OK, Let's Talk about Bento

The topic has been brought up in the comments to my previous post, so why not ;) 298-yen bentos Bento means packed lunch or packed meal in Japanese. Those you see in the photo above are the 298-yen (apx. US$2.66 ?) bentos at a supermarket not too far from my apartment. Yep, all these are 298 yen each. I wouldn’t say they are very tasty, but with this low price, how can you complain? Talking about bento, there are roughly 2 types of bento places around here --- where they sell pre-packed cold bentos (though they can warm them up there with microwave) and where they pack warm bento after you order one at the counter there. The supermarkets and convenience stores fall into the former category. The latter, franchised bento shops, used to be my favorite but not so much any more. This is one of the bento shops near my apartment that sell warm bentos. There, you take a look at the samples in the showcase and order the one(s) you like, then take a seat in the shop and wait. The part-timers there of course do not cook everything from scratch after you made an order… most of the food is prepared or pre-seasoned already and all that’s left to do is to deep fry or grill or heat it. So the waiting time can be around 5 minutes or less… well, depending on what and how many of the bentos you order. Read More Samples in the showcase You noticed some samples have 2 prices in the tag? The top one is the price of the bento with warm rice, and the one at the bottom is the price without rice. If you already have some cooked rice at home, you can buy a bento without rice and make it even cheaper. Good idea, isn’t it? Nori-ben This nori bento (called “Nori-ben” for short) literally means “bento with dried seaweed (nori).” When this type of franchise shops became popular in Japan, this nori-ben was the most popular menu because it was the cheapest one and yet quite filling, though lacking in vitamins. “I’m going to have nori-ben.” or “I live on nori-ben” was synonymous with “I’m broke now,” ...well... at least among my friends. In earlier days, in a typical nori-ben, you didn’t see anything more than soy-sauce seasoned bonito flakes all over the rice covered with a big sheet of dried seaweed. Oh, maybe a few slices of pickles were on the rice. This one in the photo is a little upgraded version, thus could be a little smaller than the earlier versions, I suppose. Of course, other than the bentos in plastic containers like these, we have more elaborate, expensive kind of bentos in Japan if you don’t mind paying good amount of money. Those are the ones from famous traditional Japanese restaurants. I cannot afford to blog about them right now, but maybe someday I would give it a try. …. Hopefully.