The line between simplicity and inadequacy can be a fine one. Which side do Lawson’s new Ittentoppasugi fall on?
9 times out of 10, there’s an excited spring in our step as we walk through the door of our local Japanese convenience store on the release day for a new bento boxed lunch. As we crossed over the threshold into Lawson on September 22, though, our emotional state was more complicated.
Lawson is calling its newest bento series Ittentoppasugi, which basically translates to “super single-minded.” That’s a bit of a warning sign already, since a big part of the appeal of bento is that you usually get a number of different side dishes to go along with the rice that they always contain. Any pretense of variety is swept away for the Ittentoppasugi bento, which consist of rice, one topping ingredient, and absolutely nothing else.
In other words, in any individual Ittentoppasugi bento you’re only getting as much variety as you would in a rice ball with a single type of filling. Actually, even rice balls usually have a longer list of ingredients, since a lot of them come wrapped in seaweed. Because of that, a lot of the online reactions when Lawson first announced the Ittentoppasugi series wasn’t so much joy at its focus, but sadness that this is another sign of how rising prices in Japan seem to be affecting every aspect of daily life, eroding even such simple pleasures as affordable convenience store food.
With prices for conventional boxed lunches continuing to climb, the 297-yen (US$1.90) starting price for Lawson’s single-minded bento are, however, an intriguing offer for those who’ve given up on buying more expensive alternatives. So we were willing to give the new boxed lunches a try, and procured an Ittentoppasugi salmon bento and an Ittentoppasugi sausage bento for taste-testing purposes.
As you can see, there’s nothing inside the salmon bento but rice, salmon flakes, and an almost palpable sense of poverty. You do at least get quite a lot of rice, though. The total weight of the single-minded salmon bento is approximately 260 grams (9.2 ounces). We didn’t weigh the packaging or minuscule amount of salmon, but even collectively they can’t weight all that much, meaning there’s a lot more than the 160 grams of rice that’s considered the standard serving size in Japan.
And while there’s not a lot of salmon, our expectations were raised by it being bodakko. Bodakko is a kind of heavily salted salmon that’s popular in Akita Prefecture, a part of Japan that’s famous for its high-quality rice. Because it’s so salty, even a small amount of bodakko is said to make a large quantity of rice taste extra-delicious, and bento with a high rice-to-salmon ratio are kind of a regional specialty of Akita.
Taking a taste, we learned that the Ittentoppasugi bodakko bento’s salmon is considerably saltier than the flaked salmon found in most bento or rice balls, but not shockingly so. As a matter of fact, we don’t think it would overpower our taste buds even without any rice to take alternating bites of.
It’s perfectly tasty salmon, though we still could have done with a greater quantity of fish. Eating at a natural pace, we had about one-fourth of the bento’s rice left when we’d finished off the last flake of salmon, which we then had to consume by itself.
Next it was time to try the Ittentoppasugi sausage bento.
This is a premium-priced Ittentoppasugi bento, but even that means that it’s still just 397 yen. It’s also heftier than its cheaper bodakko brethren, weighing in at just over 300 grams.
The sausage Ittentoppasugi also has a stronger foundation to stand on as to Lawson’s claim that single-mindedness is its reason for existence. Sure, you still get only one non-rice element, sliced sausage, but you get a lot of it, and there’s a sort of decadence to be found in such a large quality of inexpensive meat, making this feel like a cheap indulgence more than no-other-option poverty chow.
They even spruce up the sausage a bit, dressing it with a light teriyaki-style sauce that imparts some additional savory sweetness.
There’s no way to convince your brain that either of these bento are luxury dining, but they both accomplish what they set out to do. They’re two of the most affordable and easily accessible bento boxed lunches in all of Japan, and though the ingredient list is short, everything inside those boxes tastes good, and after having tried these two Ittentoppasugi, we might have to consider trying Lawson’s upcoming single-minded corn bento too.
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