Japanese convenience stores are a playground for creative drinks, unexpected collaborations and downright bizarre culinary ideas. In the past, we’ve seen Pokemon-inspired desserts and drinkable mapo tofu. Now a new bombshell has entered 7-Eleven’s hot foods villa: a donut-shaped ramen-flavored chicken nugget.
Image courtesy of PR Times
Seven-Eleven’s “Strange Chicken”
The snack’s actual name is okashi na chikin (おかしなチキン), and it contains a double meaning. Okashi na (おかしな) means strange, while okashi (お菓子) can also mean sweets, or snacks. This strange chicken launched on August 11, and promises a nostalgic taste with a funny appearance.
Image by Aya Sato
This is a collaboration between 7-Eleven and The Oyatsu Company, the long-standing Japanese snack manufacturer behind generationally-popular snacks such as Baby Star and Butamen.
The fried chicken ring (¥198 with tax) coats minced chicken breast in a tonkotsu-flavored batter inspired by Butamen, giving it a “rich umami flavor and crispy coating.”
Butamen debuted in 1993 as part of the Baby Star Atari Ramen lineup. They are tiny cups of instant ramen that come in various flavors including soy sauce and curry. They are still popular residents of dagashi (traditional Japanese snacks) aisles, usually enjoyed for around ¥100 or less.
The developers of the new convenience store fusion snack stated that they aimed to reinterpret the familiar ramen noodles they loved as children, in a new form.
“We focused on recreating a taste that would bring back memories with just one bite. It’s a fried chicken packed with surprise and fun, with a ring shape that will make you smile,” the creators said in the press release.
The TW Taste Test
The Tokyo Weekender team was intrigued by the premise, and we ran out to try this “strange chicken” for ourselves.
The shape is reminiscent of Mister Donut’s signature pon de ring donuts, which makes it a nice handheld snack and, in our case, easy to break up to share. The 7-Eleven location we picked up our “strange chickens” from unfortunately did not have the special Butamen wrapper.
Our overall consensus is that, while not bad, the chicken ring lacked the tonkotsu ramen flavor that we were promised. It’s just a regular chicken nugget with a very slight breeze of extra savory seasoning. Perhaps we got a not-so-fresh batch, but the Butamen coating was not crispy at all.
We did enjoy that it was less greasy than 7-Eleven’s other chicken options like Nanachiki, but it seems our expectations were placed a bit too high. If the aim was to bring tastebuds a wave of childhood nostalgia, the weight was placed solely on the fun shape and the chicken nugget-ness of the new novelty snack.
That said, the team did finish everything and enjoyed our little office snack break.
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Updated On August 12, 2026
