Japan is frequently at the forefront of food technology, with many innovations sought out by people curious to try new flavours and products. We like to think that we’re adventurous when it comes to trying food, and during our time in Japan there was no shortage of curious things that we felt compelled to try, from the infamous Japanese Kit Kats, to 2-year-old fermented raw fish, and a whole host of other snacks, some of which may not have gone down so well. Regardless, we’re never put off by anything that looks strange, so when we learned that there was a specialty store in Japan that exclusively sells a variety of unique canned goods, that immediately went on our itinerary as a must-do.

Mr. Kanso

Mr. Kanso is both a specialty store and bar, where you can purchase canned goods and dine on them in-store along with drinks. Despite the association of canned goods with cheapness, Mr. Kanso is anything but. It has almost a luxurious feel like that of a gourmet food store and a fine-dining restaurant, neat and impeccably clean, with a dark interior and low lighting. We thought it would be a better use of our time to buy some canned goods to bring back home to New Zealand, so we forewent the in-store dining experience. You can find a surprising number of Mr. Kanso stores across Japan, which makes it a very accessible experience.

Cans in Mr. Kanso are divided into different price categories, and they’re distinguished by coloured stickers on the cans and price charts around the store. While the store we visited wasn’t huge, there was a fair selection of products ranging from Mr. Kanso-branded products as well as other canned goods that were probably interesting enough to be on their shelves. Products can range from familiar foods such as canned meat, fish, fruit, and meals, to a few more eclectic options like bear meat, and some really unexpected products like canned cake and bread. Not all of these options will be available in each store, but you can take a look through their online shop (Japanese only) to get an idea of what you might find.

Since we didn’t know what to expect, and admittedly these aren’t the cheapest things in the world, we decided to go for four items for a 3-course meal with a side dish – to show a nice range of what to expect.

Course 1: Takoyaki Octopus Fritters

When in Japan, eat as the Japanese eat, right? Takoyaki (たこ焼き), also known as octopus fritters, are octopus in batter cooked in a shaped griddle to give it a spherical shape. It is often topped with a savoury-sweet brown sauce as well as toppings such as mayonnaise, spring onions, and bonito fish flakes, depending on the style. Takoyaki is one of the famous items from Mr. Kanso, and since it is a famous Japanese dish, it was a no-brainer going into our basket.

Opening up the can, we were surprised to find that the fritters are much larger than the bite-sized balls we ate in Japan – these were monstrously huge and coated in an orange-brown glaze. Our biggest concern was the texture, as the canning process includes a period of heat and pressure processing that we were sure the batter-based balls would not hold up against, and we were not wrong.

While the flavour was tolerable, the texture was unbearably mushy, disintegrating on first bite in the same way as bread soaked in water. Worse still was that there were very few pieces of actual octopus in the fritters, meaning that teeth weren’t really required to eat these. A fun experience, but at ¥550 (US$4.85) for a can of about 4 pieces, it’s certainly not one that we’d want to go through again, thanks.

Course 2: Karaage Fried Chicken

Our second course was karaage (からあげ), which is Japanese-style fried chicken. Bite-sized pieces of chicken are marinated in soy sauce, ginger, and garlic, then dredged in flour and then fried, sometimes twice, resulting in flavourful, juicy meat and a light outside coating. The can that we chose was also flavoured with teriyaki sauce and mayonnaise. The karaage was a reasonable ¥350 (US$3.10), though the can itself is quite small.

The karaage stood up much better to the canning process. While the chicken was quite firm (a little dry, actually), it was nice to be able to chew it. The flavour wasn’t anything particular to speak of, tasting a little sweet but mostly of soy sauce, and the mayonnaise was mild at best. It was tasty with rice, but truthfully nothing very different from if you were to have leftover karaage that’s been sitting in the fridge for a couple of days. Enjoyable enough, but not hugely interesting.

Side Dish: Inago locusts

We’ve never tried insects before, and we decided that a good way of doing it for the first time is if the product is heavily seasoned and packaged in a sterile can. These were cooked in the style of kanro-ni (甘露煮), which means simmered with soy sauce, mirin sweet rice wine, and sugar. One pack was an eye-watering ¥650 (US$5.75), but that was a price we were willing to pay for an experience like this.

We weren’t expecting for the locusts to still be very much whole when we opened the can, and it was honestly a bit shocking to be able to see all of the legs and each spiracle on the abdomen so clearly. It’s easier to eat if you think about them in the same light as whole tiny prawns, and the experience was pretty much just as good, if not better. The sweet-salty soy sauce covered up any strange flavour that the locust itself may have contributed, and it was pleasantly tender and crunchy, delicious as a topping with freshly-steamed rice. It’s thanks to the chitin in the exoskeleton of the locust, which, much like the shell of a shrimp, doesn’t break down in the pressure-canning process. This one is highly recommended.

Course 3: Gateau Chocolat Chocolate Cake

We couldn’t leave Mr. Kanso without picking up something sweet. We decided not to go with the canned chocolate (which was literally just chocolate rattling inside of a can. Chocolate would not need to be heat-treated as there is no moisture, meaning it would not support microbial growth), and instead went with a lovely little chocolate cake priced at a ridiculous ¥500 (US$4.40).

The cake was very much stuck to the walls of the can rather than a cake sitting inside the can, so we suspected that a batter was poured into the can and that was left to cook during the pressure-canning process. It came out in a clump and had a fairly homogeneous texture like a chocolate truffle, so we expected it to feel like a chocolate ganache. However, it also had a weird and offensive smell like that of burned rubber or plastic that carried through in the taste. It was a little bit difficult to get over, especially as it didn’t taste particularly of chocolate or cake. This one is a complete miss for us.

Mr. Kanso
Multiple Locations
Website (Japanese only) Online Store (Japanese only)

Note: Prices may have changed since our visit in June 2019.

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