The Definitive Guide to Japanese Convini Chicken

 

Remember when I used to post about Japan travel stuff? I do, and it’s an aspect of this blog I feel has been neglected for far too long and I’m feeling silly today so let’s talk about Japanese convenience store fried chicken.  There is a great debate about who has the best chicken among both the natives and the gaijin but I’m not interested in any of that.  As a hardcore convini enjoyer, this is the definitive ranking, you can comment, complain, cancel me all you want, I know I’m correct on this and the rankings are FINAL

For the purposes of this post, we’re only considering the following.  Nana-chiki from 7-11, L-Chiki from Lawson and Fami-Chiki from Family Mart.  If you think you know the answer already, you’re a tasteless pleb. 

THE WORST ONE

The award for the worst chicken out of our nominees is easily the Nana-Chiki from 7-11.  It doesn’t taste bad, per se, but it’s the most disappointing of the bunch.  Pretty much all of the fried food in 7-11 sucks ass and I’d rather not eat any of it but that’s ok because their strengths lay elsewhere.  Nana-chiki sucks and if all 7-11s removed their fried food section tomorrow, it would not be missed. 

SIDE NOTE, this isn’t up for discussion, really, but despite what I just said about their fried food, 7-11 does technically have the crown for best chicken of all time when they had the Nana-Chiki Red with Cheese.  It was a different cut of chicken so the texture was better, the coating was spicy and delicious and the melted cheese in the middle was just fucking INCREDIBLE.  The reason I can stand by my previous statements despite this is that that this item was a limited edition thing that has never been brought back.  You were so close to winning 7, but ya fumbled it

THE SOLID SECOND PLACER

Despite what most Hub-Dwelling gaijin or office shackled natives might tell you, fami-chiki is not the best one.  Unlike the 7-11 chicken though, Fami-Chiki is actually incredible though.  The fami chicki is perfect in a pinch, like a warm hug from a loved one on a cold day, you can always count on it to give you something quick and satisfying on the go.  You have to think of the fami-chiki like the shotgun in Doom.  The Doom shotgun is not the best gun in that game but it is the work horse of the load out, old reliable that you can pick up in most situations and get the job done with.  The other thing that elevates the fami-chiki is that all the other fried food in Family Mart sucks.  It stands tall among all the low-rate trash unfit for human consumption behind the glass of the heated cabinet and if not for these glorious cuts of dead bird, Family Mart wouldn’t even be in the conversation

THE SLEEPER WINNER

The L-Chiki from Lawson is the under appreciated gem of Japanese convini chicken.  Slept on by the average native, ignored by the average gaijin, L-Chiki is seriously a food item that you need to have more of in your life.  The regular version tastes incredible with its sort of herby, sort of lemony coating and it always uses perfect cuts of chicken that have an incredible texture.  Maybe it’s unfair to consider it but there is also a Red variant that has a spicy coating that is the closest thing I’m ever going to get to the Nana-Chiki red with cheese.  The problem with the L-Chiki is that its existence is overshadowed by Karaage-Kun, a line of chicken nuggets also sold at Lawson.  I love to eat some karaage-kun as much as anyone but the fact that it’s overshadowing the L-Chiki so hard is a crime.  The marketing department at Lawson HQ belong in prison for this one

Bottom line of this post, eat more L-Chiki.  Don’t argue with me, just go and do it and only talk to me about it after you’ve eaten 1000 pieces.  It’s the best, end of

GAME's Christmas Tinner

Are you fucking serious?  Please tell me this isn't serious.....

The above picture may seem like a terrible photo shop, but apparently it's a real thing.  For anyone who's reading this blog outside of the UK, GAME is the countries biggest game store, or at least it was when I was living there.

It's basically the equivalent of Gamestop in the US or Sweden or whatever.  You know what I mean, you walk in and the staff don't know diddly shit about anything at all.  If you ask for something that isn't a big name AAA title they give you this horrible look because they actually have to pick up the stock book and do some fucking work.  You walk in and buy used games and when you get them home they are all scratched up or have fucking jam on the disc (true story).  Idiots behind the desk will judge you based on what you're buying or what stupid piece of crap DLC you decide to pre order or not (another story for another time), basically fuck GAME, stupid piece of shit.

