Friday, January 20, 2012

Now THAT is a bento


A bento (弁当) is a Japanese boxed lunch. Living in San Francisco with its notable Japanese population, you did see some places selling bentos but they had nothing on this baby. We have here (in clockwise order starting from the top right): fried shrimp with tartar sauce, sashimi (tuna, yellow fin tuna, and squid), carrots/boiled shrimp/mushroom/ and a type of tofu that is, while being delicious, not entirely unlike eating a profoundly absorbent sponge, pickled cucumbers, sushi, teriyaki chickien/shrimp manifestation #4/broiled eel, and a piece of melon in the middle.

Now, that all may be great, but for this masterpiece of variety and shrimp, please be prepared to part way with about ¥4,000 to ¥5,000 (close to $60 at current exchange rates).

You typically see these babies at funerals or other events of great import.







These are more typical of a kid's daily boxed lunch. But clearly their parents don't love them because they didn't get up at 2:30 in the morning and go bat-shit crazy with a piece of seaweed and some scissors to create this:



Yeah - it is all edible. This shits all over those brown-bag lunches where your mom put in an extra cookie. Face it. Your parents just don't love you.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Dan

    My name is Joe Pinzone and I’m casting an international travel show about expats moving abroad. We’d love to film in Japan and wanted to know if you could help us find expats who have moved there within the last 15 months or have been there for 3-4 years, but recently moved into a new home. The show documents their move to a new country and will place the country in fabulous light. The contributors on the show would also receive monetary compensation if they are filmed. If you’d like more information, please give me a call at 212-231-7716 or skype me at joefromnyc. You can also email me atjoepinzone@leopardusa.com. Looking forward to hearing from you.
    Joe Pinzone
    Casting Producer
    P: 212-231-7716
    Skype: Joefromnyc

    ReplyDelete