Discover the joys of grab-and-go snacks at this Japanese-style convenience store

Step into Domo 39 successful St Peters and look up: there’s an artwork crafted from 10 kilograms of atom connected the ceiling. It’s a hint to this cafe’s specialties: the triangle shapes evoke onigiri (Japanese atom balls) recovered successful the adjacent fridge and the soft-serve cones topped with swirls of “rice cream”.

If you’ve been to Japan, you’ll consciousness a blessed consciousness of deja vu astatine Domo 39. That’s due to the fact that this grab-and-go eatery pays tribute to konbini: the nation’s famously large convenience stores.

Takana and shiso onigiri.Steven Siewert

If you’ve ne'er witnessed the around-the-clock glow of Japan’s 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson stores, you mightiness wonderment however these shops person gained culinary hall-of-fame presumption successful a onshore besides renowned for sushi temples and Michelin-starred omakase restaurants.

You mightiness find the answers connected Google (which surfaces articles specified arsenic “Every astonishing happening you’ve heard astir Japanese convenience stores is true”) oregon if you person the question fund to acquisition the neon-lit rows of ovum sandwiches, onigiri and bento boxes archetypal hand.

But if you can’t, Domo 39 is simply a worthy consolation prize.

The all-purpose joys of Japan’s convenience stores are wide to the cafe’s co-owner Eugene Leung, who was precocious successful Kanagawa, southbound of Tokyo. “My wife’s Japanese. So we took our nine-month-old to spot her family,” helium says.

With a eating docket centred astir a baby’s needs, helium ended up buying galore konbini dinners: grabbing convenience-store classics, specified arsenic famichiki (fried chicken), and caller favourites specified arsenic vermicelli with mentaiko (cod roe) and takana (mustard greens). Sure, eating these meals implicit the edifice country descend wasn’t the astir glamorous setting, but the tastiness of his konbini haul transcended that. “I thought, this is conscionable the champion thing,” helium says.

Cups of atom cream.Steven Siewert

Domo 39’s squad includes acquainted faces from Leung’s different cafes, specified arsenic Dika Prianata (his spouse astatine Marrickville’s Kurumac) and Ophelia Ng (his aged manager astatine Kirribilli’s Cool Mac), arsenic good arsenic caller collaborator, Mapo Gelato’s Matteo Pochintesta. They marque their people crossed the menu: the Swamp (a matcha blistery chocolate) is thing Ng created during her Cool Mac days. Don’t beryllium dissuaded by the murky sanction – your archetypal sip volition corroborate it’s flat-out delicious.

Also great: Domo 39’s iced matcha banked with the lively, citrus punch of yuzu juice.

Pochintesta’s scoops astatine Mapo Gelato are among the city’s best, truthful his soft-serve twirls astatine Domo 39 are understandably a drawcard. You tin effort seasonal specials (such arsenic a strawberry flavour truthful fruity and vivid, it feels similar summertime has been revived) oregon the signature atom cream, which shares the pure-form blankness of its cardinal ingredient. You tin sprinkle Japanese toppings implicit your cups and cones, specified arsenic toasty atom puffs, kuromitsu (black sugar) and kinako (toasted soybean powder).

While Domo 39 doesn’t person the multi-aisle magnitude of accepted konbini, there’s a choky enactment of bento boxes, filled with everything from yasai yakisoba (stir-fried noodles with vegetables) to sweet-and-sour chickenhearted nanban, positive a scope of onigiri stuffed with ginger pork and egg, tuna and mayonnaise, mentaiko and chives oregon vegetarian-friendly fillings, similar takana oregon shiso konbu. They’re served blistery astatine your array oregon you tin swipe them consecutive from the fridge.

“[It’s] been astonishing to spot radical coming in, grabbing an onigiri connected their mode to work,” says Leung. “That makes maine consciousness lukewarm wrong – that radical successful Australia person embraced that alternatively of [more] avocado connected sourdough. There are different things to devour for breakfast.”

The matcha Swamp.Steven Siewert

And erstwhile the somesthesia drops, that mightiness see miso soups and different warming dishes.

Domo 39’s hard-working fridge besides includes portable joys from different postcodes,
such arsenic bento cakes from Ryde’s Enze (the bakery’s chiffon slices, topped with rosewater and lychee mousse, are similar a cherry-blossom viewing: beauteous successful pink).

The shelves besides showcase a rainbow of Japanese-inspired shortbreads and chocolates from Melbourne’s Mame Cocoa, which are hard to find successful Sydney and are top-tier sweets. Also connected the support are the owners’ favourite Japanese market items, specified arsenic Happy Turn atom crackers.

“We’re trying to banal things that are a small spot different,” says Leung.

Domo 39’s sanction is simply a playful notation to saying “thank you” successful Japanese. It’s apt, due to the fact that I’m grateful Leung and his squad person brought the lukewarm glow of Japan’s konbini stores present – nary passport flex necessary.

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