Everyone loves Japan’s ubiquitous convenience stores, known locally as conbini.
They’re the subject of tens of thousands of tourist Tiktoks and YouTube videos, with visitors gushing over their most quirky offerings. The stores were the bright spot during the Tokyo Olympics three years ago when reporters, unable to eat in restaurants due to COVID-19 and perhaps expecting a stale gas station hot-dog, instead reveled in the fine dining options available at the conbini 24 hours a day.
The late Anthony Bourdain famously obsessed over the "unnatural, inexplicable deliciousness” of one chain’s egg sandwiches. You’ll find conbini anywhere: Train platforms, hidden inside office buildings or serving patients in hospitals, sometimes even right beside another store from the very same chain.
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