Local hack elevates convenience store food in seconds.

When you’ve been eating something the same way for years, it can be hard to imagine doing things any other way, so when our reporter Anji Tabata came across a convenience store bento hack while scrolling through Twitter, her eyes were opened to a whole new way of thinking.

Like many life hacks, the new discovery made her feel a little foolish for not having thought to try it before, but also curious to see if the results were as good as reported. So she headed out to pick up a bento — “bento” is the common term for pre-packaged meals at convenience stores and supermarkets, even if they aren’t in a traditional box shape — and try out the hack for herself.

▼ She decided to try out the Khao Man Gai at 7-Eleven, which is priced at 699 yen (US$4.93).

Khao Man Gai is a Thai dish in which boiled chicken is placed on top of rice cooked in chicken soup and then the whole thing is topped with a delicious sauce. This version from 7-Eleven appeared to have all the important components for a good Khao Man Gai, with a Thai vermicelli salad known as Yum Woon Sen on the side as well.

While you could eat it straight from the bowl, appearances always help to enhance the flavour so this hack helps you get the most out of your meal in just three easy steps.

1. Remove any film that might be covering the food inside, and turn the bento over with the lid still on.  

2. Instead of removing the lid, carefully remove the bowl, then place the plate on top of the exposed food and flip it over so the food and lid remains on top.

3. Now all you have to do is remove the lid and the meal is instantly transformed into a more expensive-looking dish that looks like something from a restaurant rather than a convenience store.

Transferring the sauce into a little side bowl of its own helps to add to the restaurant effect, and once Anji ate the meal, she was honestly surprised by how much better it tasted compared to her usual method of eating straight from the bowl.

Though she’d initially been concerned that her clumsy fingers might cause the hack to fail, it was easier than expected, and the results turned out to be better than she’d anticipated. Of course, if you’re going to try this hack, you’ll want to choose your bento carefully, as it works best with round bowls with a lid, where the ingredients are arranged separately or on top of the rice. You could try it with a square or rectangular bento as well, provided you have a plate that’s big enough to fit the entire meal on.

The most important part is ensuring the meal has a lid that won’t let the ingredients fall out easily, so a bento like this or this should work nicely. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to transform a convenience store bento into a restaurant-quality-looking dish, so give it a try if you can and let us know if the results worked well for you too!

Photos ©SoraNews24
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