Cheapness is goodness vol.1

When I travel alone, I usually eat in first food shop or diner. I'm not gourmet but hungry.

It was tough to me finding the diner in Iran. First of all, the number of restaurants was small. Secondly, the working hour was short and closed on Friday (Islamic holiday). I could not expect food stall things except Theran. In the quite tough situation, I got a life saver. It's a hamburger shop which is generally run by a young owner. Allured by the good smell and I went into the burger shop.
You may say "Eating a hamburger in Iran? Oh, it's nonsense" However the hamburger which was cooked by the young owner in quite rough style was really tasty. Price's around 2 USD. The burger's neatly wrapped by the tin foil. Four times big as the Japanese one. Yummy! I visited next evening too. Although I hardly found the shop. Because almost all shops in town were closed the shutter. I guess on a day before holiday the working hours were shorten. But it's just 6:30 in the evening.

So I had to find another place to eat. And finally I found a cafe. I looked over the menu. Sandwich, hamburger ... "OK, so I'll have a burger" As soon as a hot burger was settled on the table, I sucked it. Two female college students at opposite table asked to me. "Are you really such a hamburger crazy?" "Ah ... Ya. Could eat three times in a day" "OK, So we'll tell you most delicious burger shop in this city (Yazd)" "Oh, Yes please" "Cesar Fastfood on Azardi St." "Thanks! I remember the name"

As soon as I came back to hotel, I asked about the burger shop to the receptionist. "Yes, of course I know the shop sir. Delicious " "It's near from here?" "Unfortunately on the opposite side of the city. So you need take a taxi. Around 7 USD for the round trip" 7 dollar taxi ride for 2 dollar hamburger .... "Well, I gotta leave the city tomorrow night. So I'll stop by the burger shop before it" Then the receptionist remember something "Oh I'm sorry. The shop will be closed coz Friday(holiday) tomorrow" I was disappointed. If you stay in Yazd, please remember the name "Cesar Fastfood" on Azardi St.

Now I flight back to Japan. Once I wrote in this column "How much a sandwich of Japan's convenience store gets to small?" However if you look over products in the convenience store now, you may notice everything gets small. Feel like I became Gulliver. On the contrary, the price is going up. Breads are noticeable. Reduced 30% in content, increased 30% in price. The word "Price hike" is replace to "New price", and "Lowered calories" for "Reducing contents" I saw a something thin slice in the bread section. "Outer skin of melon pan 76 JPY" Imagine it's a small piece of melon flavored outer skin.

In Japan's bubble economy period, products became more gorgeous and price's raised. Japanese products in those days are relatively high-quality because makers took a cost. However now in Japan the cabinet made a consensus "Price hike is virtue". As a result most of the products are just price hiked with diminishing contents and quality. "Our price increase rate has not reached to 2% yet?" Are you kidding, Mr. Governor of Bank of Japan? What are you measuring? No, I'll not complain in this issue.

In such a convenience store, recently I got another Salvador. It's a self-service drip coffee and donut. 100 yen (85cents) for each. Reasonable, and the coffee is tasty enough. For donut ... umm ... not bad. The Coffee and donut of convenience store make me recall a Deli (or Delicatessen) in my old NY days. (After all, whichever I travel or not I have got most of my energy from first food or junk food) A regular coffee in the paper cup was 65 cents. Donut was also 65 cents up, I remember. Well, it's a price of 25 years ago. The regular coffee had extremely weak taste like brown colored water. Compare to that, 85 cents barista's choice, it's said on the machine, coffee in Japan's convenience store has great value.