Are Family Mart’s new “exquisite” rice balls worth the high price tag?

Japanese convenience store chain teams up with esteemed restaurants for a new type of onigiri.

Japanese convenience stores are known for their onigiri rice balls, with each chain doing something slightly different to stand out from the competition. Over at Family Mart right now, you’ll find a couple of new offerings that are so different they’ve been described as “exquisite” online, so we headed on down to our neareast branch to check them out.

What makes these rice balls so special is the fact that they’ve been created under the supervision of a couple of restaurants, with the first one, the “Salmon Meuniere Style (Tartar Sauce)“, which goes by the simpler name “Salmon with Tartar Sauce” in English, supervised by Ueno Seiyoken, an esteemed restaurant that’s been credited with introducing Japan to Western cuisine.

▼ Salmon Meuniere Style (Tartar Sauce)

Upon taking the rice ball out of the bag, the absence of nori makes it look like a plain, salted onigiri but there’s a lot more here than first meets the eye.

First off, it’s deliciously thick, and when you bite into it, or pull it apart for investigative purposes liked we did, you’ll find it’s stuffed with a generous chunk of salmon.

It’s not just the filling that’s impressive — it also contains buttered rice, which gives it a unique Western twist, and a flavour that’s distinct from regular salmon rice balls.

It was a delicious onigiri with high-quality ingredients and an elevated flavour, but if we had one complaint it was that there was very little tartar sauce in the mix, compared to what was shown in the photo on the pack.

Moving on to the next rice ball, this one has an elegant Japanese name that translates as “Pacific Bluefin Tuna Line-Caught in Coastal Waters (With Smoked Daikon Radish Pickles) “, although the English printed on the package simply reads: “Tuna, Pickled Radish“.

Supervised by Sanpi-Ryoron, a Japanese restaurant in Tokyo that’s so popular it’s near impossible to secure reservations, this rice ball is unusual in that it doesn’t combine the tuna with any type of mayonnaise-based sauce.

▼ It does, though, have a familiar strip of seaweed wrapped around it.

The seaweed helps to keep your fingers from coming into contact with the rice, so you can easily slip it out of the bag to eat it with your hands if you so desire. Whichever way you choose to eat it, it’s utterly delicious, with the smoky, soy sauce-flavoured tuna flakes contrasting beautifully with the tart tang of the pickles.

Surprisingly, there seemed to be an element of creaminess in the mix, despite there being no mayonnaise, and when we checked the ingredients list, we found it was likely due to the addition of cheese. This created a sublime contrast with the smoky fish, and it displayed a level of confidence and skill by the restaurant who thought to pair these unlikely ingredients together.

These were exquisite rice balls, but the only drawback to them is the price, with Ueno Seiyoken’s rice ball retailing for 258 yen (US$1.83) and Sanpi-Ryoron’s retailing for 240 yen. This is considerably higher than most convenience store rice balls, which are closer to the 150-yen price mark, so they may not appeal to people on a budget, but if you’re in the mood to try a more exquisite type of rice ball, the extra expenditure is something your taste buds may just thank you for.

It’s a cheaper alternative to actually eating at these fancy restaurants, and a lot more convenient than having to secure a reservation to get a taste of what they’re serving, so these rice balls do have a lot going for them. Sometimes, high-end rice balls really are worth splurging on!

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