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There are only three reasons one could possibly fathom going to any establishment that’s known in American English as a “dive”: Cheap beer, cheap beer, and greasy burgers.

Now apparently you can add a fourth reason: Cheap, delicious bento lunch boxes, thanks to whispered-about bento  shop, Kitchen Dive. With just a handful of locations around Tokyo, we’d never actually seen one in the flesh before and almost thought they were some apocryphal legend; some cruel prank older, wiser salarymen were playing on the newbies, maybe (“Oh yeah, there’s a shop selling 200 yen bento. Right around the corner. Caaaan’t miss it.”).

Finally, we spotted an honest-to-goodness, 24-hour Kitchen Dive in the unassuming Kameido area of Tokyo and the 100 yen coins in our pockets practically flew out of their own accord.

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The first thing you’ll notice about Kitchen Dive’s lunch boxes are that they look like any other, much more expensive bento you can find around the city, featuring a healthy helping of rice, a few pickled vegetable sides and a main – usually fried – hunk of meat or fish. The only difference here is that all of Kitchen Dive’s bento are available for the devilishly low price of 200 yen (US$2).

▼ There are also slightly larger-than-average boxes available for 300 yen.

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After buying ourselves several of them, because of course we bought several of them, we can also happily report that they taste great, with none of the quality of a regular bento sacrificed in the pursuit of low, low prices. Depending on where else you go in town, you might find yourself paying anywhere from 500 to 1,000 yen ($5 to $10) on a decent bento that – we have to stress – feature the exact same ingredients as Kitchen Dive’s selection, so it’s hard to describe the heart-swelling, tear-inducing joy an overworked, underpaid salaryman must feel upon seeing a Kitchen Dive in the distance on his lunch break.

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But now that we have tasted the Kitchen Dive forbidden fruit, we can honestly say 500 yen will, from this day forward, forever feel like paying way too much for a delicious lunch box.

Photos: RocketNews24
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