Konbini Kinyoubi: Non-Refrigerated Pizza??

Welcome to Konbini Kinyoubi, where every Friday (Kinyoubi) we visit our local convenience store (Konbini) and buy something delicious.

Fridays are usually a good day around here. It’s cheat day, and the end of Eriko’s work/school week. It’s the time when we get our treats. And now that we have this blog, those treats are a tax deduction, so we go nuts. On Fridays, we pick one of the local konbinis and leisurely stroll around until we settle on exactly the right snack for that evening. Sometimes our choices are better than others.

This past week, while sauntering up and down the aisles, I stopped in my tracks as I saw the following:

It appeared to be a slice of pepperoni pizza in plastic wrap.

“But Gregg,” my brain told me, “pepperoni and cheese are perishable items. Shouldn’t this be in a refrigerated case of some sort?” Yes, it should have. So why was it just hanging there? It was close to the beef jerky, and had a silica packet inside. Was this pizza jerky?

What unholy chemicals were in this thing to give it the shelf life necessary to just sit out at room temperature for weeks on end in a convenience store? Who would buy this??

So then, of course, I bought it.

The fact that it’s 228 yen is infuriating.

Even worse: I bought two. Had to try both kinds, of course. Above is “Yakichee,” or “fried cheese,” the four-cheese flavor. The other is “Sarachee,” or salami and cheese. We tried the cheese version first:

I don’t trust those little burn marks one bit.

From far away, one could be led to believe that it slightly resembled the square pizza we used to get in the lunchroom in elementary school. However, upon closer inspection, this was not the delicious-gross pizza of my youth. It was… different.

It looked like there was still plastic around it. Surely this cannot be the actual appearance, Shirley. I actually checked to see if it was sitting on a piece of cardboard... no, that's the crust.

Although it did not taste like school pizza, it did feature remnants of my school days: smell of an old gym shoe, texture of a piece of poster board, taste of an eraser left out in the sun. It was absolutely disgusting. My nose twitched, my throat constricted, my stomach churned. A piece of cardboard would have been preferable.

I gave it another sniff because I’m a glutton for pain. It was honestly the grossest scent I have ever inhaled, and I visited the outhouses at the Coachella campground back in 2004.

I mean, look at this thing after I took a bite:

Maybe snacks like this are why Japan doesn't have an obesity epidemic.

The pale thatched crush refused to rip apart and quickly gave up the cheese, which crumbled into thick chunks of living dirt. I honestly could not will myself to take another bite.

You may be wondering why we even bothered to try this thing. Two reasons: one, Japanese snacks have a good track record. Even things you wouldn’t normally think would be good, like shrimp crackers, are pretty tasty. So if it’s in the konbini, it’s usually worth a taste.

The second reason is you, dear readers. I do this for you, to bring you this news. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice, especially since I went ahead and tried the salami one.

It looked disturbingly solid, so I decided to microwave this one. 30 seconds on 800 watts, and it flopped over with the limpness of impotent seaweed. Would it be better hot?

After heating up the salami slice... it was even worse. It smelled like burnt rubber, curved and bounced with the consistency of rubber, and tasted like... rubber.

This is perhaps the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. My stomach staged a full-scale revolt upon the first bite, letting me know that whatever this "cheese" was, it was not to be consumed by human beings. This is not food. This is chaos.

I tried one last bite of one of the pieces of salami, and couldn't even get it down. I spit it back up into a napkin. All I tasted was a shipwreck, thousands of limbs flailing in the ocean as sharks ripped screaming men to pieces.

I would like to apologize to the people of Italy. We have taken your fine food and destroyed it.

My wife continued to eat, perhaps a sign that she is a witch of some sort. What was left at the end were these shards:

The collected amputations of Gettysburg.

The crust still looked like paper, the "cheese" like fungus, the salami like... oh, no. I just smelled it again. It's awful. Rank. Dead.

I asked Eriko how in the hell she wasn’t vomiting. She said, “I can eat everything.” She plastic-wrapped the rest and stored it in our fridge. Each time I look at it I shudder with pain.

Please, whatever you do, do not buy this. You have failed me today, konbini. I will never trust again. Although I will be back next week to try more of your goodies. 15/10 I know you meant well.