Chicken Bento” was launched by Nihon Shokudo in 1964, the year the Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train opened for business, and remains highly popular to this day. In 2024, the 60th anniversary of the launch of such a long-selling product, the new “Chicken Bento Deluxe” will be introduced.
When it was first released, it was sold as a limited edition product in a package depicting a chicken cook in a red cock coat, not a red chanchanko, to celebrate the 60th birthday, but now it is packaged in a white cock coat.
Now, being a deluxe, it is considerably more powerful than the regular version. The most distinctive feature is the use of a heated container that is heated by pulling a string on the side of the container. The taste is based on the chicken bento, and Masahiro Ishihara, Executive Chef of Tokyo Station Hotel, has created an ambitious work that expresses a fusion of Japanese and Western flavors. Expectations are already high before you even start eating.
First, pull the string as a pre-meal ritual; it will warm up in 5-6 minutes, and only here will you open the lid. The orange tomato-flavored rice, yellow scrambled eggs, and fried chicken are all brown, and the entire bento is a parade of warm colors, giving it a warm appearance. The fried chicken, the star of the meal, comes in four pieces, which is a generous portion. The fried chicken was seasoned with a strong under seasoning, and I personally preferred the attached lemon juice to freshen it up.
The tomato-flavored rice is moist and tender, while the basil-sauce-flavored bamboo shoots on top and the cartilage in the chicken tsukune are crispy and enjoyable to the palate. The tomato sauce with carrots, basil sauce, and scrambled eggs, all of which have a strong onion flavor, are well matched, giving the dish a somewhat higher grade of quality. Incidentally, the fluffiness of the scrambled eggs seems to benefit most from the warming effect.
Personally, I believe that “ekiben” are the result of ingenuity that allows them to be eaten cold, even if a little time has passed since they were cooked. If you eat it on the train, the smell may spread inside the train if it is heated, and above all, it is large and heavy. I am convinced that the “Chicken Bento Deluxe” is delicious only when it is heated up.
While I like the rustic, Showa-era Western-style simplicity of the regular chicken bento, I enjoyed the deluxe bento with its Italian flavor in the basil sauce and tomatoes, which gave it a different taste.
© Source travel watch