00:02 John Daub: Ah, hello everybody. Do you see these sandwiches in front of me? This is the great Japanese egg sandwich competition. We've got Lawson's, Family Mart, and 7-Eleven here with us. And I'm going to introduce all three of these and we're going to try it out. Recently, these Japanese egg sandwiches have gotten popular once again. I mean, every time tourists come here, it's one of the things that you kind of have to have. Yes, that is a Tokyo Skytree right there.

00:34 John Daub: And seeing everybody else react to this also makes me want to have a sandwich too. But I've never actually, that I remember, compared just the egg sandwiches to the three big convenience stores here in Japan. So that's what we're going to do today. Once again, this is the competitors here. This is 7-Eleven. This one was the most expensive. It came out to a little bit over 300 yen with taxes. I think it was 302 yen or something like that. But just as you can see here, 302 yen. It's got 391 calories. It's called the tamago sando (egg sandwich). And the eggs look quite mixed up. It's not very chunky, but it's thick. And you have more egg than you do bread. And that's always a good sign.

01:39 John Daub: All right, next up here is the Lawson's sandwich. Now Lawson's is, I don't know, it's always been like third ranked with the sandwiches, I feel. I've never gotten one that I liked as much as the other ones. This one was cheaper. It's, with the tax, it's 279 yen. How many calories in there? 296 calories. So a little bit less than 7-Eleven. And you can see there's less egg than 7-Eleven. So I don't know if this is going to be a factor in it. But it seems like we're going to be tasting more bread than egg. And that's a no-no.

02:10 John Daub: All right, last but not least, we have Family Mart, which has been doing really well with their food. They've been a lot more competitive. 7-Eleven, of course, is on the top. And Family Mart, I don't know. It's like, if it's not the same, it's just a little bit under. And I'll kind of talk about this at the end of it. Let's take a look at the Family Mart. There's the Famichiki Kitchen mark from Family Mart. A lot more egg than Lawson's. It looks slightly different than 7-Eleven's. This is also called the tamago sando. And it's the cheapest. With tax, it came out to 270 yen. So how many calories in there? 414 calories. So this is 100 more calories than the Lawson's one. Over 100 more calories. That is significant. Maybe it's because it's just heavier. You know what I should have done? I should have brought a scale and checked the weight. You know, that's the one thing that I didn't do. Anyways, that's what the next live stream is for. And I'm sure we'll have a grand competition between them in the future.

03:24 John Daub: Now, last but not least, for dessert, I got this. This is a torotoro yude tamago (soft-boiled egg), which is basically an ajitama (marinated soft-boiled egg). You can see it's a soft-boiled egg. It's the one they put in the ramen. And you can buy this just as it is. Look at that. It's kind of cool that you can do that. And it was about 120 yen or something like that. So you could throw this into your own ramen if that's something that you were really into. So we're going to try this at the end. But I only saw this at 7-Eleven, but I bet you the other convenience stores have something similar. This live stream has been brought to you by Arthur Vandelay. Thank you, sir. How you doing? Nice to see you yesterday as well. All right, let's try it.

04:15 John Daub: I'm going to let you guys vote here. Which one should go first, the 7-Eleven, the Family Mart, or the Lawson's? It's totally up to you. As I open these sandwiches, I'm going to let you guys vote. I still have to open it up. I think a lot of you know where I am. This is the usual spot here.

05:45 John Daub: 7-Eleven. This is 7-Eleven. And this one is Lawson's. Family Mart, 7-Eleven, Lawson's. And the 7-Eleven one kind of toppling over. We can't have that. Oh, that's beautiful. High-quality production you expect. All right. All right, that's enough of that. I think everyone's walking by and looking at me like I'm some sort of weirdo. Which one looks the best. Just look at it like from this angle here. I'm gonna have to say... Michael Cesaro's here! I've had this tamago sando from both 7-Eleven and Lawson's and by far 7-Eleven is the better one. All right. I forget which one. I think I said that Family Mart is on the right, in the center 7-Eleven, and on the left is Lawson's. Lawson's stands the most straight. But it seems like the amount of egg in these other sandwiches is significant. So I'm already guessing that 7-Eleven's is gonna be the better one. Not only is it creamier, it just looks...

