Ham and Cheese Sando (ハムチーズサンド)
Ham with processed cheese slice and mayo on shokupan.
Ham with processed cheese slice and mayo on shokupan.
A Fukuoka sando built on karashi mentaiko: thousands of tiny pollock eggs that pop with salt and chilli heat, cut by butter or cream cheese on soft shokupan. Hakata's signature, with a Korean past.
The whole sandwich is engineered for the cut. Beef sirloin breaded and plunged briefly into hot oil yields three colours between shokupan, the ruby red centre held at slicing temperature.
Someone spoons a hot macaroni gratin from its dish onto bread and hands it over to eat standing up. The gratin sando is a casserole talked into lunch, a fork-and-oven dish made to hold still by hand.
Goya (bitter melon) stir-fry in sandwich; very Okinawan.
Modern gourmet sandwiches at specialty shops; Instagram-worthy, premium ingredients.
Gluten-free bread sandwiches; rice bread or alternative grains.
Ginza-area premium katsu sando shops; high-end beef and pork.
The Genghis Khan sando folds Hokkaido's jingisukan, mutton seared off a domed cast-iron grill, into soft shokupan with an apple-and-soy tare and sweet cooked cabbage and onion.
Garlic butter toast; accompaniment to pasta or steak.
East-West fusion sandwiches; creative combinations.
Fruit sando with mascarpone cream; richer, Italian-influenced.
Fruit sando using custard cream instead of or with whipped cream.
Japanese French toast; often uses thick shokupan, very custardy, served as dessert or breakfast.
Fresh figs and cream; autumn seasonal delicacy.
Family Mart egg sandwich; each chain has devoted fans.
Toast topped with egg preparation; various styles.
Cut one in half and read the face: not a curl of prawn with gaps, but a single even band of pale shrimp edge to edge. That uniformity is decided before any bread is involved.
Whole breaded fried shrimp (ebi fry) on shokupan with tartar sauce; prawns remain whole rather than minced.
Doria, Japan's baked gratin of buttered rice under béchamel and browned cheese, scooped from its dish into shokupan, where milk bread inherits the bakeware's job of holding it together.
Department store basement (depachika) sandwiches; premium quality, beautifully packaged.
Department store katsu sando; often from famous tonkatsu restaurants.
Department store fruit sandwiches; showcase premium seasonal fruits.