Have you really bento Japan?
I am, as I assume many of you are, no stranger to Japanese cuisine prior to setting foot on the country’s soil. Nonetheless, our perception of Japanese food changes depending on where we are in the world as the cuisine, like other cultural dishes, transforms to better appeal to a different appetite. Personally, this means consuming supposedly “authentic” Japanese food that turns out to be quite divergent from one another: a tad bit saltier in Taiwan, somewhat sweet on top of hard rice in New York, and quite a lot of avocado everywhere in California.
With that being said, however, the experience I’m about to share is about another difference on Japanese food — with the answer consistent with the one you provide when you first land in Narita or Haneda airport (or, if you’re fancy, Kansai or Chubu airport): What is the purpose of your travel?
Indeed, even within the borders of Japan, the food you are exposed might be slightly different not only depending on which part of the country you reside in, but also based upon the lifestyle you adopt: are you here as a tourist? Or are you living here for an extended duration of time? Even though this trip to Japan was not my first, it certainly was my first time living in the place that invented the beautiful Takoyaki (well, it was originally from Osaka while we lived in Tokyo, but I was close enough to benefit from the proximity), thanks to the precious opportunity from Mistletoe Inc., who connected me with the company I currently intern for, Planetway Inc.
Living at the heart of Tokyo, Shibuya, as a student, I have a budget that would not be able to afford myself acting as a tourist for the entire duration of my stay. But yes, of course for the purpose of cultural immersion I am obliged to try out those all you can eat Shabu Shabu and Yakiniku with the sacrifice of my shrivelling wallet. However, on the daily basis, being mindful of a meager budget is instrumental when I decide what to eat. On the other hand, living in the city, as opposed to mere sightseeing, also allow the time and the connection with people, either colleagues or local friends, for us to explore and discover hidden gems in the city — restaurants that tourists normally wouldn’t go to but offer some of the most authentic (this time without the quotations) Japanese food at a much more student-friendly price.
In the first week of the Mistletoe program, I was introduced to the Japanese bento — Japanese lunch boxes. These lunch boxes come in numerous sizes with small compartments that contain various dishes, you never know what you are going to get until you see the bento. From convenient stores to train stations, these lunch boxes prevails all over the city in many different forms. Given that I’m already accustomed to the spectacles of the bento culture in Taiwan (where every train station on the Island has its own particular style and speciality of bento), Japanese bentos never ceased to give me surprises and delight at a very affordable price (one that my wallet was satisfied with).
My journey with bento boxes this summer begins with a trivial exploration of the neighborhood we live in. Walking down the steep sloped outside our doorstep, down past the house coated with vegetation that looks like a haunted house in Disneyland, and through the serene park that closes an hour before midnight; finally, I crossed a bridge over a little soothing creek and made a right to see a building with lights so bright that it outshone the moon. As I walked closer I see a giant penguin with a Santa hat staring down at me, adjacent to a tank filled with electrical eels. With a little knowledge about katakana, I attempted to read the title of the banner: ドン・キホーテ, which reads Don quixote, the Spanish epic of a man with the illusion of becoming a knight himself. An illusion it was, as I walked into the store filled with more diverse products than any store I’ve ever been to (including Costco!).
As I attempted to ignore the gaze of those giant electric eels, I entered the store, welcomed by the gentle breeze of the air-conditioning that sworn oath to protect me from the summer’s heat as long as I stay in the store. What astounded me was not the myriad of brands selling green tea, nor the stairs that plays like piano when people ascend or descend them, but the section on the immediate right, filled with bentos of different main dishes, side dishes, and even shape (the shape! I mean, the shape literally shapes the apetite of the bento consumer). The surprise does not end at first glance; as I approach the bento section, I encountered a tall gentleman with a flat hat as white as rice, short hair as dark as the nori, and an apron as yellow as the pickled daikon radish. He was a staff of Donki (the shorter name of the store) and after a short, awkward exchange with my broken Japanese about the beautiful bentos that sat before me, I allowed him to get back to his work. I noticed that he began placing these yellow tags on the clear plastic covers on the bento. Upon a closer inspection, I noticed those stickers contains the new price of the bento with a percentage on the side. Apparently, after a certain time at night, in order to sell the remaining bentos before they go bad, the store would reduce the price to attract buyers (with the amount by percentage presented on the side as well).
Exhilarated, I stalked the man until he began placing stickers with 50% OFF and snatched the bento as fast as I could before sprinting towards the cashier. The bento had a few fired pork cutlets on top of white rice, with some pickled vegetables and some potato salad, all set in a position that made the bento not just my dinner, but a piece of art, balanced with all colors and shapes. It was 200 yen.
Few days into the internship, I began to familiarize myself with the path to work and back home, from the long yet eventful march towards the station at Shibuya station, to the breathtakingly intimate train ride. As I leave the station and began to walk home every day, I began to notice a small stand in front of an old Chinese restaurant, with a wooden board that you can still see lines of on the counter, filled with bentos of many kinds, as fancy as those in Donki, but definitely of a different genre of art.
The stand confused me, with a price tag on each bento but with a small sign that wrote “half-priced” behind them. Is the price tag the half-priced version? Or are the bentos now cost half the price of that price tag? With no one in sight, I began calling for someone in the kitchen to verify. To my chagrin, no one showed up as I drag my tired and disappointed stomach back to our residence. Thus began my quest to figure out the riddle: every day after work I would call for the shop owner as I pass by the stand, in vain.
Finally, the miracle took place two weeks later after I left the station. As I walked towards the stand, I noticed the television was on, as I approached the stand like a fox approaches its prey, I noticed an old man with a chef hat sitting there watching TV. I gathered my courage and demanded an answer (perhaps more like politely questioned with broken Japanese) for the riddle that troubled me for weeks. He told me that the price tag was the original price and that the price at the moment was half that. Ecstatic, I choose the bento with the grilled salmon and took it home, along with the miso soup the chef kindly offered to me. It was 250 yen.
The miracle was transient. That would be the last time I saw the chef with a smile so warm that it melted the sun and his wonderful bentos.
These bentos sum up my experience of living in Japan, with many new experiences coming in different colors, taste, and shapes. They allowed me to be in closer touch with the culture and the environment, with stories to be explored with every bite of the lunch box.
It was priceless.