07:22 John Daub: Oh, I dropped a sandwich. Oh crap. It's the end of that one. All right, let's get on with it. No more horseplay. I'm just gonna get myself into trouble. All right, let the great tamago sando competition go. We only have one Lawson's. That was the Lawson's. So, I'm gonna go ahead and get this. So that's... it's okay. I'll let me... I'm about to pick out some of the dirt from the Lawson's here. All right, we're gonna start with the Lawson's. Here we go. I go straight to the center to be unbiased. Let's go right down the center. Hmm. I mean, it's good. See, I don't think Lawson's expects anybody to compare one sandwich to another. I mean, it's good, but it's not... it's not... is it 7-Eleven good?

08:34 John Daub: Let's try the next one here, which is 7-Eleven. Oh, man. Okay. Creamy. Creamy with some egg white chunks. It's... it's definitely better. There's nothing wrong with the Lawson's one, but you can tell like 7-Eleven said, how do we make this better? And they did.

09:06 John Daub: And now the Family Mart one here. Oh my gosh. Ah. Itadakimasu (phrase said before eating). That's interesting. I'm gonna... I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna try each one of them again. Now that I know which one... Wow! The Family Mart is also very... Look at the mess that I have. Family Mart is also very... very good. It's got more egg taste to it, but in a pleasant way. It's also got a hundred more calories or 30% more calories. So whatever they did is definitely good. We call it a tamago sando. It's not really an egg salad sandwich, Daniel. It's a Japanese version of it. So it is quite different.

10:10 John Daub: All right, the winner is Family Mart. And I did not expect that. I'm actually in shock a little bit. The Family Mart wins. All right, now we're gonna go back in here. Here's the Lawson's. Too bready. The egg... the tamago in there, the egg is good, but it's too bready. Too much bread taste. It's unbalanced. 7-Eleven, the bread and egg come together. Very, very even. Good consistency with the bread. The bread's taste is not too overpowering. The eggs... There's not a battle going on for who's gonna win the taste.

11:11 John Daub: Yeah, 7-Eleven is very good. All right, now the high-calorie, cheaper... cheaper, Family Mart. Family Mart. I can't believe it. I can't believe Family Mart won. Family Mart is the winner. I can't... I cannot believe it. What!? I thought for sure that 7-Eleven was gonna win, right? But no, it was Family Mart. I mean, who here thought 7-Eleven... I thought 7-Eleven was gonna be the winner. This is where I got it from. No, they didn't win. It's shocking to me. Family Mart is, maybe they added a little bit of mustard into it. I don't know what they did. The bread has more of a mochi-mochi (chewy) consistency, but the flavor of it does, still acts like a blank sheet of paper for the egg. Lawson's bread is too flavorful. You don't get, and it's not very good quality bread. I mean, you taste it too much. 7-Eleven's is, don't get me wrong, it's really good. It's really balanced. But Family Mart just has, there's something to it that makes it better. And it's cheaper. So on that, it's 20 yen cheaper after taxes. So just buy on that.

12:49 John Daub: If it is mustard, guys, like I don't know what it is exactly, but if it is, if it is mustard, then you can hardly taste it at all. It's not something that is overpowering by any means. It's really, I mean, it's subtle, but it's like the little details that's what makes it a winner. It's like the little teeny things, right? The bread. Now all these sandwiches are the same here. Oh my God, no. They got it all the way to the end of the sandwich. That is rare. Oh my. Do you see that? You see that? It's to the end. They never do that with sandwiches. And this was cheaper. What? All right, let's take a look at the 7-Eleven one. 7-Eleven one. All right. See, they didn't go all the way. It's very close, but they didn't go all the way to the end. Family Mart did. They like made an effort to do it. They didn't do that. That's incredible.

