We all know sushi and ramen go hand in hand with Japanese cuisine, but Japan has also embraced a surprising array of foreign foods as its own.
In fact, you’ll find these delicious treats – originally from other countries – in cafés, convenience stores, and restaurants all across Japan. Each one has a unique story of how it arrived and became beloved, often with a quirky Japanese twist. Ready to be amazed (and get hungry)? Read on!
3. American-Style Fluffy Pancakes and Waffles
4. Strawberry-Flavoured Everything
5. Eggs on Everything (Egg Salad Sandwiches, Omurice, and More)
6. French Patisserie and Viennoiserie
8. Filtered Coffee – Hot or Cold?
9. Frankfurter Sausages and Hot Dogs
10. Baumkuchen (German “Tree Cake”)
1. Basque Cheesecake
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The Burnt Basque Cheesecake – This crustless “burnt” cheesecake was born in Spain’s Basque region in 1990, but you’d think it was a Japanese invention from how popular it is in Japan.
With its caramelised top and creamy center, Basque cheesecake has gained a reputation as a high-end dessert in Japan – specialist bakeries often have queues of eager customers lining up for a taste. The craze hit convenience stores when Lawson created the mini “Baschee” in 2018, selling over a million in just three days!
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Japanese pastry chefs even put local twists on it, using Hokkaido dairy or adding matcha flavor. You can encounter Basque cheesecake everywhere from 7-Eleven’s chilled sweets section to upscale patisseries in department store food halls.
Don’t be surprised if a Japanese konbini (convenience store) offers a petite Basque cheesecake alongside the pudding and mochi – it’s a cross-cultural delight you won’t want to miss.
2. Hamburger Steaks (Hambāgu)
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Japan has its own take on the hamburger – minus the bun. The Japanese hamburger steak, or hambāgu, started as an adaptation of German/American “Hamburg” steak over a century ago. It became part of yōshoku (Western-style Japanese cuisine) in the late 1800s during the Meiji era.
Unlike a fast-food burger, a hambāgu is a juicy blend of ground beef and pork with breadcrumbs and onions, usually served on a hot plate smothered in a savory demi-glace or soy-based sauce.
It’s often topped with a fried egg (a popular addition that no one is quite sure how it started, but everyone loves). After World War II, this dish became a household staple – a clever way to stretch meat with fillers – and it remains so beloved that most Japanese rank it among their top comfort foods.
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You’ll find hamburger steaks everywhere: family restaurant chains, lunch cafeterias, bento boxes, and mum’s dinner table. Many family restaurants (casual dining chains) like Bikkuri Donkey or Gusto specialize in different styles of hambāgu, sometimes even stuffed with cheese or served in a sizzling skillet.
It’s a fun East-meets-West meal that shows one of the best ways of how Japan can adopt a foreign idea and make it completely its own.
3. American-Style Fluffy Pancakes and Waffles
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Stacked fluffy pancakes dripping with syrup and topped with fruit? Waffles piled with ice cream? Yes, Japan loves them! In fact, a huge “pancake boom” swept Japan starting around 2010, fueled by Hawaiian pancake shops arriving in Tokyo. Famous cafes like Eggs ’n Things (a Hawaii import) opened dozens of Japanese locations, serving American-style buttermilk pancakes with absurdly tall mountains of whipped cream – a sight that amazed even Hawaii natives.
Japanese diners eagerly line up for these insta-worthy treats, associating them with a trendy Hawaiian vibe. The craze spread beyond specialty cafes: you’ll spot pancakes on family restaurant menus and even McDonald’s Japan offering limited-time fluffy pancake specials during the boom.
As for waffles, they’ve found their niche in Japan too. Belgian waffles are sold as street snacks and in train station kiosks (look for a shop called Manneken for a quick maple or chocolate waffle to go). Kissaten (retro coffee shops) often serve thick, buttery waffles with ice cream as a dessert.
Even convenience stores stock packaged pancakes and waffle treats – some stuffed with sweet bean or custard as a Japan-style twist. Tourists can easily get their pancake fix at popular brunch spots like Bills or A Happy Pancake in Tokyo, or grab a waffle at a bakery.
4. Strawberry-Flavoured Everything
Japan adores strawberries (ichigo) – not just the fresh fruit, but strawberry flavour in almost every sweet category you can imagine. When winter rolls around (December to early spring), it’s officially strawberry season and you’ll suddenly see red everywhere in the stores.
Convenience stores transform into strawberry wonderlands: strawberry sandwiches filled with whipped cream, strawberry choco candies, berry-infused sodas, strawberry custard puddings, and more. Classic treats get a pink makeover – for example, 7-Eleven might offer strawberry cream puffs and Lawson might sell strawberry mochi or strawberry roll cakes with famous Japanese Amaou strawberries inside.
