10 Incredibly Delicious Items You Can Find at Costco in Japan

As someone who has spent most of her adult life in compact apartments in New York and LA, I’ve never needed a Costco membership. But this all changed when I recently relocated to Japan for an extended stay. I’m a recipe developer, and I wasn’t completely confident that I’d be able to find some standard American ingredients overseas, I figured I would get a Costco membership so that I could have their warehouses as a shopping option. Your Costco membership grants you access to any of their locations in the US, Japan and beyond!

It turns out that I didn’t need to worry because Tokyo has a plethora of stores that carry global ingredients, but I still explored all the wonders that Costco in Japan has to offer. There are over 35 Costco warehouses scattered throughout Japan; I shopped at the Kawasaki location, which is sandwiched between Tokyo and Yokohama. It’s fairly convenient to get to from central Tokyo and even closer if you find yourself flying into or out of Haneda airport. Here are some of the coolest things I found there.

Hokkaidō, a prefecture at the northernmost of Japan’s four main islands, is responsible for the production of over 50% of the country’s milk. Its cooler climate and spacious green pastures allow cows to produce milk that has a higher natural fat content and richer flavor. Cartons of full-fat or low-fat Hokkaidō milk can be found in the dairy section, and you can also find it turned into sticks of delicious salted butter and tubs of creamy ice cream. Costco even uses the premium milk in their food court’s signature soft serve (more on that later).

The Japanese take snacking seriously, and the selection in the Costco aisles makes that clear! Look for seaweed speckled potato chips, crunchy chicken-flavored ramen meant to be eaten by hand (no hot water required!), rice crackers of every shape and size, and enviable snack mixes with flavored nuts and dried fish. Everything can be found either in giant bags or value packs with smaller individually packaged goodies.

When it comes time to celebrate with a boozy drink in hand, Japan offers a large selection of unique libations to choose from and of course, you can find many of them at Costco. I found giant 1.8L bottles of sake in various grades, including a great selection of daiginjo varietals (the highest-grade and most premium sakes), several golden-hued rows of Japanese whiskey (perfect to drink by itself or in a refreshing whiskey highball), a sizeable selection of shōchū (a Japanese distilled spirit traditionally made from grains and vegetables, such as rice, barley, sweet potatoes, buckwheat or sugarcane), and of course, cases and cases of popular beer brands like Asahi, Kirin, and Orion. Kanpai!

When in Japan, you must take advantage of the uber-fresh sushi that you can find at every corner. From fun and affordable conveyor belt eateries to splurge-worthy sushi omakase restaurants, the price-point and quality can really vary. The vast selection of fresh sushi found at Costco seems to marry high-quality and good value; I saw many locals adding 1 to 2 trays of sushi to their carts during my visit. I even spotted a couple of families who couldn’t wait until they got home, and feasted on their sushi platters alongside pizza slices in the food court!

These platters are generously filled with freshly cut salmon, tuna, sea scallops, shrimp and whatever other seafood is in season. There are also large party-size dishes of chirashi which layers glistening pieces of fresh fish, ikura, fresh herbs, and sesame seeds over seasoned sushi rice.

One of my favorite hand-held konbini (a Japanese convenience store) snacks is a sweet sandwich with margarine and a thick gel-like maple syrup spread between two fluffy pancakes. It’s perfectly portable and made even better if accompanied by a piece of crispy boneless spicy fried chicken (another konbini must-eat). I normally get 1 for roughly 128 yen (about $.80 in US dollars), but at Costco, you can get 12 for 658 yen (about $.33 each in US dollars). Talk about a steal!

I also spied sausage mayo dogs and packages of shelf-stable roasted Japanese sweet potatoes (yaki imo) which have a signature aroma you can smell in every konbini during autumn and winter. Have a favorite instant ramen at 7-11 or Family Mart? Chances are you will be able to buy it in bulk at Costco — there is ample aisle space dedicated to ramens of every kind. Tonkatsu, shio, curry — you name it, they probably have it.

No matter the country, the food court at Costco always offers a delicious big bang for your buck. But I was utterly impressed with what the Kawasaki location had to offer —like a jumbo bulgogi bake generously stuffed with thinly sliced beef, scallions and cheese all coated in a sweet and savory sauce (chicken bake who?). There was a giant box of chicken sticks that weighed nearly 1 1/2 pounds, a deliciously fresh salmon poke roll, a creamy mushroom chicken soup, a rich croissant with ham and cheese, two different flavors of pizza (pepperoni and margarita during my visit), and of course the famous 1/4-pound hot dog and soda combo (the sausage offered in japan is 100% pork unlike the beef version found in the US).

Although I really enjoyed the savory options of the food court menu, if I could bring one item back to the US, it would have to be the Hokkaido soft cream soft serve. During my visit, the featured flavor was marron (chestnut). The consistency of the soft serve was much creamier and richer compared to the airier soft serve in the US. The Hokkaido milk gives the soft serve a deeply milky flavor that was not cloyingly sweet. This alone is worth the trip to Costco in Japan.

As a sucker for any kind of crispy laminated dough, I was downright giddy to see many different croissants in the bakery section. There were standard size croissants but also minis filled with custard and dusted with a flurry of powdered sugar, pain au chocolat, and Danish choco cones filled with chocolate spread.

The bakery section was truly spectacular, and the myriad of croissants was just the beginning. There was a gorgeous mont blanc bar cake topped with smooth chestnut paste, earl grey cupcakes that could easily be sold at a fancy café, and plump passion fruit-stuffed beignets. And sitting front-and-center in the muffin section was a new flavor that glowed green with matcha powder.

The produce section was filled with a lot of staples like carrots, bell peppers and citrus, but let’s skip all of that and get to the fun stuff. There was a large selection of umami-packed mushrooms (shitake, bunashimeji, enoki, king oyster, maitake), super crunchy Japanese cucumbers, fresh lotus root, peeled burdock, mini daikon radishes, and giant long green onions that I could hold like a flower bouquet. The fruit selection varies seasonally; during my fall visit, there were cases of locally sourced persimmons, Toki and Fuji apples, and fragrant La France Pears from Yamagata.

If you have access to a kitchen and want to chef it up while you are in Japan, there is no shortage of show-stopping proteins to bring your culinary dreams to life. Pull out all the stops with a massive 5-pound wagyu A4 tomahawk chop, whip up some tsukune (Japanese chicken meatballs) with sakura ground chicken, or save some time by picking up some pre-marinated miso black cod. If you want to try a more adventurous delicacy, one popular item that I saw many customers perusing was a refrigerated case full of beef tongue.

Don’t feel like cooking? At Costco Japan there is no shortage of ready-to-eat meals – and many especially enticing for seafood lovers. You’ll have a hard time choosing between the paella topped with head-on prawns, cream mentai penne (pasta tossed with a thick cream sauce, spicy Pollack roe and squid), seafood pescatore, seafood ajillo, cioppino soup, and Hawaiian garlic shrimp. Don’t feel like seafood? There’s always the famous rotisserie chicken which is still a deal all the way in Japan at only 899 yen (under $6 US dollars).

I love good frozen food (I lovingly refer to them as “later meals”) so I had a field day picking out some fun options to fill my rental’s mini freezer — crispy pork tonkatsu, a motsunabe set that serves 4, takoyaki that I can top with as much Kewpie mayo as I want without judgment, fluffy steamed buns filled with juicy minced meat, and saucy pasta (Italian food is hugely popular in Japan) that I can just pop into the microwave.