14:07 John Daub: This is the warrior down one. I hate the waste of food. They also went to the edge. I think that this is something, but not really. It's kind of a mess beyond falling onto the ground. But maybe the ducks will eat it. This is fascinating. All right. A lot of you might say like, oh, John, you've done sandwiches before. And I have. But like, I don't think you guys understand that every few months or so, every single company seems to tweak their recipe. They make it better or they find a way to compete. Now, this is Family Mart's Tamago Sando is actually better than 7-Eleven. I bet you 7-Eleven is going to try to do something to tweak the recipe to make it even better. And it is almost worth it, like to do a Tamago Sando convenience store battle. It's always going to be changing.

15:10 John Daub: I got to tell you this point blank. Lawson's really has a long, long way to go. Lawson's wasn't even in the same league. I mean, it's an egg sandwich, but it's not even in the same league, guys. That's insane. One more time, because I'm in disbelief. 7-Eleven, Family Mart, 7-Eleven, Family Mart. Family Mart. Wow. It's just a little bit ahead, but it's obvious. It's like if they're nose to nose, you know who the winner is. It's really close. But I think the 7-Eleven one, the problem is that I can taste the mayonnaise too much, but the Family Mart and it could be just a sandwich that I got. To be honest with you, I bet you if I went back in there, pick that another one would be different. I don't know. It's the luck of the draw. Is that the way it goes? But for this, I mean, the sandwiches should be pretty consistent. So the Family Mart, my gosh, I'm surprised because I think coming into this, we all thought that 7-Eleven would be the clear winner, right?

16:46 John Daub: Yeah, I am on a diet. I probably will be giving this to a stranger. I'm going to put that away so the ants don't get it. All right. We have one more thing. Because I didn't know we have one more thing to eat. Now, this is kind of a cool thing because you can actually get your own ajitama at the convenience store. And it's you have to break the egg open. So I've got to have to find a place to put it somewhere. Let's crack it open here on the move that there. Oh, wow. I think you're supposed to open it from the top. I haven't opened a hard boiled egg in a long time, but already I can tell it's not a hard boiled egg because it's starting to break apart in the center. Oh, that's soft. Oh, wow. OK. All right. I know I did it wrong. There's got to be a way if they can do it in restaurants, you know, it's almost painful. All right. I think we got it here. Ah, it's starting to fall apart. I think this is the reason why they're done at the ramen shops and the customers don't do it themselves because they're people like me. Oh, my. OK. All right. You know what? All right. It's kind of busted open, but I'm not going to complain at all. All protein.

18:28 John Daub: You just saw me open that egg. How do they get it salty like that? The egg is salty. How did they get the salt to go through the shell? What? It's odd. All right, here we go. Whoa. It exploded. How did they do this? How did they do this? Oh, my gosh. It's bursting with flavor. Look at that softness in there. How do they do this? Enter the egg. Oh, I can't even focus on it. It's so amazing. What? Wow. Then look, it's like leaking. It's almost like ice cream. It's cold. A little bit of shell in there. That is so satisfying.

19:54 John Daub: I don't even think you need to get an egg salad sandwich if you don't want to eat. All right. These sandwiches cost about 300 yen. Old man Jenkins right in here. Damn, that looks bomb, bro. I added the bro. If you don't want to eat the egg salad sandwich. Let's say you just want the egg and you're on like a keto diet or something like that. You don't want the bread. Just get three of these eggs. Boom. It's that good. That egg is really good. I could eat just the egg. I could see myself getting three of these eggs and just eating that. This is really good. This is a dollar a dollar. You can get hard boiled and then you can get soft boiled. They call it soft boiled, but it's really like an ajitama, which is something you put in a ramen that has a flavoring to it. And yeah, the hard boiled eggs are 98 yen. Was a hundred and eight or seven yen or something like that with tax. And then this one was probably one hundred and thirty yen. So it's about 20 yen different, but it's still worth it. One hundred and twenty yen each is still cheap. So we had two or three of these eggs. You probably would feel filled up and be very satisfied. It is a little bit salty. There's some sodium in there. But bottom line, we have a winner and the winner is Family Mart and I'm still... Family Mart three times. I'm not even going to go to the Lawson's anymore.

