Walk through the grocery store

Grocery stores in Japan are pretty similar to the ones in America, with one difference –– the food.

The deli consists of ready made foods, such as fried rice, yakisoba, tempura and yakitori, rather than any type of lunch meat or sliced cheese. (In fact, it doesn't exist here)

 

The produce section is beautiful. You will never find a bruised or ugly piece of produce on the normal shelf of a grocery store. The saleclerks pick through sections by hand making sure there is nothing less than perfect for sale. And while sometimes the produce can be expensive, the size and taste more than makes up for it. 

 

  

 Where we would typically find things like packaged lunch meat, sausage, bacon and hot dogs, we find things like tofu (soft, hard, silk, fried) and noodles (soba, ramen, lo mein). 

There are sections of beef, pork and chicken, but typically the section of seafood is bigger. In fact, one day I will have to just blog about the sea creatures people eat in Japan.

 

  

 In the regular aisles you will typical items like cleaning supplies, chips, salad dressings, sugars, breads, and frosted flakes cereals, however these items tend to be different than what we are used to. Then there are items like nori, miso and just about any seasoning to be thrown into rice. 

  

 

  

There are also sections of milk, juices, yogurts, limited cheeses, butters, ice cream, tea (lots and lots of tea) and coffee.  All of that combined is usually the size of the alcohol section.   While you can buy beer by the 6-pack, 12-pack or case, it is much more common to just buy by the can, and mix and match what you want. There is many times a small (and I mean small) selection of imports and then many different Japanese choices of beer and Chu-His. 

 

 

 

Items vary from store to store. But you can always count on one thing –– it will be crowded.