How Japan created the ultimate take-away food

The dish: Bento, Japan

Plate up

There’s something inherently exciting about rolling up to a Japanese train station all set for a long-distance journey, and finding your way to the ekiben counter. Ekiben, a specialised form of a bento box, is a contraction of the Japanese word for train station (eki) and bento. The dish is a small box – sometimes cardboard, sometimes plastic or even bamboo – filled with an often-lavish selection of edible treats, everything from sushi rolls to pickled vegetables, rolled omelettes to braised beef on rice, chicken karaage to katsu sandwiches.

Each box is designed as a complete meal, with all the elements required to keep you sated and satisfied. Though bentos can be bought elsewhere in Japan (check out the sprawling depachika, or department store food halls, for some fine examples), the ekiben is surely the most natural and enjoyable form. Add a cold beer and a racing shinkansen and you have one of life’s great pleasures.

First serve

The first bento were so simple that they contained only the key ingredient to any Japanese meal: rice. In the 12th century, a practice was developed of steaming and then drying rice for field workers to carry with them from home. These were called hoshi-ii. In the 16th century these carry packs became slightly more complex, and by the Edo period travellers and even kabuki theatregoers were carrying simple bamboo boxes of onigiri (flavoured rice balls) with nori, to snack on. As trains arrived in the Meiji period, in the late 19th century, so too did ekiben, and a star was born. There was a resurgence in its popularity in the early 1990s, when dining cars on shinkansen were discontinued.

Order there

Tokyo Station is a huge transit hub playing host to numerous ekiben stands, though Ekibenya Matsuri is the biggest.

Order here

In Sydney, get your meal in a box from Taruhachi Bento in North Sydney (no website). In Melbourne, head to Hareruya Pantry in Carlton (hareruya.com.au). In Brisbane, try Ippin (ippin-wv.com.au).

One more thing

The word bento didn’t appear in Japan until the 16th century, 400 or so years after people began carrying their packs of rice to work. The word is said to originate from an old Chinese slang term for convenience.