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

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

If you’ve been to Japan, you’ll feel a happy sense of deja vu at Domo 39. That’s because this grab-and-go eatery pays tribute to konbini: the nation’s famously great convenience stores.

If you’ve never witnessed the around-the-clock glow of Japan’s 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson stores, you might wonder how these shops have gained culinary hall-of-fame status in a land also renowned for sushi temples and Michelin-starred omakase restaurants.

You might find the answers on Google (which surfaces articles such as “Every amazing thing you’ve heard about Japanese convenience stores is true”) or if you have the travel budget to experience the neon-lit rows of egg sandwiches, onigiri and bento boxes first hand.

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

The all-purpose joys of Japan’s convenience stores are clear to the cafe’s co-owner Eugene Leung, who was recently in Kanagawa, south of Tokyo. “My wife’s Japanese. So we took our nine-month-old to see her family,” he says.

With a dining schedule centred around a baby’s needs, he ended up buying many konbini dinners: grabbing convenience-store classics, such as famichiki (fried chicken), and new favourites such as vermicelli with mentaiko (cod roe) and takana (mustard greens). Sure, eating these meals over the hotel room sink wasn’t the most glamorous setting, but the tastiness of his konbini haul transcended that. “I thought, this is just the best thing,” he says.

Domo 39’s team includes familiar faces from Leung’s other cafes, such as Dika Prianata (his partner at Marrickville’s Kurumac) and Ophelia Ng (his old manager at Kirribilli’s Cool Mac), as well as new collaborator, Mapo Gelato’s Matteo Pochintesta. They make their mark across the menu: the Swamp (a matcha hot chocolate) is something Ng created during her Cool Mac days. Don’t be dissuaded by the murky name – your first sip will confirm it’s flat-out delicious.

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

Pochintesta’s scoops at Mapo Gelato are among the city’s best, so his soft-serve twirls at Domo 39 are understandably a drawcard. You can try seasonal specials (such as a strawberry flavour so fruity and vivid, it feels like summer has been revived) or the signature rice cream, which shares the pure-form blankness of its key ingredient. You can sprinkle Japanese toppings over your cups and cones, such as toasty rice puffs, kuromitsu (black sugar) and kinako (toasted soybean powder).

While Domo 39 doesn’t have the multi-aisle magnitude of traditional konbini, there’s a tight selection of bento boxes, filled with everything from yasai yakisoba (stir-fried noodles with vegetables) to sweet-and-sour chicken nanban, plus a range of onigiri stuffed with ginger pork and egg, tuna and mayonnaise, mentaiko and chives or vegetarian-friendly fillings, like takana or shiso konbu. They’re served hot at your table or you can swipe them straight from the fridge.

“[It’s] been amazing to see people coming in, grabbing an onigiri on their way to work,” says Leung. “That makes me feel warm inside – that people in Australia have embraced that instead of [more] avocado on sourdough. There are other things to eat for breakfast.”

And when the temperature drops, that might include miso soups and other warming dishes.

Domo 39’s hard-working fridge also includes portable joys from other postcodes,
such as bento cakes from Ryde’s Enze (the bakery’s chiffon slices, topped with rosewater and lychee mousse, are like a cherry-blossom viewing: pretty in pink).

The shelves also showcase a rainbow of Japanese-inspired shortbreads and chocolates from Melbourne’s Mame Cocoa, which are hard to find in Sydney and are top-tier sweets. Also on the shelf are the owners’ favourite Japanese grocery items, such as Happy Turn rice crackers.

“We’re trying to stock things that are a little bit different,” says Leung.

Domo 39’s name is a playful reference to saying “thank you” in Japanese. It’s apt, because I’m grateful Leung and his team have brought the warm glow of Japan’s konbini stores here – no passport flex necessary.