So the idea behind this can of fuck is that "gamers" can't be arsed to get off their arse for an hour or 2 to go and have Christmas dinner so GAME have released an entire Christmas dinner in a tin with the idea that you enjoy it over the course of the day since the thing comes in layers or some shit.  It looks fucking vile and the can looks like that brand of cat food, Whiskaz or some shit, who wants to eat something that looks like catfood?  The whole thing is only £1.99 too apparently, according to the daily mail, so you know it's going to taste like absolute shit.

Here is my problem with this though, cooking isn't hard, like at all.  Any sack of shit can cook something halfway decent and for most things it doesn't even take that long to do so.  Even when I cook something like bolognese sauce, which requires it sit there for 5 fucking hours to gather flavour, the preparation to get it to that stage takes about an hour, tops.

Back when I was a university student, I was convinced I couldn't cook.  I would eat ready meals and I was so inept at it that I didn't even want to boil pasta because I was worried I'd overcook it and just waste my time or some shit.  Then I went and got a girlfriend so I decided I can't just remain inept forever, and after a short time just simply googling a recipe and trying to follow it, I made something decent in about 30 minutes. 

Now, a few years later it turns out that cooking is actually really fucking easy and quick and with the power of google and the nearby supermarket there isn't really anything I can't make anymore.  I'm happy that I developed a new skill, my wife is happy I can now cook pretty good food and my body is happy because anything I make myself is guaranteed to be healthier than anything that comes out of a fucking tin.

So GAME, fuck you and fuck your stupid Christmas dinner in a tin bullshit.  Cooking Christmas dinner isn't even that hard, and I'm saying that as someone who lives in a country where most of the population doesn't own a goddamn oven.  I wouldn't be surprised if it really was just a can of Whiskaz with the label changed.

Absolutely disgusting, just like your shops and service.

Crazy Japanese Cafe

Today I was planning on coming home and making a usual post on something gaming related but then I went to this crazy cafe for dinner and this shit is too weird to not post about.

The place was called Mountain and on the outside it looks pretty standard for a cafe out here, even on the inside shit seems normal....but then you get the menu.  What you are looking at in the above picture is part of the past menu, and some of the stand out dishes in that picture are the melon pasta, banana pasta and the strawberry pasta (only available in winter)

If you think that sounds disgusting, it's because it is, check this shit out.

That is the melon pasta, and it is quite possibly one of the worst tasting pasta dishes I have ever had.  With the fresh cream on top it looks like something that should be cold, but that's a hot pasta dish.  Also you can't see it too well in the photo but there are chunks of melon hiding in the pasta and hot chunks of fruit with pasta is NOT a good combo.

Luckily there are normal things on the menu so you can go there and enjoy a meal.  The normal stuff is also pretty well priced considering the size of the portion, so all in all it's quite a good place with an extremely strange gimmick.

If you ever find yourself in Nagoya, look up Mountain on google maps, you'll more than likely come out with some crazy culinary story of your own.

The McDonalds 60 second seems a bit dodgy...

Sometimes I enjoy a bit of fast food.  Despite knowing it's quite possibly the most unhealthy thing I could possibly ingest, it tastes good and it's quick and easy.  When I went to visit my buddy in Kawagoe a few weeks back, I noticed this thing had started, where if your order doesn't arrive to you within 60 seconds, you get a coupon for a free burger or coffee or something.

Well, I've already heard horror stories about this shit causing problems, see this link for that info

http://kotaku.com/5973663/a-gallery-of-hamburger-horrors/gallery/1

but I've not had this problem.  But today I noticed something when I was grabbing a burger to kill time before work.  I'm pretty sure that the staff in McDonald's are starting to purposely go over the 60 second limit, to give you a free coupon in the hopes of getting you back in to order something else on top of your free shit, thus making more money.

