sara-sensei loves the 7-11

I've never thought much of convienence stores. You got your soda, you got your candy bars, you got your fast food fare. Big whoop. And then, I stepped into a Japanese 7-11, and thus, I found another reason to love Japan.

Japanese convienence stores - especially the 7-11 - are pretty keen, and I've been getting meals there 2-3 times a week. I realize that it's a bit silly to get so excited over conbini food, but I can't help it. I'm thrilled that I can buy full meals at the 7-11 and be satisfied by them in flavor and in fulfillment. It's so much better than buying a bag of potato chips and hoping for the best.

I love their sandwiches, though I'm not sure what's in some of them. I'm pretty sure there's an egg salad one, and I think there's a salmon salad one, but I haven't tried it. My favorite is lettuce, cheese, and ham. A simple, handy lunch. And it comes with the crust cut off, which sends me into fits of adulation. I've also had a tonkatsu meal (which is battered pork with sauce), which was also quite yummy. I've been avoiding it lately, because the calorie intake on that one is kinda frightening. And the other day, I had a pasta meal, something like a carbonara sauce. It was a cream sauce with bacon and a poached egg. Mmm. Also fairly dangerous in regards to calories, but still. Yum.

They also have a few noodle dishes, some frozen and others fresh. The frozen ones are pretty ordinary and unexciting, but the fresh ones aren't too bad. There's one with tempura shrimp on it that I usually get once a week. It's got soba noodles, which I like much better than udon or ramen noodles. Also, the calories aren't completely out of control with it.

I've tried some of the onigiri, but I'm not impressed with them. Maybe I just need to stick to plain rice balls, because some of the fillings (as Sarah mentioned in her blog) are kinda gross. Usually, I just get the plain ones, or the ones with adzuki beans in them.

I'm enjoying the selection of breads though. Most bread in Japan seems to be of the sweet variety, which pleases me to no end. Sliced bread is so far the only bread I've found that isn't sweetened in some way. Yesterday, I found a yellow mushi cake, which was to die for. Good thing I'm doing all this walking and biking, or I'd be the size of a blimp by New Year's!

I don't feel too bad though, because I'm working my butt off and I have 5-6 hours between most meals. I'm up and down during classes, as well as while I'm planning, so I do a lot of walking at work too. Breakfast is fairly light, yogurt with some granola thrown in for texture. I try to limit myself to one sweet treat per day, which means I'll buy a few things whenever I go to Marue (a nearby drugstore) or Beisia (the grocery store) and eat them over the course of the week. Most of the time, though, I cheat and have two sweet snacks, but I justify it by telling myself I deserve it.

It's just that I have so much to choose from! Every day is a new adventure when it comes to food!