21:28 John Daub: Any questions before we end this live stream here? I'm sure that there are some questions in total. This lunch cost a little bit over a thousand yen or about seven, eight, seven dollars and fifty cents. This live stream is brought to you by not just Arthur and Michael, but the Postcard Club. Join the Postcard Club. And I will send this to you. This is Godzilla versus Mario. And the movie poster was up this week. The week I took this picture. I don't think it's there anymore. And I will put a Pokemon stamp, a Pokemon card stamp on it for you. If you join the club in the next week, because this postcard is over once June 1st hits.

22:14 John Daub: Oh, do you guys see that? Do you see it? How did that happen? The pigeons took the sandwich. Where did they get that? I didn't give it to them. You thieves. Holy smokes. I did not give that to them. It took one. All right. It's illegal to feed the pigeons in Tokyo. Just so you know. So I did not give them that sandwich. You all were here. You saw that I did not give them. So come on, Gimpy. What do we call their gimbal yesterday? I forget. All right. There we go, everybody. Thanks for watching. I'm getting eaten alive by ants, flies and pigeons now.

23:22 John Daub: Do not get the OM6 DJI gimbal. It's not worth it. Go for the DJI SE Special Edition. Old school. The battery is bigger. You can use it as a battery charger and it's more stable. It doesn't have a little selfie stick thing, but you don't really need it. Question. John, can you do a live stream for sushi soon? Okay, maybe. My friend, Randy. Randy Santel is coming to Japan. I don't know. I don't think it's top secret. He's traveling Asia with his girlfriend, who's also an amazing competitive eater. And we set up an appointment to eat that monster gyoza. So I might have another try at it. That gyoza costs nine thousand six hundred yen or about seventy five dollars for one of them and you have an hour to eat it. I've watched before and I got so sick I was hurling, but it was in the middle of July. I probably won't do it. I'll watch them do it. I'm so proud of Randy. He's so darn good and positive at what he does. It's hard not to watch one of his videos at the end, too.

24:37 John Daub: Okay, guys, there you go. Thanks, everybody. I will bring you with another live stream tomorrow. I'll try to go to another neighborhood or something like that. But I heard the monster gyoza is a tad overrated. As a food challenge, it is not as an actual dish. I don't even think that the restaurant owner likes to make it because there's a sign there that they don't do food challenges anymore. But this might be the last one. I talked to him and was able to sort of get permission. It's not easy anymore right now. And I think that they had some trouble with other YouTubers or something. But since I know him, you know, and I filmed there before, it's something that I can do. Everything is negotiable, I guess. But I'm looking forward to seeing him again. They celebrated that restaurant, which is Honten, Kagurazaka Honten. That's the name of the restaurant, Kagurazaka Honten. That's where the jumbo gyoza is. And they celebrated their 50th anniversary. The owner is the second generation and he's still working there. And I was really happy. We're both seven years older because that was the last time I tried to eat the gyoza. But he remembers. And that was a nice reunion that we had here.

25:58 John Daub: Jared writes in here, how is it compared to Daily Yamazaki? I don't know, but I'll tell you this, the big three. That's a great question. But the answer is that, look, I think it's always going to be those big three convenience stores that have the better taste. The reason why is because the Tamago Sando, this sandwich here is the... it's like the main sandwich item. This is one of the staples that convenience stores are famous for. If you can't produce it's like the same with sushi chefs. If you can't produce a good tamago (egg) sushi, just that just the egg, then you can tell that the rest of the sushi is not going to be any good. That's something that a lot of other sushi connoisseurs have told me. If the Tamago is good, you know that they put a lot of effort into that one thing that's supposed to be the simplest, but it's also so complex. That's this sandwich, too, I think for convenience stores. If your Tamago Sando is good, then your convenience store is good. Lawson's Tamago Sando is eh. But Family Mart, man, I don't know competition. Game on. Family Mart versus 7-Eleven. Those two are battling. And you can tell based on the quality of their Tamago Sando.