Today I saw a woman order a coffee, and nothing else.  Pretty much as soon as the timer ticked out, it arrived, and it's not like this McDonald's was particularly busy.  Maybe when they realised that they are fucking up orders, they changed it to try and make people come back for a second run with that coupon.

I've either hit the nail on the head or I'm just a nut writing about burgers on a gaming blog while under the influence of yet ANOTHER fucking cold.  Still, fast food is good sometimes since you can reduce the amount of time spent not playing games, so it all sort of makes sense in my head.

Also I'm pretty sure McDonald's offers downloadable quests for Dragon Quest 7, which is pretty fuckin' good.

It's Christmas!!! Amazing Italian Food!

I fucking love Christmas, it's one of those times of year where you can just forget about anything shitty that's happened and just enjoy yourself.  So this year I pretty much did what I do every year, which is eat really good food and play video games.  Since gaming is covered 95% of the time on this blog, I thought I'd tell you the tale of my Christmas food adventure.

So today I hit an extremely posh resturant in central Nagoya called The Kitchen.  The food here is insanely good and I'm going to go out and as far as I know these kind of resturants are dotted around Japan.

There isn't really much to say about it really, it's just a really posh resturant at the top of a big tower building.  You get a nice view with great food and the staff are trained to speak little bits of Italian as opposed to conducting the entire service in Japanese.  The kitchen is also open plan so you can see all the cooking going on while your waiting for food.

At the end of the day, I'm a gamer, not a food critic, so instead of trying to awkwardly "review" the resturant I'll just show off the food I had and call it a day.

Well, Merry Christmas! The Video Games will be back in the next post.....I think

Blog update and the Yakiniku Review

Well I've been a little busy this weekend, so I've not really had time to sit in front of my PC and write posts, but I'm just about finished with all the weekends arrangements, so I can get back to blogging.

So now I'm gonna announce a new blog feature starting from December, and ending whenever the hell it's finished.  The event is something I've decided to call "The Centurions Controller" (Working title) and with the help of my buddies and the people at a few forums, I'm in the middle of compiling a list of the 100 hardest games I can think of. 

I will then try to play them through all of them, and hopefully beat them too.  I'll outline more details of this in a vlog or something later, so look forward to that.

In the meantime, since I went to Yakiniku on Friday, you can have my 15 second review of what I think about it!

VIDEO!

The Universal Studios Halloween Thing

Well after spending about a day recovering from the walk-a-thon that was my trip to Osaka, it's time to start telling you good people about what this stuff was like.

So I figured since this is a gaming blog, and not a Japan blog, I'd start with the Resident Evil themed stuff and do the other stuff later. 

So first lets start with some bad news, I missed the Resident Evil show thing.  Now this doesn't mean I missed everything Resident Evil related, there was plenty of that going on, but they had a show scheduled to start at 6pm inside the building where they do the Terminator 3D movie thing.  So I rolled up about 30 mins early, thinking I'd get in line for it before other people, and by the time we got there, it was full capacity, and they only do 1 show a day.

But, since it's in the Terminator building, I can go and assume that it's a 3D movie, that involves actors on stage, probably fighting a Tyrant.  If anyone knows EXACTLY what goes down in there, put it in a comment or throw me an e-mail or something, I'd like to know.

The closest I got

Well, albeit a little disappointed, all was not lost.  Not getting into this thing meant we were able to hit the queue early for the restaurant nearby that was doing the Resident Evil themed menu!

I'll put up some more pictures of the food at the bottom of the post, but it tasted pretty good.  I ordered both the drinks as well since I had to try everything.  The mixed herb drink was this soda water thing, where the staff gave you a vial of red herb and let you choose between another vial for a green herb or a blue herb.  Being really tired at that point from the day at the park, I went for the green herb and it tasted pretty good, was sort of fruity.  The Berkin G drink was a whiskey highball (whiskey and soda water) that had a piece of liche in it, made to look like William Berkins eye after he took the G virus. (More food pics at the bottom)

This is where the whole eye in the drink thing comes from

Once we had finished eating and got back outside, shit had popped off.  The area of the park near the restaurant had become this Resident Evil themed show type thing, with various monsters such as Nemesis and a Hunter walking around on a stage.  There was also zombies shambling around the crowd, scaring the shit out of unsuspecting onlookers.

