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Creative bento lunches from the past hint at the origins of “kyaraben”

Kyaraben, short for “character bento”, are insanely popular in Asia and Japan in particular. Young mothers, and some fathers too no doubt, spend hours crafting special lunch boxes, using all manner of foodstuffs to create shapes, faces and designs, and there are even entire books and monthly magazines containing hundreds of ideas. Over the years, we’ve seen lunch boxes based everything from Nivea hand cream to video game smash Metal Gear Solid, but it’s easy to forget that the practice of dressing up a packed lunch has, in fact, been around for quite some time.

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Lego brick creations that look good enough to eat

With the right amount of creativity, Lego bricks are the keys to other realms and the building blocks of otherworldly creations. But put in the hands of a spatially challenged, uninspired Lego novice, those little bricks continue to resemble the little pieces of plastic they really are. That’s why it’s so impressive when someone masters the art of building with Lego. Artist, Sachiko Akinaga, is one of those Lego masters and she’s managed to create plastic food that will make you want to take a bite.

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Noodles for candy lovers: Gummy Udon arrives just in time for White Day

I have a minor confession to make: I’m really not a fan of udon noodles. When asked to rank the big three – namely ramen, soba and udon – I’ll give my answer from most to least liked in that exact order. Ramen is quite frankly the man and hard to go wrong with, and soba is, although far simpler, nearly always delicious even hot or cold. But udon I just can’t seem to make friends with. Far heavier than its other noodle brethren, I find myself tiring of udon’s flavour even halfway through a meal, and those thick, heavy wheat-flour noodles slip from my chopsticks and splash into my soup. Every. Single. Time.

But these awesome new gelatinous “gummy” udon noodles, I think I could handle.

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Korea’s “MAJO&SADY” themed café is the cutest place we’ve seen in a long while!【Photos】

We’ve seen plenty of cat cafés, maid cafés and even owl cafés here on RocketNews24, but putting living things aside, this themed café in Seoul which features the characters of a Korean online comic MAJO&SADY, could probably top our list of cute cafés!

The simple yet chic café provides a cozy and relaxing atmosphere that anyone can enjoy, even if you’re unfamiliar with the comic’s characters. Check it out!

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How to eat sushi like a sensei 【Video】

Our hungry friends over at Foodbeast have just unleashed a great new how-to video that outlines a number of errors both Japanese and non-Japanese alike often make when eating sushi. Not only that, but it teaches us the correct way to eat the stuff, introducing one piece of dining etiquette in particular that even regular sushi eaters often forget. Be sure to check this one out!

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Attack on Titan bento ingredients revealed

Hokka Hokka Tei, a Japanese bento food chain, announced its “Attack on Titan Lunch” collaboration with Attack on Titan to create limited-time lunches. So, what exactly goes into a lunch for giant appetites? The answer is a lot of meat and vegetables.

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Our Japanese reporters actually like the Eggstractor, deem it an important step in egg technology

Like many people in Japan, the editing department at RocketNews24 recall an episode of the family-themed anime Sazae-san where Sazae’s father brings home an automatic egg cracking machine. It was a wonderful fantasy and kind of depressing that in this age of smartphones and reusable candles we can’t have an automatic egg cracker.

Then word came of such a device from the distant shores of America which could easily shuck the shells from hard-boiled eggs. Although lambasted as a “stupid cheap flimsy product” online, the temptation was too great for them to resist. They quickly placed an order and started boiling some water.

However, in hindsight they probably should have waited a week or so for it to arrive before boiling.

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Tokyo hamburger vending machine has a human touch

Japan is a wonderland of vending machines, and in many ways they’re great. They’re well-maintained, almost always take bills on the first try, and never judge you as pay for a bottle of hard liquor entirely in 10 yen coins.

Sometimes, though, doing a complete end run around human contact can make the purchasing process feel a little lonely. So when we heard about a restaurant where the vending machines had a human element, as well as delicious yet cheap hamburgers, we knew we had to check it out.

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Tokyo shop makes ramen for foreigners by adding sugar, something called “Japanese sprit!!”

With the 2020 Olympics on the horizon, restaurateurs in Tokyo are already thinking about how they can appeal to the crowds of foreign tourists set to descend on the city. Most of them are focusing on spiffing up their English menus and adding pictures, but some eateries are actually cooking up new menu ideas to appeal to the non-Japanese palate.

We got word that a ramen shop in Shinjuku had concocted just such a dish, so we naturally went to check it out.

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Chocolate kakigori may be delicious, but looks like flaming pile of poo

A restaurant in the trendy Shimokitazawa neighborhood of Tokyo thought they would get into the spirit of Valentine’s Day by offering a limited edition chocolate kakigori, a traditional Japanese snack that involves putting toppings on shaved ice. There was only one small problem…

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Last Friday the biggest snowstorm of the last decade hit the Tokyo area. While neighborhood kids had fun building snowmen and couples who managed to meet up could enjoy snuggling up to each other for warmth on a white Valentine’s Day (not to be confused with White Day, which is a totally separate thing in Japan), actually trying to get from one part of the region to another was a major gamble.

