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bento (Page 8)

We investigate a Japanese military base convenience store – no need to enlist!

Courageously protecting Japan with the aid of garrison-exclusive convenience store meals and socks.

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Brothers’ bento blooper shows the potential downside of having your mom pack your lunch in Japan

Home-made bento sure look tasty, but one of these brothers wasn’t so lucky.

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Japanese dad turns daughter’s illustration into her bento lunch

The latest lunchbox from this girl’s character bento-making dad probably raised a lot of questions at school.

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Japan’s cat-shaped bento boxes are here to make lunchtime delicious and adorable【Photos】

Each design is modeled after a real-life rescue cat.

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7-Eleven convenience stores in South Korea offer an electrifying new Pokémon item!

Pokémon lovers rejoice! There’s now a whole new way to celebrate your fandom with these Pikachu-themed lunch boxes now on sale in South Korea!

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Japan’s top train station bento boxed lunches for 2016, as picked by travelers

If you’re riding the rails in Japan, here’s how you should be stuffing your face.

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We spend Culture Day in prison, food was arguably better than Yoshinoya

This Culture Day, our reporter Yuichiro Wasai went straight to Fuchu Prison. He did not pass Go. He did not collect 200 dollars.

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If you are hungry and you know it, get to Kitchen DIVE in Tokyo

There is no way you’ll leave this place without feeling like you got your yen’s worth.

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The ultimate Shinkansen trip: Riding Japan’s bullet train network from one end to the other

Just how far can you go before you run out of Shinkansen?

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The Shinkansen now goes all the way to Hokkaido, and here’s its newest, northernmost station

Come for the bullet trains, stay for the delicious seafood and anime statue.

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Creative mum takes cats and anime characters out of the bento box and into cute sushi collection

Rice balls and sushi pieces have never looked more adorable!

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Mother’s note to son in the final bento of his high school life gives Twitter the feels

When this high-school kid opened up the last hand-made bento lunch of his high school life, he found a note from his mother with a sweet and surprising message…

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Step outside the cute character bento box with this amazing 3-D onigiri rice ball collection

From Pikachu to Totoro, these onigiri rice balls are as cute as they are delicious-looking!

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Does kangaroo meat work with Japanese seasonings? 【Taste test】

There’s a new take-out place in Tokyo selling kangaroo bento boxed lunches, so we hopped on over to try them for ourselves.

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Cheapo News: We found this supermarket chain selling stupid cheap bento in west Japan

If we had to pick one thing that represented how Japanese food maybe isn’t quite as healthy as generally perceived, it would probably have to be the bento lunchbox. Bento are readily available practically everywhere in Japan—when not being handmade for you by a parent or spouse, usually in the shape of Pokémon characters and the like—and are widely consumed by office workers and other day laborers as a cheap, convenient lunch.

Despite healthy origins back in the old days, bento—perhaps by design—have become increasingly unhealthy, with your standard box available from a retailer or food truck usually weighing in at a thousand calories (or frequently even more) and containing a bunch of fried food in addition to huge portions of rice.

But heck, when a filling, albeit cholesterol and calorie-packed bento sets you back only a measly 200 yen (US$1.50) over at discount supermarket Lamu, well, we’ll happily do the extra time on the treadmill.

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The cutest, must-have bento lunchboxes you can buy and eat on the train

Japanese often say that a good view makes a meal taste better, so it goes without saying that a cute-looking lunchbox would also enhance the contents inside. From meals served in Shinkansen-shaped containers or rabbit-faced boxes that can be reused as coin banks, to lunch boxes that play music or have collector’s items hidden inside, Japan’s ekiben take Japanese food to a whole new level.

Today we’d like to tell you about “Ekiben”, a little book by Aki Tomura which introduces the best and most unique train station lunch boxes in Japan. We’ve chosen just a few to highlight from this gorgeously photographed, pocket-size book. The word Ekiben is a combination of two Japanese words: eki (station) and bento (lunchbox), so make your next train trip a gourmet ride with these bento available at various JR stations—just waiting for you to buy, smile, and devour.

Let the fun begin!

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Beyond bento — Amazing laser-cut seaweed makes its mark on the artistic world

Lunch-making parents in Japan have long been infusing their midday meals with fun characters designed to please the eye along with the taste buds. A common ingredient used for detail and decoration is the humble dried seaweed sheet called nori. The dark color makes it perfect for creating lines and patterns, and since it comes in a flat sheet you can cut out some fairly detailed shapes with a knife. If you quickly browse through some amazing character bento we’ve shared with you before, you’ll see the important role that seaweed plays in their design.

However, it’s not only good in a supporting role; world-renowned seaweed shop Kozen wants to elevate it to a star in the art world! Forget all the other ingredients you might find in a bento, “Nori Art” is all you need to turn your next meal into an unforgettable feast.

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Japanese boxed lunches pulling into France at authentic bento stand opening in Paris station

In just about every major train station in Japan, you’ll find a stand selling boxed lunches called ekiben. A combination of the words eki (“station”) and bento (“boxed lunch”), ekiben serve as a tasty, convenient meal for travelers to dine on as they watch the scenery slip by outside their window.

Given that trains are terrestrial transportation, and that Japan is an island nation, until now you’ve generally had to come to Japan in order to get your hands on authentic station bento. That’s changing soon, though, with the opening of an ekiben stand in a rail station in Paris.

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Many foreigners who travel to Japan are relieved to find that it’s common for restaurants here to have a display window filled with plastic models of the food they serve, which is a huge help in getting around the language barrier. That’s not really why restaurants have them, though. After all, the potential number of foreign customers is a drop in the bucket compared to the native Japanese population that has no trouble reading the menu or placing an order.

The real reason for those plastic models is that they catch the eye and stimulate the appetite of passersby, be they foreign tourist, local resident, or adorable cat.

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Awesome lunch boxes full of Disney’s Tsum Tsum characters are almost too cute to eat!【Photos】

As we expect you already know, character lunch boxes or “chara-ben,” short for “character bento,” are all the rage in Japan. And their creators are rarely shy about sharing their awesome work, so you can find hundreds of examples of how to make lunch time more adorable on social media networks like Instagram and Twitter.

One of the biggest themes for chara-ben right now is Disney’s Tsum Tsum, a line of stuffed toys that has been adapted into a smartphone game by Line. There were so many great photos, we had to compile our favorite Tsum Tsum chara-ben shots from Instagram for you to check out. But don’t forget to grab a snack, because you’re definitely going to get hungry!

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