olive oil, balsamic vinegar and cereals

Hi all,

could you please let me know if Olive oil, Balsamic vinegar and breakfast cereals are products easy to find in groceries shops in Tokyo ?

Many thanks,
Alice and Kelly

Breakfast cereal: Yes. Not sure about the others but I'm pretty certain they'll have olive oil. If you are self-catering, anything unusual/home comforts can usually be obtained from an International Supermarket on a shopping run at the start of your holiday.

http://www.realestate-tokyo.com/news/international-supermarkets-in-tok...

The Kinokuniya International Supermarket, Aoyama Street has an entrance that looks like a small florists in a tower block. Go down the escalator and you are in one of the most amazing food stores I've ever seen.

Ordinary supermarket chains like Peacock have all the basic things, but the labels are all in Japanese (unsurprisingly), so you'll often have to go by the pictures on the packet. The Natural House chain is great for organic/small farm produce.

http://www.naturalhouse.co.jp/shops/
[Run it through Google Translate.]

Most of what you need to survive on can be obtained from convenience stores (konbinis) which are huge chains with good grocery ranges and decent prices-there are konbinis everywhere in Japan. Food is fairly cheap there.

There are videos of supermarket and konbini walkthroughs on YouTube that should put your mind at rest.

I live out in the country, so generally if my stores have things, most do around the country. Note that you can find almost anything in Tokyo, but out where I live I can't find a lot of stuff, and it also depends a lot on where you are. I assume you're talking Tokyo, but just in case you aren't, here's an idea of what I can find in my rural area:

Cereal, yes. However don't expect your favorite brand... they have granola and corn flakes, chocolate flakes, and a few other things, but it's a pretty small choice, and expensive for what you get. Recently Costco has had Honey Nut Cheerios... I do wish they had regular cheerios, but I'm not going to complain!

Olive oil, you'll be fine. There's plenty, and a number of different brands. If you have a hard-to-get favorite, consider bringing it from home, but otherwise you'll have choice here.

Balsamic Vinegar I have not seen in regular grocery stores, but import stores like Kaldi or liquor stores like YamaYa that have import foods.

Hope that helps.

I live in Tokyo (not really central, though), and yes I can get all of that in my local big supermarket. WHen it comes to cereals, the Japanese branded ones are quite small in quantity, so we get them at import store (regular price range, not up-market) in larger bags.

Are you going to be traveling to or living in Japan?

thanks very much for your answers guys, much appreciated. We will be on holidays, self catering.

Olive oil is ubiquitous and balsamic vinegar is fairly commonplace in Japanese supermarkets. Breakfast cereals are also readily available but maybe not the specific brands or types that you may be used to.

If you're self-catering for economic reasons, don't worry too much - I just came back from a month in Japan and found it really easy to eat well for very little money, without cooking! The convenience stores have so many options and so well-priced, and there are plenty of food chains that serve cheap but delicious and filling meals (really loved CoCo Ichibana curry house!). But regarding your items, I saw them all in grocery stores across Japan (my friend and I like visiting foreign supermarkets, great intro to the culture). If you want Western cereal brands, there are also stores that import popular foreign foods scattered about.