In this weekly convenience store series, Conbini Monday, we are going to have a look at the inside of the Lawson store near my house.
There is always plenty of choice on the shelves in the cold section, whether you want sandwiches, onigiri, pasta, obento, noodles or salads.
With the change in law a few years ago, convenience stores are now able to carry a line of vitamin health drinks. Most stores now have shelf area dedicated to a number of different brands and types of mixtures. Here you can see Oronomin C, Fibre Mini, Weider Jelly, Ribobitan D, Ukon no chikara amongst others. Also, Red Bull is in stock.
Most stores also have some sort of ready to go fried foods cabinet and or a niku-man cabinet.
Taking a close up you can see on the top shelf plenty of kara-age (fried chicken) (からあげ) in different flavors, as well on the bottom shelf from left to right, american dog (アメリカドッグ) fried okonomiyaki (揚げお好み焼き), tai-yaki (たい焼き) and custard pie (カスタードパイ). Watch out for that custard pie ;).
A convenience store generally carries a wide variety of goods from stationary items, cleaning materials, underwear, magazines, sweets, noodles, alcohol, soft drinks, vitamin drinks, fried food, bento and of course a good selection of breads.
Conbini Monday wouldn’t be totally finished without a quick look at the latest product I found on my last visit. This “protein water” drink came out a little while ago from Suntory, and is an attempt to reinvigorate their DAKARA line.
Do you remember the old DAKARA commercial
I liked DAKARA, which was introduce in 2000 to compete against Coca Cola’s Aquaruis and Otsuka Seiyaku’s Pocari Sweat. I thought it even tasted better than Pocari Sweat, but it seems to have been slipping recently. This drink called “Protein Water” carries the same logo “Life Partner” as DAKARA and Vitamin Water did.
Here is an interesting YouTube clip of Protein Water
17 comments
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I love Lawson. I grabbed breakfast there almost everyday when I visited Japan last month. The bread selection is great. I had a unique ‘pan’ daily.
Bkfst at Lawson. way to go! I used to grab a piece of bread or onigiri on the way to Uni. anpan is my favorite.
mmm i could go for some of the red karaage now
mmmm. great idea. I'll go and pick some up now.
I prefer 7-11.
7-11 coming up next week :p
I like dakara and it is even available here in Switzerland. すごい です。 I have just been to chinese supermarket and bought some rice cakes. Love those http://twitpic.com/5fa2a
I like your picture. Looks great
yeah sooo delicious - おいしいいい ：P
Ohayo gozaimasu, another great conbini monday. I envy you with all those conbinis, all we have are 7-11's in my part of North Tx. Are all the conbinis in Japan chains or just local. the only time I got to try anything was when I went to Disney World and in the world showcase they have a Mitskoshi dept store made up and bought a can of milk coffee, it really tasted good.__Keep up all the great articles.__ja mata ne
One more thing i forgot to mention, noy being picky did you mean red bull instesd of ref bull?lol
Definately meant to be Red Bull. What were my fingers thinking. Maybe I should have had a Red Bull before I wrote the post 😉
is calpis still popular in the conbinis?
Thanks and also thank you for your kind comments on the JapanSoc Forum site (http://forums.japansoc.org). Much Appreciated 🙂 I think most of the main brand conbini's are chains. AMPM was being bought out by Lawson a while back. There are quite a few smaller stores and a few chains that are local rather than nationwide.
There is a really posh conbini at the Tokyo Disney Resort Hotel in Maihama. I might have to grab a few photos and show you them. またね
Straight calpis is not as prominent now, but there are some premium calpis products on the market at the moment. One of those might get a feature in the weeks ahead at Conbini Monday B)
Loved Lawson’s when I was there…actually one of the reasons why I want to return to Japan!
Loved the obento and the pastries!!