Convenience store rice balls (known as おにぎり onigiri or おむすび omusubi in Japanese) are perfect for a meal during a break at work or as a snack when you're on an outing. Do you have a favorite filling?

Competitive eater, singer, TV personality and YouTuber ギャル曽根 Gal Sone loves convenience store rice balls.

In this video on her popular YouTube Channel, she compares a large number of rice balls purchased at three convenience store chains: 7-Eleven, Lawson, and Family Mart.

As some of our readers may remember, we've done our own comparison of convenience store tuna mayo rice balls, often ranked as the most popular type, and sure enough, Gal Sone begins her video by focusing on them too.

So then, which tuna mayo rice ball was her favorite?

For starters, Gal Sone offered a pro tip when it comes to tasting convenience store rice balls: They're at their optimal condition immediately after the crispy nori seaweed comes in contact with the rice. Therefore, for the taste test, she insisted on taking her first bite within seconds of removing the film that separates nori and rice in their packaging which, though ingeniously designed to keep nori fresh, confused some reporters covering the Tokyo Olympics last year.

She needed to halve the rice balls so that her assistant could also taste them, but even then, she made quick work of it and was tasting each rice ball moments after opening their packages.

Instead of picking an all-around winner, she ranked her favorites in the four main components of a tuna mayo rice ball. Here's what she came up with:

  • Best for tuna: Lawson
  • Best for mayonnaise: Family Mart
  • Best for nori: 7-Eleven
  • Best for rice: 7-Eleven

She thought all three of them were delicious and generous with the amount of filling but whereas she had difficulty cutting through the Family Mart rice ball, which could be indicative that the nori wasn't as crispy as it could have been, she could cut through Lawson's very easily, so their nori must have been crispier.

Of course, she didn't stop at tuna mayo. There were plenty of other types of rice balls she compared as well. When it came to 明太子 mentaiko, brined and seasoned cod roe, she was able to choose her all-around favorite and it was Family Mart. In fact, she had been a long-time fan of their mentaiko rice balls.

Why don't you watch the video to see all the types of rice balls she tried and compared?


By - grape Japan editorial staff.