Ekiben

Still in the mood of bento, after my previous post about Kyaraben now it's Ekiben, bento (lunch box) sold at railway stations or on trains in Japan. I still remember how delicious my teriyaki bento was on the Nozomi express headed to Osaka after one-day trip of Tokyo on a chilling Chritsmas day more than one and half year ago. Long time ago when flight was still quite expensive and people prefer using train for inter city trip, passengers and tourist were perfect target for Ekiben. Famous as an affordable boxed meal, ekiben are often made from local delicacies and many train station have been famous for their special and tasty ekiben.

This news from Mainichi announced "Ekiben of the Year" awards, a ranking of the most popular ekiben by Tokyo-based stores between April 2008 and February 2009.

Ekiben of the Year (1st place): Gyuniku bento, a box of rice and sukiyaki for 1,050 yen from Asakusa Imahan.

(Photo courtessy of Tetsudo Kaikan Co.)

Ekiben of the Year (2nd place): Hirekatsu to tamago no poketto sando, a box of pork fillet cutlet with egg sandwiches for 470 yen from Tonkatsu Maisen.

(Photo courtessy of Tetsudo Kaikan Co.)

Ekiben of the Year (3rd place): Kaisendon, a bowl of rice topped with seafood for 1,200 yen from Tsukiji Takewaka

(Photo courtessy of Tetsudo Kaikan Co.)

To read more about Ekiben of the Year you can click on Mainichi news

Kyaraben

Kyaraben is a style of arranging and decorating bento (lunch box) and in Japan bento is much more than just a boxed meal. It's very common in Japan that housewifes often spend considerable time decorating their children's lunch box. The lunch box normally comprises rice, fish/meat, pickled or cooked vegetables as side dishes. The bento decorated to look like people, animal, or cute comic's characters. Originally the idea of decorating bento is to make the food much more appealing for the kids so that they would be happy to bring and eat their bento at school. But now making a fancy and attractive bento has become a part of Japanese culture which is famous for its creativity. In Japan, they even have a national contest for making an attractive bento where kyaraben artists will show off their creativity and the winner would get an opportunity to become a famous speaker in some seminars.

Here are some great works of Kyaraben artist I got from the net

Cute bento!