How my “food for office” looks like

Just another random post I’d like to share. Here is an example of what I buy from Family Mart in the beginning of my working day. It usually consists of some drink, caffeine in certain form (coffee/red bull), healthy? snacks, and sometimes lunch.

On this particular day, I had to attend some presentation during lunch time so I did not have time to go out. I bought new sandwich product from Famima to try, along with Peanuts-flavor Soyjoy, smoked squid, veggies drink, and non-calorie fruity tea.

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Why did I select these? Let’s start with the tea. I love non-caloric fruity tea lineup from Dydo. They launched 3 flavors now and I love all. This one I bought is relatively new: pear and rose tea. (Details here)

Next, the Soyjoy! Now this is pretty tricky and controversial. I cannot say that this is completely a healthy choice to make. However, it is still better than other chips or chocolate snacks, or even the claimed “high-fiber” biscuits. The trick is to choose the one with lowest sugar possible. As of now, there are 2 soyjoy flavors I bought: peanuts (this one) and chocolate-almonds (I wrote about it here)

For another item for snacking my way during the morning and afternoon, I selected soft smoked squid! It’s still my favorite no matter how many times I ate it. The whole pack is about 60-70 kcal with about 6 g. of protein. Instead of eating sugary stuffs, I think it’s a pretty good chance to take in more protein! Plus, it’s so aromatic and intense in flavor. Once you put it in your mouth, it’s kinda hard to put down. (and it’s relatively cheap too! 108 yen)

I also bought Kagome veggies drink, just to feel like I’m taking veggies, which is so ironic. haha I don’t fully support people to rely on this kind of drink, but just on the day that you know you won’t have a chance to get a proper serving of salad, this may come in handy. Be sure to get the 100% veggies one and not the one with juice blend.

Last is the new sandwich! I was quite excited about this new sandwich from Famima. Why? It’s rye bread with basil/chicken and colorful veggies fillings. The taste is pretty delicious although the chicken is not that substantial. It’s so yummy and flavorful. The texture is good too: you get a crunch from almonds and green beans which goes well with the softer texture of the bread and basil spread. It tastes quite similar to the salad product I wrote about before. The whole pack is around 350 kcal, so….not too bad I think. However, to be honest, this sandwich though delicious still cannot beat the ones from Starbucks whose both quality and price are higher.

Let me know what you bought from your nearest convenience store!

Milk tea VS ‘Royal milk tea’ : ミルクティーとローヤルミルクティー、どう違ってる?

Actually this post was inspired by one corner of the morning program “ZIP” on Nihon Telebi. It was about finding out the differences in the food in our everyday life that is thought to be the same (that is most people can’t tell the difference). One of the topics raised is Milk tea and ROYAL milk tea! 

To be honest, I have always wondered how can tea be “royal” and what makes it royal when it looks and tastes the same as the general milk tea. I thought it was only the marketing scheme and the printing creativity LOL Turns out, there is a difference anyway.

THE DIFFERENCE lies in the making process. The tea master in a specialist tea shop enlightened us…
Milk tea >> boil the water, put in the tea pot, drop the tea bag or tea leaves, pour the tea into the cup THEN ADD MILK
Royal milk tea >> put tea leaves AND MILK in a pot, boil together before serve

Royal milk tea was first introduced in Japan 55 years ago in 1965 at a tea shop called “Lipton” in Kyoto. Actually, Japan gave birth to this drink, and to give it a little fancy luxury feeling, the word “royal”, meaning to convey the Britain royalty, was added.  So….just to be clear, there is definitely NO royal milk tea thingy in any cafe menu in a tea country like England.

From http://www.ntv.co.jp/zip/onair/hatenavi/index.html

You’ll be amazed how many “royal milk tea” products exist in Japan…for examples…

 

And…there are also the normal milk tea ones…those without the word “royal”…Now I’m really confused if people can actually tell or even care to tell the difference. lol