One thing I was not expecting to see in the land of the rising sun is our good old Costco, even though it’s common knowledge that the corporation has spread all across the world. The best part in this case – all the finer booze and seafood products right at our fingertips thanks to Costco membership being accepted worldwide. We set off to stock up for the next few days, as well as for me to peep the prices and overall inventory difference from our stateside stores since it was if a 10 minute drive from my first base of operations over here.
Quite the different selection of goods here from the States, namely with the abundance of all sorts of seafood and booze.
Prices are quite reasonable as well and absolutely worth it considering plenty of fresh catch compared to our sad, farmed splashers when it comes to Salmons. And US prices for something like Sockeye Salmon are through the roof let alone everything else. Overall not bad at all and exactly as expected.
The meat section had plenty of a selection and reasonable prices as well, and surprising abundance of lamb that we don’t really have stateside aside from huge frozen bleeters.
About 4000Y for 2 thicc steaks sounds about right in terms of price, and lamb was appropriately priced at 428Y/kg. Lack of Halal as a concept definitely makes the meat cheaper.
Now the stuff we all know all too well – the roasted birds that are practically free here in the States.
798Y for the whole bird is almost literally adjusted for the exchange rate to our $4.50, but being a relative $8 doesn’t make it a cheap and fun dinner idea. The fancier charcoal grilled spread was 1700Y for what looked to be about 2 whole birds, so even more expensive… It’s almost as if they are getting these birds shipped from the States, and I hope that’s not the literal case regardless of how ironic it would be.
Now we proceed to the tried and true of most Costco visits – the food court menu and pricing.
180Y was once again a direct conversion to our $1.50 so it makes it almost an equivalent. Y380 for a slice of pizza is where things start to go quite a bit south because the local equivalent would be an almost $4 of a Costco pizza slice. Somehow over the last decade Japan still hasn’t solved their cheesy problem and pizzas still costs 2-3X that that we can get them for here in US and A, not to mention the sizes being quite a bit smaller.
Costco keeps the size the same old 18″ and it is more of a supreme that plain pepperoni or just cheese we can have for $9.99, and this is definitely one of better deals out there since Domino’s we can get for $6.99 is about $25 over in Japan to this day. $20 is much more of a commitment than $10 for a fun little thing like pizza, so even if it levels out considering the extra toppings – seeing a $20 price tag is still jarring for a price club pizza.
Seafood Take & Bake is interesting, and we’ll never see such a wonder outside of Asia as a whole, but $25 for a 16″ pie makes you hope that the seafood mix in there lives up to the price. I’ll have to try these next time I’m up there to make a proper verdict like I can do with Domino’s.
Kirkland bottled water, however, is not the good old $4 it is here, but a whopping $10.
And this isn’t as surprising to me considering overall water quality in Japan being much, much higher than it is in the States without any government additives. This kind of bottled water is definitely more of a commodity than anything else here.
One of the best things to try in Japan is the tomato juice. No pulp, no salt, straight up fresh tomato flavor you don’t really find anywhere in the western world besides mild Bloody Mary mixes, and even those are a stretch.
So what was our take of the day?
All the goodies needed for my cooking experiment and plenty of beverages to help the process along. The main outlier here being Michelin car tire/wheel carrying bags that I’ve never seen in my life, let alone at a Costco, so those were an absolute must grab for me to help lug and store my rims around my house.
So long Costco of the perfect variety of all things but pizza that I personally care about and prefer!
And the real haul was to make the first proper evening back in Japan a proper one to say the least. The most notable here is the Orion Watta aka non-carbonated, flavored boozy drink. Orion being an Okinawan brewing company does not really offer a huge selection of beers to my knowledge, so seeing a non-seltzer kind of fire water made by them absolutely peaked my interest and was rightfully so – guava with alcohol done absolutely right as were the rest of the flavors!
So this was the way the Costco cookie crumbled last year in Ibaraki, Japan. It was a real delight to see despite the overpriced, albeit better pizzas to that of our home stores.
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