Some of the worst off were drivers along the Chuo Expressway that runs through mountainous Yamanashi Prefecture into Tokyo. With the storm dropping over 100 centimeters (39.4 inches) of snow in Yamanashi, over 60 sections of the road were closed due to the unsafe driving conditions. Since most people don’t carry a bottle of snow cone syrup in their glove box, as time went by, the motorists became hungrier and hungrier, until some philanthropic baked goods deliverymen came to their rescue.

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There are certain meats you can find at restaurants in Japan that aren’t exactly common in the western world. Whale is the one most likely to get foreign visitors up in arms, but with some pretty extensive searching, you can also find establishments serving up monkey and frog.

That isn’t to say Japanese culinary/cultural values are completely different from those of Europeans and North Americans. For example, people in Japan don’t really believe in turning dogs into food.

But turning food into a dog? That’s something the whole world can get behind.

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From hot spring to hot pot: One restaurant in Tokyo is actually serving wild monkey

Imagine yourself sitting down to a delicious warming winter meal. There’s nothing like nabe (Japanese hot pot) on a dark, cold evening. And there are so many choices! Pork, chicken, fish, seafood, monkey… Hang on a second … MONKEY?!

As soon as they heard that monkey hot-pot was on the menu at the Sakagura Niigata restaurant in Tokyo, a reporter from our Japanese sister site headed out to find out if it could possibly be true. Here’s what they found.

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Beyond sushi: We choose the best non-seafood items at Japan’s biggest conveyor-belt sushi chains

Conveyor-belt sushi is equally popular among tourists and residents of Japan alike. I mean, little plates of food that trundle by, with everything up for grabs? It’s brilliant! And cheap. Chains like Sushiro, Kurasushi, Kappasushi and Hamasushi offer a large selection of items starting at just 100 yen (about US$1)!

But what if you aren’t so big on the whole raw fish thing? Are you forced to forgo the cheap and childlike pleasure of stalking your next course as it makes its way around the counter? Of course not! After extensive research, we’ve got the very best of conveyor-belt non-sushi all picked out for you.

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Don’t bother, ladies: Survey reveals most Japanese guys don’t want your Valentine’s chocolate

Valentine’s Day gifts in Japan are usually one-directional, with women giving chocolate to men. You might think the people leading any kind of counter-movement against this would be the girls, fed up with having to buy or make chocolates for everyone in the office. But a new survey shows it’s the guys who are unhappy, with 90 percent saying they don’t care or would rather the girls didn’t bother.

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Costco Japan’s bulgogi bake is a melting pot of deliciousness

For the most part, grocery shopping in the Tokyo area is a small-scale affair. The majority of shoppers go to the store on foot and carry their purchases home, meaning that each residential neighborhood has a number of small markets to ensure consumers don’t have to lug their bags more than a few blocks.

However, with a little over 15 years’ experience since opening its first store in Japan, mega retailer Costco has converted a number of the locals to its “bigger is better” philosophy. As you’d expect, Costco gives customers in Japan the chance to save by buying in large quantities, and also serves up hot meals in its food court, just like in other countries.

One thing that’s different about the food court at Costco in Japan, though, is the menu, which includes a Korean fusion item called the bulgogi bake.

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Shigeru Mizuki is one of Japan’s most loved comic artists, having created the manga Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro in 1959. Although the serial ended after a 10-year run, the light-hearted story about the traditional Japanese spirits called yokai still has a strong following today, thanks to multiple animated and live-action adaptations premiering as recently as 2008.

Mizuki isn’t resting on his laurels either, despite turning 92 next month. He started a new manga series just last December, and the energetic nonagenarian has recently released a book cataloguing the eating habits that have resulted in his long life. So what does his diet consist of? A surprisingly large amount of junk food.

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Does anime food have a place in the 3D world?

Animesia is a project combining two things dear to the hearts of the Japanese – anime and food. The title itself is a play on the word anime and the casual Japanese word for food, meshi. Run by The Association of Japanese Animations, it aims to turn the 2D dishes seen in your favourite animes into real, edible morsels, for a limited time only!

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Do try this at home! 5 foods that you can recreate in taste by combining other foods

Have you ever had an experience when you ate two different foods at once, and the resulting flavor tasted like a completely different food? If yes, then don’t worry, because apparently your taste buds aren’t going crazy. Kyushu University in Japan recently publicized a list of different food combinations that mirror this phenomenon based on actual scientific research. Some of them are so outrageous that you won’t believe it until you actually try making them yourself!

Here’s a little question to get you started: What two food items should you combine in order to produce the flavor of corn soup? The answer and four more recipes after the jump.

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Chinese woman’s stomach “explodes,” catches fire after binge eating session

As much as we’re reluctant to feed into more negative stereotypes of an entire country, it’s – sadly – time for yet another gross food-related story out of China.

A 58-year-old woman in Jiangsu Province was admitted to the hospital with severe abdominal pains after a marathon binge eating session left her with a ruptured stomach. The rupture was allegedly so bad the woman’s entire stomach had to be surgically removed for an emergency replacement, leading some of the more sensational news outlets and our click-hungry headline to refer to the woman’s stomach as having “exploded.”

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