The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich
These articles always make me conflicted. On one hand the Japanese convenience store is quite good but there’s so much fetishizing about them. In the end it’s just a sandwich, and if you eat enough of them you’ll realize there’s no “magic”.<p>That said the conbini is often the subject of many Japanese food TV shows and I enjoy seeing in-depth programs of how something is made and the creativity in their production. I learned that 7-11’s fried rice is made using real woks with an elaborate setup of robotic arms to toss the rice with the wok and spatula. The length they went though to get the flavor just right is very impressive.<p>On the sandwiches, one of my gripes is that they are often filled in a way that makes them look really plump and full of ingredients when cut in half. But everything is in the center so by by the time you make it to the edge it’s just bread. To me the sandwich is visually appealing but lacks balance and consistency from first bite to the last.