Konbini by Brendan Liew and Caryn Ng

Like most visitors to Japan, on our first trip there many years ago, Pete and I were blown away by Konbini–Japanese convenience stores. The term comes from the English for “convenience store”, pronounced konbiniensu sutoru in Japanese and commonly shortened to konbini.

These amazing shops, ubiquitous across Japan, are quite different from the little corner shops we are familiar with in the UK, not least because most are open 24 hours a day. They also sell an amazing selection of food and drink, as well as toiletries, basic medication, and other lifestyle items such as umbrellas, charging cables, and magazines. Additionally most stores offer cash machines (ATMs), ticket reservations, and financial services, so they really are extremely convenient!

On that first and subsequent trips to Japan we found ourselves visiting konbini often for all kinds of food and drink, but especially the excellent range of canned coffees, sweet and savoury snacks, and local beers and alcohols to try.

The food and drink sold by these shops is the main subject of Konbini: Cult recipes, stories and adventures from Japan’s iconic convenience stores by Brendan Liew and Caryn Ng (October 2024), which follows on from the pair’s previous titles Tokyo Local: Cult recipes from the streets that make the city (2018), Tokyo Up Late: Iconic recipes from the city that never sleeps (2022), and A Day in Tokyo: A Japanese Cookbook (March 2024).

The three biggest chains in Japan are 7-Eleven, Lawson and Family Mart and there are also a number of smaller chains including Daily Yamazaki, Circle K and Ministop. The three largest brands have stores in several other countries around the world, especially in East and South East Asia and in North America–we have personally enjoyed shopping in them whilst travelling in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Most opened their first stores in Japan in the 1970s, with a couple launching in the following decade and expanded very quickly–between all the chains, there are over 55,000 konbini in Japan! Although 7 Eleven and Lawson originated in the United States and Family Mart in Taiwan, all three of these chains are now Japanese owned.

All of them sell many products in common (both commercial and own-brand) but each chain also has specific products that are unique to them and there are many, many influencers who specialise in sharing the latest konbini product launches.

In this book, Liew and Ng share stories and recipes for popular konbini food products which they’ve grouped into chapters for Onigiri, Hot Snacks Counter, Osouzai (side dishes), Bento: More Than Rice, Bakery, and Desserts.

Throughout the book are short essays on topics such as Konbini: In the Beginning, Seasonal Delights, Konbini Today, The Cult of Karaage-Kun, Social Infrastructure, Konbini Greetings (a handy guide to phrases useful when visiting a konbini), Premium Roll Cake, Going Local and Behind the Konbini: A Chat with Lawson. That last one is worth mentioning – although the book references products from, stories about, and photographs of all of the big three, only Lawson’s gets the extra marketing that this interview with their Head of Corporate Communications, Mochimaru Ken, provides – though the essay is a great read. The passages are fascinating, covering everything from history to culture, and are a very welcome supplement to the recipes themselves.

Before all of the recipe chapters and essays is an Introduction featuring an evocative passage recalling a trip to Japan that serves to underline just how entrenched in Japanese culture and ‘life infrastructure‘ the konbini has become in the half century since the very first one opened.

Following on from that, Cook’s Notes, where the authors share tips including the intended weight of commonly used ingredients such as onions, potatoes, carrots and eggs, guidance about types of butter, cream, flour, salt, pepper, sugar and sake and a mini-glossary differentiating Worcestershire sauce, Tonkatsu sauce, Chunou sauce and Okonomiyaki sauce. This is supplemented by a more comprehensive glossary at the end of the book.

Each new chapter page provides a handy list of recipes contained within, with thumbnail photos of each one. I find this really useful, as it makes finding individual recipes a lot easier.

All the recipes are accompanied by clear, colour photographs and a few also feature step-by-step photographs to show how to shape onigiri (rice balls), makizushi (sushi rolls), and chukaman (steamed buns), for example.

The first dish we made was Shōga-yaki–the direct translation of which is “ginger grill” or “ginger stir-fry”. It’s a simple and popular dish is most commonly made with pork, but other proteins can also be used. The sauce is rather thick and gloopy as written, so I would reduce the flour / potato starch a little next time, but the flavours are fabulous and it’s a satisfyingly quick and tasty dish.

Our next recipe from the book was Torimeshi–rice balls filled with chicken cooked in a teriyaki-like sauce. The first time we made this, I realised that shaping the rice into balls without a mould was a skill I absolutely don’t have, and we quickly switched to eating the chicken mix over rice instead, which was delicious. We bought some onigiri moulds for future efforts.

Rice Buns with Shigureni were next on the list; where two discs of rice are used in place of a bread bun, and the filling is thin-cut beef fried in a flavoursome ginger sauce. These worked incredibly well, though we needed to cook the rice discs for far longer than suggested, and turned the heat up too. We used a fabulous roasted garlic mayonnaise we buy regularly, and decided to skip the tomato (as it’s hard to get truly good ones at this time of year).

We had leftover ginger beef filling from the rice burgers which we used to make Onigiri the next day. We used my new moulds, but learned that we need to press the rice in to moulds far more firmly, as the onigiri fell apart when we tried to pick them up! That said, they were absolutely delicious and we were surprised how good the ginger beef filling was in cold–as we ate the onigiri at room temperature, fpor lunch. Hopefully our third attempt at onigiri will be the charm!

There are many other recipes that appeal; some that I’ve bookmarked include shio salmon onigiri, potato and beef croquettes, karaage chicken, black vinegar braised pork belly, Hokkaido white stew, soy milk and pork nabe, kiriboshi daikon (sun-dried radish), Morioka ramen, seafood gratin, mochi donuts, daigaku imo (candied sweet potato), Japanese French toast, black sugar steamed cakes, purin (pudding), and croissant taiyaki.

I probably have a surfeit of Japanese cookery books on my shelves, including Bowls & Bento, Your Home Izakaya, Harumi’s Japanese Kitchen, Japanese Food Made Easy, The Japanese Larder, Tokyo Cult Recipes, Japan: The Cookbook, Japaneasy, Vegan Japaneasy, No Sushi, The Ultimate Japanese Noodles Cookbook, Homestyle Japanese Cooking, Table-Top Barbeque Japanese & Korean Style, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, Hashi: A Japanese Cookery Course, but I’m happy to make space for another!

What I particularly appreciate about Konbini is its dedicated focus on convenience store staples; perfect for anyone missing their favourite konbini treats.

Recipes from Konbini

We have permission from Smith Street Books to share these three fantastic recipes with you from the book:

• Onigiri / Omusubi
• Torimeshi Onigiri (Chicken Rice Balls)
• Ginger Beef Rice Burger (Rice Buns with Shigureni)

Find more Japanese recipes, cookbook reviews and travel content, here.

Kavey Eats received a review copy of Konbini: Cult recipes, stories and adventures from Japan’s iconic convenience stores by Brendan Liew and Caryn Ng from publishers Smith Street Books. Food photography by Daniel Hermann-Zoll; location photography by Gorta Yuuki.