If you travel to Japan as a tourist, at some point in your trip you’re probably going to take a Shinkansen. These high speed bullet trains connect the city’s major cities from north to south and are a real pleasure to experience. I grew up with a nerdy dad and now live with another nerd so our trip was always going to include a couple of train rides! What I wasn’t expecting was to have such good food on those rides.
Before getting on a long train journey I often grab snacks as I’m sure most of you do. On looking for something to eat on the Shinkansen, I was initially surprised at the price of the Ekiben (box meals) when compared to ready made lunch items here in the UK. It wasn’t until I realised the quality of the meals themselves that I accepted that it’s ok to spend £10-11 on what is essentially a meal deal. These are very different to our standard packet sandwich, crisps and can of pop.
Whizzing through the Japanese countryside with a delicious meal and an ever changing view and my favourite music in my ears was bliss. Book your seats ahead to get a window and always go for the nicer carriages if you can because the chairs are great.
What is an Ekiben?
An is a pre-prepared meal which is designed to be portable. Eki means station and ben is for bento box. So it’s a fancy lunch box especially for train travel! They vary in price from a few pounds up to £12+. As a set meal, ekiben always contain rice and usually pickles plus a main element which is usually sushi or chicken or fish and then almost anything you can think of – vegetables, dumplings, fried items and even omelette. We also noticed that you can pick up regional variations featuring local flavours and there are even novelty versions which come in little trains and crab shaped boxes.
They are an important part of any long train journey in Japan and you’ll find a myriad of shops and stalls selling them at all the major city train stations. Over a period of three weeks we tried one on every journey we took and were amazed and impressed at the variety and quality. These boxes are are delicious and fresh as any lunch time meal in a restaurant or izakaya. Whats more, despite their beautiful packaging they aren’t just a gimmick for tourists, everyone was eating them – from business people to families.
The boxes are always beautiful and come with chopsticks and sometimes dipping sauces. The packaging like a lot of food products in East Asia is quite wasteful though. Whether its wooden, plastic or something else entirely, keep hold of it to recycle if you can (recycling bins are not as numerous as here and I didn’t see any on the Shinkansen).
What did we eat?
This might seem like a lot of lunches (and it’s not even all of them) but every trip we took, Dave and I made sure to have a different box. We took 5 bullet train journeys during our trip; Tokyo to Kanazawa, Kanazawa to Kyoto, Kyoto to Osaka, Osaka to Hiroshima and Hiroshima to Tokyo which means we sampled 10 ekiben!
My favourite, from memory, was this deceptively simple ekiben with teriyaki chicken, egg and soboro (ground meat) over rice. I think it was based loosely on a sansyoku-bento – which means three colours. Usually they are split into three – yellow egg, brown soboro and green vegetables. Mine was just dotted with bright green peas. It didn’t have as many compartments filled with interesting little bits and pieces but the chicken was juicy and really well flavoured.
Dave enjoyed the fishy ones most and his favourite was actually from our first journey from Tokyo to Kanazawa. With grilled eel, panko breaded shrimp and fishcakes, it had a lot of variety and flavour. The sushi rice rolls had little cockles on top too for a salty, briny hit. I mist admit, this one was very pretty.
An ekiben feast for the eyes…
I could waffle on for ever about all the different ekiben we ate during our Shinkansen journeys. Don’t worry, I’ll spare you that. They’re so beautiful, I thought I’d finish by just sharing some of them with you. I’ll let the pictures do the talking…
Which would be your favourite?