The Japanese food industry goes wild with limited-edition strawberry products, and locals eagerly await these seasonal delights each year. Fun fact: Japan has even created its own strawberry innovations, like the strawberry sandwich (ichigo sando) – a slightly sweet milk bread sandwich with whipped cream and whole strawberries, a combo that surprises foreigners but is love at first bite for many!
You can encounter strawberry-flavored goodies at konbini, pastry shops, and dessert cafes especially from January through March. Whether it’s a strawberry KitKat, a carton of strawberry milk, or a strawberry parfait at a diner, you’ll get to taste Japan’s berry obsession in countless forms. It’s berry delightful, to say the least.
5. Eggs on Everything (Egg Salad Sandwiches, Omurice, and More)
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You might not expect it, but Japan is one of the top egg-consuming countries, averaging almost one egg per person per day! This love of eggs shows up in some very Western-inspired dishes that Japan has embraced. Take the famous egg salad sandwich (tamago sando): a simple mix of chopped hardboiled egg and mayo between soft white bread.
Every convenience store sells them, and they’re shockingly delicious – so much so that even Anthony Bourdain raved about Lawson’s egg salad sando as “inexplicably delicious” on TV. The Japanese tweak is using creamy Japanese mayo and fluffy milk bread, creating a comfort food snack that’s now legendary. Then there’s omurice, an omelette over ketchup fried rice, which was invented in Japan around 1900 as a Yoshoku dish blending French omelette technique with Japanese tastes.
Today omurice is served everywhere from home kitchens to maid cafés, where it’s fun for maids to draw ketchup hearts or cartoons on the omelette for you.
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Speaking of omelettes, the French-style soft omelette has also been perfected in Japan – chefs make famously runny omelettes that ooze over rice (as seen in viral videos). Beyond those, you’ll find eggs Benedict in trendy brunch spots, Japanese-style egg drop soup at diners, and of course the ubiquitous ramen egg (Nitamago).
For a truly eggcellent (sorry) time in Japan you should definitely try a convenience store egg sandwich for breakfast and maybe an omurice at a café like Pommes or a department store diner. From breakfast to dinner, Japan has found a way to put an egg on it – and make it oishii!
6. French Patisserie and Viennoiserie
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Stroll through any Japanese city and you’ll notice something surprising: it’s brimming with French-style bakeries and pastry shops! Flaky croissants, buttery financiers & madeleines, delicate canelé (caramelized custard cakes) – all the classics of a Parisian bakery – are readily available in Japan, and often executed to perfection.
Image credit: Travels with Nanno
Japan’s baked goods scene is ridiculous, with bakeries seemingly everywhere. What’s more, these shops are selling authentic European-style products; it’s easy to find croissants, pain au chocolat, and cream puffs that rival those in France . Over the decades, Japanese pastry chefs have trained in Europe or learned techniques to create a thriving yōgashi (Western sweets) culture.
Many Japanese supermarkets and depachika (department store food halls) have sections filled with baguettes, éclairs, macarons, and more. There’s even a Japanese chain that specializes in canelés – Canelé du Japon. Croissants are so popular that 7-Eleven developed a budget version of a famous French patisserie’s croissant. Don’t be surprised to see locals grabbing a croissant and coffee for breakfast or gifting beautifully wrapped mont blancs and mille-feuille cakes on special occasions.
The French connection runs so deep that some say Japan’s croissants might be among the best in the world – it’s a true testament to how wholeheartedly Japan embraces French patisserie.
7. French Toast
Photo by Yasuhisa Shimbo | French toast perfection at Shinjuku’s Cafe Aaliya
Who would expect French toast to be a staple in Japan? Yet it absolutely is – often with a Japanese twist. Many kissaten (old-fashioned coffee shops) and modern cafés alike serve up thick-sliced bread soaked in eggy custard, grilled to a golden brown, and topped with syrup, butter, or even ice cream.
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French toast in Japan can be a breakfast item or a decadent dessert, sometimes appearing on the menu as “Pain Perdu” for a fancy touch. The Japanese version tends to use the fluffy shokupan milk bread, yielding an extra soft and slightly sweet result.
In recent years, some cafés have gone viral for their ultra-fluffy French toasts that are almost like bread puddings. And if you’re in a hurry, guess what – the convenience stores have you covered too. 7-Eleven sells a ready-to-eat French toast (even a frozen version) that comes with syrup, which you microwave and voilà: a surprisingly gourmet-tasting French toast on the go.
