Boi 2 - My Experience with Japanese Bento

Hello, it’s ya boi 2, Nicha, back at it again with the third blog for my time in Japan. I am still in Tokyo, Japan, and I must say it is a city with many appealing variety of food and drinks. But since my topic is bento, I took the liberty to try out some bento all around Tokyo. The first obvious choice is the bentos from the school cafeteria; since we have to spend half of our time there, and after we get out of class, we are always extremely hungry. Surprisingly, the school has many choices of bentos to choose from, from katsu bento to curry bento. The price of these bentos seem to be constant at around 350-400 yen, not bad for the things that come in it. The next bentos I’ve tried is the convenience store bento; these are a little more expensive, being priced around 500 yen. These bentos (unsurprisingly) were also delicious, but if you were being picky, there weren’t freshly made like the school bentos (not warm, but it was fair that they had to keep them refrigerated). Then I went to actual bento shops, it was in a narrow alleyway somewhere in Shinjuku this time around. The place offers eat-in-bentos and take-out bentos. I got the eat in bento. They were served hot, and it was extremely delicious, probably why they costed most, being around 900 yen. No matter where the bento came from, these bentos always include rice, a protein and a vegetable side, as mentioned before in the previous blogs, this makes for a very fulfilling meal, in addition to being delicious.

I also did a little more research into my individual topic of the competition between moms that have to wake up at ungodly hours to make bentos for their kids, even if it took an immense amount of effort to make. I found out that the number of females who are in the workforce is on a rapid increase in Japan, in other words, even moms or homemakers are seeking employment. This means that there is little to no time for these moms to make their kids elaborate lunch boxes for school to compete with other kids. The easiest solution for these homes is to buy premade meals to take for the next day(s) after. Even easier is the parents can give their kids money to buy their own lunch, either at the convenience store or at the school cafeteria, which might be a better option since the school cafeteria is generally cheaper than store-bought food. However, I’ve been to some super markets that sell these premade meals, and tried them back at the dorm. I must say, they’re definitely not as good as the bentos you can get at the places I mentioned above. It is undeniably missing the handmade feel, the human element that goes into a packed lunchbox. Next time, I will venture out to other stores as research, and/or find even more alternatives for people that don’t have their moms making their lunch for them.