Comment by klausa
8 hours ago
This hot take, along with the "oh you can get better chicken than FamiChiki almost anywhere in Japan", drives me _nuts_, even as I live in Tokyo.
Yes! There are better options available if I want to sit down for a meal, or even just wait for a couple of minutes for someone to fry me a piece of chicken to order.
That's _not the point_! Both the SEJ meals, and FamiChiki, are _fantastic_ for what they are — available in literally tens of thousands of locations across the country, and available _instantly_, 24/7.
They're both _not that special_ if you compare them to a "real" restaurant (though, and I will die on this hill, FamiChiki is hands-down better than a good ~80% of chicken I would get in a restaurant in my home country; but that's a somewhat different conversation).
But if you compare them with convenience store meals available elsewhere in the world (especially in the broadly understood West), they still _are_ pretty damn special.
(And don't get me started on the 7-11 frozen pizzas from Da Isa. Those, reheated in a Balmuda also clear a good 75% of "real" pizzerias back home, and not because pizzerias in Berlin or Warsaw are particularly bad!)
> This hot take
It is not a hot take. I lived in Japan for quite some number of years and I'm back there regularly for work and to see friends. I know what I am talking about.
You live in Tokyo, you know damn well that you can receive silent judgement for being "that guy" who mostly eats at the conbini.
> But if you compare them with convenience store meals available elsewhere in the world (especially in the broadly understood West), they still _are_ pretty damn special.
What part of my original comment flew over your head? We said the same thing.
They are not that special when judged on merit.
> not because pizzerias in Berlin or Warsaw
Well kinda actually. In countries with good culinary, even basic konbini food can be better than more "serious" restaurant in bad culinary countries.
I think you could make a relatively uncontroversial argument that pizzerias in Germany or Poland on average are pretty bad, but if you made that claim about Berlin or Warsaw _specifically_, I wouldn't take you seriously.