What a long week in between Conbini Monday’s. There are some interesting topics to look at in the convenience store arena at the moment. The law for selling drugs / medicines is set to change on June 1st, which will allow convenience stores, and other places, to sell some types of medicines.
With the competition between stores to gain customers loyalty is heating up, the addition of a drugs corner will be a key component to the expansion of the convenience store brands.
There will be a further post this week about this law change and what convenience stores are doing to take advantage of the changes. Stay tuned.
Turning to Conbini Monday regular items, we have 3 great products to look at this week. The first is a fresh looking pack of mini cookies from BOURBON.
Flavors here are Stawberry (いちご) and Green Tea, macha (抹茶). Both tasted great with the edge going to the strawberry ones. Eating the green tea cookies with a cup of regular tea alongside did make me have a bit of a laugh though. I wonder if I could get some Darjeeling Tea cookies to go with my green tea next time?
and then …….. there were these guys
I seriously was not going to buy these. “Chunkish” in a metallic package. Not sure who came up with that name, but I was not expecting a lot from the taste. When I actually tried them though they were very good. The one on the left is Chocolate Macadamia nuts while the one on the right is apple raisin fruits.
and for good measure to finish off ……… 
These chocolates were very tasty. The thing which caught my eye was “Salt Chocolate”. I had never tried salt in my chocolate before and had to give it a go. The package says the salt is from Germany, but I could not confirm that. Anyway, they tasted pretty good.
Until next week, you can find other Conbini Monday updates and discussions on Twitter at #conbinimonday. It is not likely to be a major trending topic, but there should be some twit / chat on the lines.
Salt chocolate?! What's that? @.@
I thought it was just me who found that strange! Anyone else ever tried salt chocolate? If not, I might need to provide a more detailed explanation of this one.
I think it's just part of the big sweet+salty snack craze sweeping Japanese snack aisles. I want to say it all started with salt-caramel flavored everything, but I'm not sure 🙂 I've had salt chocolate too, and it was good!
I love chocolate with crunchy salt. The combini one I had was in chunkier cubes – Glico, maybe?
One of our Aussie chefs was bleating on last week about combining chocolate and salt. Can't say I've tried it yet! My fave combo is cup of green tea and piece of dark chocolate – really goes well!
Green tea with dark chocolate sounds like a good combo. The salt crocs, i mean chocs, were good though.
Tell your chef to try it out. You might be surprised. You can call your dessert the Shibuya246 😉
the green tea cookies look delicious. today is a public holiday here so everything is closed. Fridge is empty and my stomach is *brrrraaaaawwww*
You need a local conbini to keep your stomach happy B)
soooo true. I definitely need one asap 😀
Ohayo gozaimasu,
Man i sure am jealous of all those kind of products you have in your conbinis. I wish they wouuld sell some of those in ours. When I saw the green package I thought they were choco and mint, so love that combination. But then looked at the package closer, what's the flavor like? Also the salt chocolate is sure a strange conbination. Does the salt temper the flavor of the chocolate?
Well once again another great conbini Monday.B)
Thanks for the warm comments. 🙂 Most of my Japanese friends say that mint and chocolate don't go together. They don't like the mint taste so much. Personally, I think it is a great matchup.
The salt chocolate tasted really great. It was definitely more chocolate tasting than salt tasting. The flavor of the chocolate wasn't spoiled at all.
Haha, I can't tolerate most mint-flavored stuff (mint gum and stuff like that is too strong for me), but I agree with you about mint+chocolate! Mint-chocolate ice cream, and Andes chocolate mints… mmm!
Another thing I forgot to mention in the last article is that, Tokyo POP and Dark Horse comics are teaming up with 7-11 to promote Domo Kun. Finally a Japanese character with some recongnition here in the states. He'll have his own Slurpee, it'll be apple flavored, heard he doesn't like apples. Must give him more flatuance,lol:). Ther will also be special straws with him attached to it , also manga and comic books and other things associated with it . The promotion starts in October. I'll keep you posted on more.:D
Till next time,
ja mata ne
I'll look out for that. Thanks. Let me know when you hear more.
Almost forgot, when do we get to see Rilakuma again? Miss the little guy.
Rilakkuma, YES, YES. I keep forgetting. He is sitting in front of me, actually he has magnetic paws and is crawling up the monitor at the moment. I will get him back in the mood for posting. Thanks for reminding me 🙂
Green tea cookies? Bizarre.. Worth a try, I reckon, as I'm not a big fan of anything made to taste like strawberries, to be honest.
The salt chocolate definitely beat the strawberry cookies, but those Chunkish were surprisingly good too :p