If there's one thing that visitors to Japan consistently mention when it comes to foods they want to try, it's surely sushi.

Depending on your travel plans, you may find sushi carousel chain restaurants with fresh sushi within a convenient distance for your to visit. Sushi restaurants may be easier to find, but they can be very expensive, and there's no guarantee you'll be able to communicate in English, let alone read an English menu, if there's even a menu at all. But what if you have neither?

One option that many first-time visitors to Japan don't think of when they're eager to try some sushi is their local convenience store.

Due to various limitations, most convenience stores won't carry sushi with raw slices of fish, shellfish or fresh sea urchin and the like. However, in addition to rice balls—which deserve a separate article, such as this one—they will usually have sushi rolls with ingredients that have been pre-seasoned and marinated, which still leaves a wide variety of choices.

We visited our local 7-Eleven to show you some examples of the delicious sushi rolls you can find as near as your neighborhood convenience store when you visit Japan.

As a sample, we bought three standard-sized sushi rolls, one with trout and salmon roe, one with tuna, and one with natto. Just like onigiri rice balls, these rolls feature an ingenious wrapper that keeps the nori seaweed separated from the rice and thus crisp until you eat it. We also bought a long, thin natto roll which you can eat right out of the package, already wrapped in nori. Finally, we bought a rectangular sushi featuring marinated salmon.

Sushi Rolls and Marinated Salmon Sushi

Trout and Salmon Roe Roll

First, we tried the trout and salmon roe roll.

We immediately realized that we would need to follow the instructions before we could enjoy it. We'll go through each step in case you're wondering how it works.

First, you peel the plastic strip indicated in 1. all the way down the length of the wrapper and remove it.

You'll see the nori beneath it:

In step 2., you unroll one of the flaps to find nori still sheathed in plastic. In Step 3, you pull off this plastic wrapping and press the nori against the roll to hold it in place.

Finally, you remove the plastic on the remaining part of the wrapper still enveloping the sushi roll...

Stick the remaining nori to the sushi, and quite literally, that's a wrap!

Here's what the roll looks like in its completed form:

You can dig in just as it is, grabbing the roll with your hand. The crisp nori won't get your fingers dirty.

Or, you can cut them into pieces and enjoy them with chopsticks as we did. Incidentally, you can buy a kitchen knife for around 10 USD at thrift shops or Daiso if you didn't pack one in your baggage, and convenience stores often sell paper napkins, paper plates, and plastic cups.

The combination of salmon roe and trout sushi was delicious, and the rice was vinegared perfectly, not too sweet and not too sour. The rice wasn't hard the way cold rice can sometimes be in sushi products you buy outside of Japan. For convenience, you don't need to dip this in soy sauce since the fillings are already seasoned with it. Finally, the nori was fresh and crisp, and had a good flavor.

Tuna Sushi Roll with Soy Sauce

Next, we tried tuna with soy sauce.

Although it wasn't of the kind of quality you may find in a sushi restaurant, it was still quite good. The tuna was fresh, and slightly fatty, and the soy sauce seasoning was mild. Just as with the trout and salmon roe, the seaweed and rice were of good quality as well, so it was a satisfying sushi roll.

All in all, we were rather impressed with the quality of these sushi rolls, considering they were bought from a convenience store.

Marinated Salmon Sushi

This was a different style of sushi which some visitors may not be accustomed to. It features marinated fish, not fresh fish. The salmon trout they used was somewhere between smoked and marinated, and quite flavorful, with a hint of fattiness.

We also enjoyed this one cut up into pieces and eaten with chopsticks...

---

Slim natto roll

The last sushi product we tried was this slim natto roll.

If you're in a hurry and can't be bothered to go through the steps required to put together one of the standard-sized sushi rolls or don't have the appetite for a whole roll, this is a practical solution. You just unpeel the wrapper and eat, just like a Slim Jim.

Natto is an acquired taste, but if you've come to appreciate it, this sushi roll should satisfy you. The natto was fresh and of good quality, and we appreciated the nutty flavor, lightly seasoned with soy sauce.

These are only some of the sushi rolls and other sushi offerings waiting for you at your neighborhood 7-Eleven. Other convenience stores such as Lawson and FamilyMart will also carry their own versions, so when you visit Japan, why not stop by and see what you can find? If you like sushi, chances are you'll be pleasantly surprised!