon factory somehow managed to dehydrate the inari pouches so that they re-hydrated well keeping that standout inari flavor.  American instant noodles have nothing on this bad boy.

So, in conclusion, I made it!  おめでとう！ I think the toughest adversary I faced throughout the course of this challenge was one day when the other three Ramblers went to a very famous ramen joint in Osaka called 金龍ラーメン.  And, of course, yours truly could not enjoy that very famous ramen.

And yes, I admit it, I was pissed that I couldn’t enjoy the famous ramen like a normal person instead of one who was doing this stupid 7-Eleven thing.  I was especially upset that I could not find a well-inventoried 7-Eleven while they sat and slurped famous ramen.  And, I cursed the fact that I had to go get convenience store food instead of piping hot yummy ramen.  But, I heroically overcame this obstacle and finished the challenge without cheating (too much).

Okay, people, here’s the deal.  Japanese 7-Eleven vs American 7-Eleven?  Japanese 7-Elevens are to American 7-Elevens as the New England Patriots are to the Cleveland Browns.  What is he talking about, you wonder?  I suppose that isn’t a great analogy, but it has one key element – the Patriots are the best in the game and the Browns are a franchise that in the last 30 years are the very definition of failure.

So I win, and, sorry,  American 7-Eleven, you lose.