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Shinjuku 7-Eleven Enigma
Worth knowing that the Grand Plaza branch runs on a different rhythm than a normal konbini. The ramen shelf restocks around 4am and 4pm, so if you roll in at 11pm you're picking through whatever survived the evening rush. I'd aim for the Shinjuku Gyoenmae station side instead if you want a calmer post-garden stop, or hit the big one closer to midnight when the office crowd has cleared out and the hot case gets refreshed.
Nobody's mentioned the payment angle yet. The Grand Plaza branch is one of the few konbinis in that area that's cashless-friendly for foreign cards, so if you're running on a Suica with a low balance or a card your bank keeps flagging, that's actually a point in its favor over the random smaller ones. For ramen after Gyoen, though, I'd walk the ten minutes to Shinjuku Gyoenmae and hit a proper shop, since the konbini hot case is a 2am fallback, not a plan.
that grand plaza 7-11 is on the b1 floor of the shinjuku grand plaza building, most people walk right past the entrance looking for a street-level store. once inside its basically a small supermarket, so the trick isnt finding ramen, its deciding between the hot case, the cup noodle aisle and the sit-down counter they added a few years back. for a post-gyoen run i'd skip it entirely and hit the 7-11 by shinjuku gyoenmae station, grab a bowl of instant and eat it at your hotel, the grand plaza one is a browse-when-youre-not-hungry kind of place
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Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.