27:11 John Daub: I've been here for 25 years. I know that the convenience stores are battling one another. They taste each other's foods and compare it and try to one up one another. They do. 7-Eleven has done an amazing job, not just with the supply chain, but also sourcing their ingredients, being more organic, I guess you could say, using butter instead of margarine, for example. Things like this. They understand that the consumer has likes and dislikes and is changing, constantly changing. The Lawson's, I don't think understands that yet. And even their uniforms and the way that they operate is still it feels like 1990 to me, comparatively, for example, touchless payment. And the register. Interaction the way that the registers go. Lawson's still feels like 1990 to me. And 7-Eleven is already you can pick cash. You can pick IC card on a touch screen, and you don't even actually hand the cash to the register. You pay at a lot of the newer 7-Elevens right there into a machine. You don't have to have interaction with the staff. And that's kind of interesting because Lawson staff. I went to three different Lawson's to find a sandwich. They didn't have a Tamago Sando. They had two of them. And at all three of the shops, they had somebody from South Asia working there, which is awesome, I think, as somebody who's half Indian from Mumbai. That's pretty cool. So it was kind of neat to see that they have Lawson's is employing mostly South Asian workers, which is pretty cool. But I think they need to have those registers. I think it would be pretty cool to make it a smoother process going in there. Where 7-Eleven is sort of half and half and they're making the consumer experience, the buying experience much better. For people. And I think that that's great.

28:56 John Daub: The competition is now between Family Mart and 7-Eleven right now, because to me, Lawson's is a really distant third. They got a long way to go. I went to Lawson's that had two Thai staff members speaking Thai. That's really cool. It's starting. I remember in the US in the 1980s, we had a 7-Eleven in our town. And there was a guy with a turban working there. He was Sikh. And I always thought that was kind of cool. But he was really big and tall. That's one 7-Eleven you wouldn't want to rob. No way. Not when there's a guy imposing like that. But he was always pretty cool with the kids in the town. So but now we see in Japan, we're having immigrants coming here and work here. And Japan has set it up where Family Mart or as Peter von Gomm says, Manly Fart. It's starting to be a place where people abroad can learn Japanese. And if you can, you can get a special visa. Now it started back in 2019, but they've revamped it. Just last week. So we're going to see more immigrants coming here, in particular from Philippines, from Vietnam, from Southeast Asia and South Asia, because they actually have companies actually have classes that teach citizens, people who want to work in Japan, Japanese. And if they can pass these tests, they can get the visa to come and work in Japan. And that's kind of, I think, the direction that Japan is going with immigration. They don't become citizens. They don't get permanent residency. They don't get a very special visa. But I think even that's going to continue to evolve because that original visa in 2019, where they could just come here, has gotten a little bit easier. And you can see it's starting to change. And maybe they will become citizens because Japan's population is shrinking.

30:53 John Daub: Family Mart had 30 percent more calories, but it was 20 yen cheaper and more delicious. I don't know if that's a big deal for you, but the final final comment is, Lawson's third, it's out. Family Mart, 20 yen cheaper than 7-Eleven, 270 yen. Tastes better, but has over a hundred calories more. 7-Eleven, 100 calories less. It's more expensive, 302 yen. And it's almost the same. It's got a little bit more mayonnaise taste to it, but it's a very balanced taste. It's just a twinge more. Family Mart was the most balanced and they had something else in it. I don't know what it was, maybe a little bit of mustard or something. They did something with the recipe that they didn't do six months ago. I feel there's the bottom line. If I had to pick, I would pick Family Mart again and I would not eat it at 7-Eleven because it was that good and the fact that they went wall to wall across the bread, I've never seen that before in a sandwich from a convenience store.

31:56 John Daub: All right, guys, thanks so much for watching. I hope this is enjoyable for you and I'll see you in another. Oh, by the way, I am releasing the video tonight on the main channel. So make sure you subscribe to Only in Japan Go. And I'll see you there. Discord as well. We'll have notifications and I'll probably do another live stream tomorrow and talk a little bit about that, too. So see you tomorrow. I'll give you the last view of Tokyo Skytree right now, which is looking pretty good with a Taibashi in the distance. Big, big. That's the tallest freestanding tower in the world, guys. Right there. My lunch for you.