Friday, 25 January 2008

• Circle-K

  Kyoto, Japan
  http://www.circlek.com

  When you're travelling and want to see as much as you can then you'll have to wake up early.  But you catch a snag.  Not many restaurants and shops are open so early in the morning to satisfy your hunger.  This is where convenient stores come to the rescue:

   

  An assortment of foods in their refrigerator:

  

  If you're early, you can find a lot of pre-made lunches and dinners that you just need to re-heat:

  

  Sweet potato turnover:

  

  Their bread section is fairly well stocked.  I poked at a few and they were soft (who hasn't poked at bread before?).  My sweet potato turnover was so soft and fresh that it could easily compare to T&T bread. 

  I call it a rice triangle: 

  

  Choosing a flavor was difficult as I didn't know how to read Japanese (or Chinese for that matter) so it was a guessing game based on price and kcal.  You might see the little 3 to the left.  There's a novel 3-step process to open this rice triangle.

  Surprise!  It's salmon:

  

  I should have known it was some kind of fish since the label on the front had a fish character in it.  The rice was very thick and moist while the seaweed was lightly salted and crispy.  The novel steps are so the rice doesn't touch the seaweed while in the packaging.  I got 2 more rice triangles on my trip.

  A molten lava chocolate cake:

  

  It's microwaved.  Not too bad but it won't compare to Roy's Melting Hot Chocolate Souffle.

  It's a convenient store with happy staff that tried to help us explain the rice triangles.  Unfortunately their English wasn't so good so they explained that more than half of the triangles were filled with Japanese stuff.  I was surprised by the quality of their bread and the re-heatable foods they had.  I wouldn't recommend it as a dinner or even lunch alternative but if you're in a rush and want decent food then I recommend grabbing something from Circle-K.

  Eric Tummy Points: 3 out of 5

  • 12:33 PM
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