{"id":6299,"date":"2010-12-04T04:29:53","date_gmt":"2010-12-04T09:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=6299"},"modified":"2010-12-29T02:19:13","modified_gmt":"2010-12-29T07:19:13","slug":"japan-2010-roppongi-hills-part-two-the-supermarket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=6299","title":{"rendered":"Japan 2010: Roppongi Hills Part Two – The Supermarket"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Yes, the Japanese have a supermarket called FOO:Dmagazine (Foodie Magazine), an upscale grocery store in the massive SEIYU chain. I’m not going to lie to you: I love grocery stores. When I go I need to visit every aisle, I look at tons of items, I buy way more than I need because I don’t go to grocery stores often, living downtown… and hey, that’s why they’re called “non-perishables” anyway, right?<\/p>\n

For more Japanese travelogues, please click here: https:\/\/comics212.net\/category\/japan\/<\/a><\/p>\n

All photos taken with an Olympus PEN EL-1 digital camera.<\/p>\n

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Just inside the front door is the produce section, which makes it… well, just like home really. Admittedly some of the produce is a little different, and differently priced.<\/p>\n

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85 yen (about a buck) for an Orange? That’s not too crazy. And $3-$4 for a bag of kiwis? Reasonable enough I guess.<\/p>\n

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Although the apples range between $1.30 and $4.50 a pop here. Still, not the most expensive apples I’ve saw on this last trip. I think the most expensive single apple was $10. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Or an anemic little basket of Strawberries for 12 bucks. Actually, these looked gorgeous, like illustrations of strawberries…<\/p>\n

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Or a tiny bunch of grapes for about $10 (Green, Seedless) or $8 (Red).<\/p>\n

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Bread? Not too bad, about 3 times what it would cost at home. But here’s a neat thing! The bread is 88 yen (about a buck-ten) for bread, whether you want to buy 4, 6, or 8 slices. Because the amount of bread is the same, it’s just sliced at different thicknesses! \u00a0And yeah, the four-slicers are ridiculously thick pieces of bread.<\/p>\n

Click to keep reading:<\/p>\n

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Speaking of which, in addition to the white bread, this supermarket had a full bakery on site. Everything looks really good, but more often than not they’re bizarre, filled with hot dogs and\/or mayonnaise.<\/p>\n

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These Halloween themed cookies were adorable though…! That’s one of the things I love about Japan, importing western traditions in bizarre ways, like making adorable skull-cookies for children.<\/p>\n

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Juice!<\/p>\n

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One of the very cool things about Japanese supermarkets is the ready availability of take-out meals. A lot of supermarkets have started to sort of figure that out here, but the quality of the ready-to-go stuff in North America leaves a hell of a lot to be desired, comparatively. Here you can see a ton of sides and mains, skewers and other goodies.<\/p>\n

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An assortment of crisp, delicious deep-fried goodies.<\/p>\n

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This is Chicken Karage on a stick. It is embarassing, but I think this might be my favourite Japanese food–fried chicken on a stick. Gomen nasai!<\/p>\n

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And of course, sushi. That package of surprisingly fresh and delicious sushi is about $11, marked down by 20% because it was getting to be the end of the day. It looked amazing.<\/p>\n

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Complete bento boxes were also available, with tonkatsu or fish or stir fry, plus rice and pickles. All for about 5 bucks. I know the idea is that it’s really expensive to eat in Japan, but with a bit of work you can get by on $15 a day. Admittedly that won’t be the absolute healthiest, but it’s better for you than McDonald’s :).<\/p>\n

Of course, I probably spent in the neighbourhood of $15 a day just on vending machines…<\/p>\n

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I can’t stand V8 or any North American vegetable cocktail I’ve tried, but the Ito En veggie cocktails and juice mixes are AWESOME. 2 servings of veggies in a glass and delicious? Don’t mind if I do. I wish it was so easy in Canada…<\/p>\n

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Speaking of. Canada, represent!<\/p>\n

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Ah, so here’s the greatest thing ever. No, not Asahi beer.<\/p>\n

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It’s alcoholism in a bag! A bottle of whiskey, a bottle of soda, and a single glass, in a convenient reinforced plastic bag. For 1280 yen, or about $15. This is quite possibly the greatest thing of all time.<\/p>\n

I may duplicate this as a gift for someone for Christmas this year.<\/p>\n

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From the tragically unhealthy to the extremely healthy (this was on the second-floor of the grocery store, btw. They kept the veggies and fruits on separate floors(!). But anyway, if you wanted to see what everything cost, I uploaded the full (6mb) version of this photo, so click on it to see it insanely large.<\/p>\n

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MEAT! Near as I could tell, they had everything you might find in a Canadian grocery store, including ground turkey and chicken (which I can NEVER find around here…), steaks, all of it. Not as well stocked as your local butcher, but still heartening to know that if I moved to Japan, I could still make a batch of Hamburger Helper with turkey subbed in, in a pinch.<\/p>\n

