| Chinese restaurants in California and around the globe | | | | a Belgian chocolate bun. |
| serve pork buns. Barbecue-flavored pork and other | | | | Family Mart shows 11 different options including pizza, |
| ingredients are cooked, stuffed inside a bun, and | | | | curry, and a variety of pork and an buns. One of the |
| steamed. Little stands on the street offer pork buns as | | | | pork buns is a spicy bun, including kimchi while another |
| do exquisite dim sum restaurants like City View in San | | | | uses the same kind of pork slices as you can find in |
| Francisco. | | | | bowls of steaming hot ramen. The completely new |
| When I am in San Francisco, walking down Market | | | | variety Family Mart offers is a yakisoba bun. Yakisoba |
| Street or people-watching on Union Square, I will buy a | | | | is a fried noodle dish in Japan that is somewhat like |
| soft pretzel to eat. In Japan, I will stop my car at a | | | | chow mein. The bun is simply stuffed with fried |
| convenience store, probably one of Japan's | | | | noodles. Lastly, for desert, you can buy a pudding bun. |
| approximately 12,000 Seven-Elevens, and buy a bun. | | | | I have never tried the desert versions of the buns, nor |
| Like at a drive-in, most people eat in the car. | | | | have I heard people speak of them. I remember the |
| Convenience stores rarely very provide benches. | | | | ice cream trucks of the suburban phase of my |
| Japan has adopted and adapted this style of bun. | | | | childhood, hearing them from far away, worrying that |
| When you are hungry, biting into a hot bun on a cold | | | | getting money from my mother and getting back |
| winter day is one of the small pleasures in life. While | | | | would take too long, but inevitably making it back on |
| such buns are available at street stands and in | | | | time for a piece of cold childhood delight. Americans |
| restaurants, and frozen in supermarkets, many people | | | | talk of the ice cream trucks and they live on in our |
| get their buns at convenience stores such as | | | | memories. Japanese speak of the sweet potato |
| Seven-Eleven, Lawson, Family Mart, Save On, Circle K | | | | trucks that sell baked sweet potatoes. While sweet |
| Sunkus and Ministop. Some ingredients look familiar and | | | | desert buns are sold almost everywhere in Japan, |
| some do not. The most unfamiliar ingredient to | | | | they are not yet fond childhood memories or the stuff |
| Americans may be an, which is a sweet bean paste | | | | of popular culture. Maybe they will be some day. |
| known by a variety of names. We searched the web, | | | | The Seven Eleven menu presents 13 different buns |
| looking at convenience store websites to see their bun | | | | including many varieties of pork and an buns as well as |
| menus. | | | | two pizza buns, one featuring melted cheese. Normally, |
| While Lawson and Save On do sell many buns, their | | | | a pizza bun refers to just the red pizza sauce without |
| websites fail to clearly present the kinds of buns they | | | | any cheese. Seven Eleven also offers two pink desert |
| sell. So, I would just like to comment on a Save On | | | | buns called Sakura Buns which include an and other |
| pork bun that we did find. Shaped like a pig with a | | | | ingredients. The buns are named after cherry |
| snout sticking out, two floppy ears, and two dark eyes, | | | | blossoms; sakura is Japanese for cherry. For a |
| the fast food art embraced the Japanese concepts of | | | | different desert, Seven Eleven offers three small buns |
| cute and food presentation. | | | | together, one white, one yellow, and one brown for |
| After seeing the piggy pork bun, I no longer went to | | | | about the price of a regular bun. Each bun is a |
| Seven-Eleven. I started stopping at Save On. Some | | | | different flavor: salty caramel, maple syrup, and |
| Save Ons sold the piggy pork bun to silent purchasers. | | | | chocolate. |
| Shiori, age eight or nine, and her grandmother, who | | | | The Circle K Sunkus menu lists 14 different buns |
| was over 60, were two of the more vocal purchasers. | | | | including a variety of pork buns and curry buns. The |
| Shiori, spoke first, "That pig is just so cute!" They talked | | | | curry buns include a chicken and cheese curry bun and |
| at length about the cute floppy ears, the cute snout, | | | | a cheese curry bun. Like Seven Eleven, Circle K |
| and the cute pig shape. | | | | Sunkus has mini buns too. |
| Returning to bun offerings, the smallest menu on the | | | | In most of Japan, you are never far from a |
| web, at Ministop, shows seven different buns: Two | | | | convenience store. Steaming hot buns await in winter, |
| varieties of pork buns; two varieties of an buns; a | | | | but very few convenience stores offer the full menus. |
| spicy seafood bun made from shark fin, shrimp, and an | | | | The cases used to heat the buns may just not be big |
| flavored with oyster sauce and other ingredients; a | | | | enough. |
| shrimp and pork bun flavored with salt; and for dessert, | | | | |