Occasionally, the on-stage monsters would hop down and start terrorising people too

The zombies were all over the park, changing attire as you got near the different rides, so near Waterworld they were all in scuba gear and so on.  This idea for a "show" or was actually pretty good, since the zombies were in the crowd, people would start panicking when accidentally bumping into other guests, so the whole thing was really fucking with people.  On top of the zombies, there was a RE2 Claire Redfield running around too trying to gun down would-be attackers of the crowd

The last thing to mention about the Resident Evil stuff was the big projection they had on one of the walls.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be the city area from the start of Resident Evil 3. 

So that's about it really for the Resident Evil stuff, there was some other stuff going on around the park but that was all full capacity too and the wait times for the "horror versions" of the rides were insane, and riding one of them would have resulted in us being late for the Shinkansen.

I'll throw up some more pictures, and right at the bottom I'll put a video up too! Enjoy!

Jill was milling around too

The Berkin Drink

Full HP

Supposed to be a brain

Hunter

Licker, Really hard to get a good picture due to distance and crowd confusion

 VIDEO!

The Grand Japan Road Trip: Final Part

OK, so I know we've missed to free game Fridays in a row now, but this is the final part of this story, so I'll try and get something special for you next week.

Anyway, after finishing up our business in Kyoto, we headed to our penultimate destination, Ise Jingu, also known as Ise Grand Shrine according to Wikipedia

So what Ise Jingu is in simple terms, is a huge ass temple thing.  It's an extremely pleasant place to be and there is quite a lot to see as you walk around the temple grounds.  For those who enjoy their Japanese video games, the shrine is dedicated to Amaterasu so you should get a kick out of the shrines religious lore if you're into shit like Okami.

There isn't really a lot to say about Ise Jingu, it's something you really just have to see and experience for yourself, so if you want to know everything about this place you might want to book a plane ticket, although there are a few things I can talk about.  At the entrance to the shrine, there is this bridge over a very pristine looking lake. 

After you cross it you get to walk around the temple grounds, covered in greenery and general pleasantry.  Even if you don't give a fuck about shrines, you'd still get a kick out of this place if your into scenic walks.

So the first stop we made after getting into the grounds was this place

I'm not too sure the religious significance of this thing, I think it has something to do with purifying yourself, but I won't pretend like I'm clued up on the whole thing.  What you did was pick up a water scoop thing and pour the water from the big stone basin over your hands.  I may be ignorant to it's purpose, but what I can say is that it was the most refreshing feeling I've ever had.  It was so much purer and cleaner than just regular water and you could feel it, I wanted to dunk my face in it but that would have been disrespectful.

The stop after that was another coin box up a staircase

If you remember what I said in the last part about the 5 yen and the little prayer, it was more of the same thing.

The final stop as part of the whole shrine thing that we made was a little thing of stones not too far from the exit.

I was told that these things are power stones, and that standing near them is supposed to give you energy or something.  Nearby there were a few people holding out their hands towards the stones, so I thought I would try it myself.  I'm not usually one for this kind of thing, and maybe it was some kind of placebo effect, but I swear I felt something on the palms of my hands, weird stuff indeed.

Anyway, the last thing we did in Ise was hit up another old timey road and eat something called Akafuku

It's this sweet thing made of Mochi and Anko.  Mochi is extremely chewy and Anko is very sweet, and while I didn't think I'd enjoy eating something like that, it was actually pretty tasty.

So after walking around there for a bit, we hopped in the car again and headed to the beach.  There isn't really much to say, it was a classic trip to the beach with swimming and getting burnt to death and not being able to see anything due to salt water in the eyes, but it was really fun.

After that, we headed back to Nagoya and I got dropped off at my apartment, where I then immediately made a blog post!  So that concludes this story of my road trip round Japan!  I hope you've had fun with it, and starting from tomorrow its back to the gaming.