Sandwiches from Japanese convenience stores (or konbini, if you go by the local lingo) are surprisingly tasty for many visitors who discover them for the first time. During the recent Tokyo Olympics, some reporters couldn't stop raving about them. Just as one example, you can see the variety of tasty sandwiches 7-Eleven offers here.

But, just like Olympic reporters, most tourists who come to Japan and experience konbini sandwiches eventually go home, and oftentimes, those Japanese-style sandwiches are nowhere to be found in their neighborhoods. Of course, you could make that special fluffy Japanese shokupan milk bread from scratch, get a precision bread slicer (like this one we happen to sell on grape Shop) to get those precisely cut, thin slices, remove the crusts, shape them into perfect squares and try to make one at home...

But if you don't have the time or patience or you simply want a little something to remind you of your trip to Japan and motivate you to plan for your next one, we'd like to suggest these unique Japanese sandwich notebooks!

They're designed to look and even feel just like one of those sandwiches you can get from a Japanese convenience store. And to prove our point, we took some of these notebooks home with us and compared them to the real thing!

Photo by grape Japan

Check out the Japanese sandwich notebook at grape SHOP.

(We use WorldShopping Global. The grape SHOP page is in Japanese, but if you see the WorldShopping widget appear at the bottom of the page, that product can be shipped overseas)

These fun notebooks come in two "flavors": egg salad sandwich and ham & lettuce sandwich. The colors of the notebooks are reminiscent of the bread and the ingredients used in each sandwich!

Photo by grape Japan

We also happened to have these great, eco-friendly Kizara wooden plates made of Japanese cedar on which to place them. You can also buy them at grape Shop.

Putting the sandwiches and the notebooks side by side, you can see the resemblance! Sure, the real thing looks tasty, the notebook may not be as thick with ingredients, but for a notebook, they're a pretty good imitation. Enough to remind you of the real thing...

Photo by grape Japan

As you can see, the cross-section of the notebook was intentionally designed to make it look more like a real sandwich with ingredients inside, and the cover of the notebook is soft and fluffy just like Japanese shokupan bread...In fact...

Photo by grape Japan

...it really makes you want to pick one up and...

Photo by grape Japan

Of course, since this is a notebook, we don't advise actually trying to eat it.

But it is good for writing! As you can see, it has real pages inside, and the paper has a nice texture, too!

Photo by grape Japan

The Japanese Sandwich Notebook is made by a bookbinding and paper processing company. One of the staff members, probably just before lunchtime, saw a sample of thick paper and thought: "It looks delicious, just like sandwich bread," and that inspired this product!

© grape SHOP

Once the soft paper was chosen, there was a process of trial and error to make the product as close as they could to a real sandwich.

The team really had fun in the process. Calling the paper materials "ingredients" and the bookbinding process "cooking," all the parts came together and the final product was realized.

Each set contains two egg sandwich notebooks and one ham and lettuce notebook, for a total of three notebooks.

© grape SHOP

The Japanese Sandwich Notebook also makes a great gift!

© grape SHOP

You can use it as a notebook or just set it up in your room as a decorative piece.

Aren't you tempted to get one and see how soft and fluffy they are?

Check out the Japanese sandwich notebook at grape SHOP.

(We use WorldShopping Global. The grape SHOP page is in Japanese, but if you see the WorldShopping widget appear at the bottom of the page, that product can be shipped overseas)


By - grape Japan editorial staff.