What are the usual foods that are associated with Japan by westerners? I think it's fair to say normally healthy foods involving fish, high quality meat and rice or noodles. But surely no person can eat this kind of healthy food all the time and stay entirely sane. We all have our moments of artery clogging grease lust, the tongue demanding the sybaritic envelopment by the cloying oils of hedonistic satisfaction... Ahem, sorry, I seem to have distracted myself there. In any case, in Japan these urges also exist and, as I've come to expect from this wonderfully perfectionist culture, they've honed their junk food to a fine art. In fact, to call it junk food is something of a misnomer since it is generally made from good quality ingredients, albeit subsumed by the aforementioned oily delectation. Let me introduce you to a few of my favourites below, from the more delicious hot snacks and meals to some fairly odd-ball flavours of cold fillers:
I just want to recap on Mister Donut, home of the curry bread and a whole host of other delicacies. At my local branch you can get bowls of noodles, too!
Here's an interesting concept: spaghetti bolognese Pringles. The concept is executed well, the resulting flavour a little tomato laden, but also with a certain piquancy and hearty meatiness reminiscent of its namesake.
Please let me introduce you to a little money-saving friend of mine, often coming to the rescue in this, one of the most expensive cities on our planet. The shop-bought packed lunch, here we have the remains of some delicious sushi (yes, this is as common as you'd expect) and something from Mister Donut that strongly reminded me of a chicken and mushroom slice from Gregg's, that English purveyor of pastry-based delights.
And here, situated in Tama Zoo, we have a small clonk of vending machines (I've decided clonk is the collective noun for vending machines, because of the noise they make, other suggestions in the comments, please). Why does Celia look quite so happy? Well, the individual on the right is none other than an ice-cream vending machine, which, while existent in the UK, are much more common over here. Along of course with the cigarette and booze machine, although I haven't seen the civically mythological panties machine yet.
Here we have some snacks for on the go, a packet of Crunky, small amorphous blobs of chocolate filled with crunchy pieces of cereal and some pizza flavoured crisps. Yes, pizza flavoured. I strongly suggest that you take a closer look below.
Take a closer look at what must be one of the most excessively delicious crisp flavours on the planet. Can you see the dark patches flecking this crinkle cut wonder? That, good readers, is cheese. Yes, real cheese, on a crisp. Simply incredible.
What you see here is a sausage on a stick wrapped in a kind of doughy fried bread. Very tasty, and available from any convenience store (alongside all their other services), although I did find the bread a little on the sweet side. On the other hand, I did enjoy the wonderfully designed dual mustard and ketchup dispensing condiment packet. I'll get a photo of that on my next snack excursion.
This is a simply delightful invention, a mini-pancake sandwich filled with maple syrup and butter. Other fillings are available, but I'd suggest this is truly the nether regions of the canine, so stick with this one.
Here is a successful marriage for my love of jelly and my love of coffee, well done Japan.
Definitely not cider and tastes suspiciously like a vat of e-numbers with bubbles. Sadly no booze involved.
This again is a slightly suspect offering. A sort of veggie burger sandwich with mayonnaise. It is on the other hand probably tastier than the other alternative, the utterly wrong looking noodle slop sandwich. I haven't had the necessary masochistic urge to try that one (yet).
This is a site to behold and in one fell swoop destroys any stereotypes you might have about a health-obsessed populace of virtually immortal individuals. It's a quivering tower of protein and saturated fats, a monument to coronary disease. I haven't had the will to fork out the roughly £25 asking price (again, yet).
I discovered a little place on Enoshima in my Rough Guide called Shonan Burger, recommended for its unusual fish burgers. Unusual indeed and veritably brimming with diminutive whitebait. They pay a quite delicious salty compliment to the dense fish patty within.
And finally the famous bizarre flavour of Kit-Kat. This one was pretty good, a strawberry cheesecake concoction, although I'm simply not convinced by alternatives such as the matcha green tea flavour.
So there you have, a melting pot of fusion snacks. I will be providing more examples of this kind of thing soon. Thanks for reading.
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