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It’s perfect for travellers looking for a quick sweet bite in the hotel room in the morning. You might also find French toast sticks or bites as seasonal treats in konbini. For a sit-down experience, try a place like Hoshino Coffee or Doutor which often feature French toast on the menu, sometimes paired with red bean paste or fruit like caramelised banana. It’s a comfort food that Japan adopted and never let go of – after all, what’s not to love about bread soaked in richness? This unexpected ubiquity of French toast will definitely make you smile during your Japan travels.
8. Filtered Coffee – Hot or Cold?
Japan has a serious coffee culture, and one particular habit surprises many visitors: no matter when or where you order a cup of joe, you’ll likely be asked “Hot or iced?” Coffee shops, restaurants, even McDonald’s – they don’t assume you want it hot. Iced coffee (aisu kōhī) has been a norm in Japan for generations, long before cold brew became hip elsewhere. This goes back to the Meiji era kissaten culture and later the post-war kissaten boom – by the 1930s Tokyo had thousands of coffee cafes, and iced coffee was already on menus.
Nowadays, whether it’s summer or winter, many Japanese enjoy a refreshing cold coffee, so offering a choice is standard.
Beyond that, Japan innovated with canned coffee in vending machines, available both hot and chilled – a quick caffeine fix from a machine on every corner, literally heated cans in winter and cold cans in summer. So don’t be baffled when a diner waitress asks if you’d like your morning coffee iced, or when you see people drinking iced lattes in January. It’s just how things are done here.
For the full experience, try visiting a convenience store coffee machine where you can choose hot or iced at the push of a button, or grab a can of Boss coffee from a vending machine (warm yourself up with the hot can in your hands on a chilly day!). Japan takes the everyday filtered coffee and gives you options galore – a small but charming example of its attention to customer preference.
9. Frankfurter Sausages and Hot Dogs
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Sausages might scream “Oktoberfest” or backyard barbecues, but in Japan they are everywhere, woven into the food culture in unexpected ways. A common Japanese breakfast could include a couple of crisp “Vienna” sausages (mini frankfurters) alongside eggs.
In bento lunches for kids, octopus-shaped sausage figures are a beloved classic – mothers cut the ends of little sausages to curl into “tentacles,” creating cute tako wieners that make lunchtime fun.
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Hot dogs themselves have been localised: a corn dog is called an American Dog in Japan, found at every convenience store’s hot snacks case. And leave it to Japan to enhance it with clever packaging – they give you a dual packet that squirts ketchup and mustard evenly at the same time for the perfect topping stripe!
You’ll also see baked goods like sausage rolls (a frank wrapped in buttery pastry) in bakeries and convenience store bread aisles, essentially Japan’s take on pigs in a blanket.
At summer festivals, one popular street food is simply “Frankfurt”: a juicy frankfurter sausage on a stick, usually char-grilled and sold as is, often bigger and smokier than the small breakfast ones.
Family restaurants and izakayas serve sausages as well, sometimes with Japanese mustard and pickles as a beer snack. If you’re craving a hot dog in Tokyo, you could hit up a MOS Burger for their chili dog, or just pop into any 7-Eleven – they might have a hot dog bun with sausage ready to microwave.
It’s quite a sight for first-timers to see how omnipresent sausages are in Japan’s food scene – Japan has certainly put its own spin on the frankfurter.
10. Baumkuchen (German “Tree Cake”)
Last but not least, one of Japan’s most omnipresent baked sweets is actually German: Baumkuchen. This ring-shaped, layered cake – made by brushing batter on a rotating spit to form golden tree-like rings – is so popular in Japan that you’ll find it in convenience stores, supermarkets, and fancy cake shops alike.
It was first introduced by a German prisoner-of-war baker, Karl Juchheim, in 1919 in Hiroshima. Japanese people fell in love with it, and over the past century they turned Baumkuchen into a national favorite. After World War II, during Japan’s Western sweets boom, many confectioners started making Baumkuchen, and its mellow sweet taste and attractive rings symbolising longevity made it a hit.
Image credit: Entabe
Today it’s incredibly common in Japan – far more than in its homeland. In Germany you might hunt for a specialty bakery to try it, but in Japan you can grab a neatly packaged slice at any FamilyMart on the corner. Department stores sell elegant, gift-wrapped baumkuchen as popular wedding or birthday gifts because the rings represent long life and good luck. You’ll even see creative variations: matcha-green tea Baumkuchen, chocolate-dipped Baumkuchen, mini stackable Baumkuchen cubes, and so on.
For a tourist, a great place to spot it is the depachika sweet section or a dedicated shop like Nenrinya in Tokyo which specialises in gourmet Baumkuchen. But honestly, even the 200-yen conbini or Starbucks version will give you a soft, moist taste of this layered delight.
It’s a delicious example of how Japan can take a foreign cake and adopt it so wholeheartedly that it becomes part of everyday life. Guten Appetit – or rather, itadakimasu!
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