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Ready-sliced beef, all set up for delicious shabu-shabu…<\/p>\n

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Sashimi? Lots and lots of Tuna Sashimi. For like $7.50. I mean, that’s obscene, and probably the most delicious thing of all time.<\/p>\n

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Milk!<\/p>\n

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Stocking the shelves…<\/p>\n

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Candy!<\/p>\n

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Noodles!<\/p>\n

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…! No idea! Seriously, I have no idea what a “Pet Sheet” is. Or why you would need 50 of them at a time? I am not a pet person, but Andrew and I both found this disturbing, for some reason.<\/p>\n

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It’s my understanding that Breakfast Cereal is a relatively recent thing in Japan? Breakfast as a meal isn’t as big a deal in Japan as it is in North America, and the idea of eating a whole bowl of grains–that aren’t rice–to get your day started? With Milk? Kind of Alien. Still, this is a high-class market, so they’ve got all kinds of cereals.<\/p>\n

Like…<\/p>\n

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Frosted Flakes…! For some reason called “Frosties” in Japan. Probably the difficulty with the FR FL sound? And…<\/p>\n

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And my favourite, Special K Red Berries! Near as I could tell they didn’t even have _regular_ Special K? Just my favourite cereal of all time!<\/p>\n

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We turned the corner on the various types of grains, and then headed downstairs…<\/p>\n

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…and back to the booze area! Wine, beer, spirits and more!<\/p>\n

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A selection of chilled sparkling wines, Chu-Hi, and beer.<\/p>\n

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A close up on some cocktails and cocktail mixers. The mixers still have booze in them of course, but they encourage you to add more.<\/p>\n

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And these are some of the things you mix them with! The juice-carton looking things on the bottom shelf are largely Shochu, a distilled rice liquor, and the glass bottles towards the top are generally sake.<\/p>\n

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So on the right, that’s the One Cup sake, for when you need to drink on the run. But on the left there, that’s the 1.5 cup sake, when a single cup of sake won’t do.<\/p>\n

This is why there are a lot of drunken, vomitting people in Tokyo at night, btw.<\/p>\n

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If you like light-coloured, crisp beers, then the beer selection was fantastic. If you don’t, then you probably should not move to Japan.<\/p>\n

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Shochu is a kind of a harsh, burning alcohol, so it’s usually mixed with tea, fruit juice or calpis, and ice. This is called a shochu highball, or a chu-hi (particularly when it’s in a can). These are lovely, refreshing carbonated drinks. My fav is probably the sparkling lemon, but the sweeter fruit-flavoured ones are great too. This Suntory Peach Chu-hi was delicious.<\/p>\n

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More expensive tastes? They had you covered with a bottle of Moet or Veuve. Speaking of which, if you are ever looking to get me a gift I prefer pink Moet Chandon to the regular.<\/p>\n

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And a selection of liqueurs and spirits. They didn’t have Tanqueray, which disappointed me, but they did at least have Bombay (just off camera) so I guess I can still make a decent Gin & Tonic. Too bad the limes were like $7 each.<\/p>\n

Kidding, they were only $2.<\/p>\n

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And all that drinking will make you hungry, so why not pick up a delicious snack like CHEESE? Located directly next to the beer.<\/p>\n

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Boursin is only like a buck more expensive in Japan than it is in Canada. And apparently very, very popular.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately most of the cheese available was of the processed variety, though there we a couple of little chunks of different kinds. Actually, the cheese selection was really weak compared to the awesome cheese selection at the specialty-market we visited earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

So yeah, you can get good cheese in Japan. It’s just hard to find and crazy expensive.<\/p>\n

But you can always buy enough Tuna sashimi to feed a family of 4 for the same price as a Value Meal.<\/p>\n

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Speaking of snacks, check out the selection of import goods to keep the Aussies and Brits happy! Tim Tam cookies! Weirdo sour candies!<\/p>\n

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I was really hoping for more interesting Pringles flavours for you, but it’s the same flavours that they’ve had for the last 3 or 4 years since I’ve been visiting. I’m very disappointed in you, Mr. Pringle.<\/p>\n

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And with that, we made our purchases and stepped out into the rainy grey evening. Actually, it was really dark when I took this picture, the Olympus PEN EL1 digital camera is AMAZING.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading! There’s still one more post that’s a part of this trip to Roppongi, the Mori Art Museum! I’m just doing a bit of research on the artists whose work I saw… and photographed… so I can give you more background info with the post. Hopefully I’ll have another post up really soon!<\/p>\n

– Christopher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, the Japanese have a supermarket called FOO:Dmagazine (Foodie Magazine), an upscale grocery store in the massive SEIYU chain. I’m not going to lie to you: I love grocery stores. When I go I need to visit every aisle, I look at tons of items, I buy way more than I need because I don’t … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Japan 2010: Roppongi Hills Part Two – The Supermarket”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6399,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6299\/revisions\/6399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}