The Joy Of Ekiben—Why Japan's Train Bento Boxes Are Worth Traveling For

To collect Bokoi-meshi, one of the rarest bento boxes there is, you should travel to the frozen southern shore of Hokkaido in January and ride the train to Bokoi Station, a remote stop in the northern Japanese port city of Muroran.

The cold season is when the tender Sakhalin surf clam’s flavour peaks, its flesh firm, sweet and shot with ribbons of bright pink. The Bokoi-meshi ekiben (station bento) serves the large clam in onigiri (seaweed-wrapped rice) flavoured with sea salt harvested nearby, pairing it with smoked cheese, pickles and marinated egg. Arrive early; only 40 are made each day and they tend to run out by the afternoon.

Before you dig in, wait for the next train. The traditional way to enjoy ekiben is in motion, viewing the scenery that corresponds to the ingredients and recipes in the bento. The Suzuran Limited Express takes passengers — box in hand — right to the edge of the snowy harbour where the ekiben’s clams and salt were harvested.

A Japanese culinary practice more than a century old, ekiben packs the taste-exploring joys of travel into convenient bento boxes, available at train stations across Japan. On any given day, there are easily more than a thousand kinds of ekiben for sale in stations across the country. They form an ever-changing library of culinary traditions encompassing not just local flavours and ingredients, but also references to classical novels, history, nutritional science, pop culture, the changing of the seasons and memories of war and hunger.

The first ekiben, sold in 1885 at Utsunomiya Station about 60 miles north of Tokyo, was two salted rice balls crusted with sesame seeds, wrapped in bamboo leaves, with a side of pickled daikon radish. Now there are self-heating boxes and intricate ceramic containers, while fans line up for bento featuring characters from Pokemon, Sanrio and the world of Godzilla, along with countless other national favourites. In Hiroshima, local officials are seeking formal cultural protections for ekiben that preserve styles of eel preparation that have long disappeared from modern kitchens.

Ekiben are designed to be eaten cold or at room temperature so the flavours can last through a long day of travel. They’re only sold at train stations — both before and after the ticket gate — and each package lists the exact hour it will expire. The flagship store in the basement of Tokyo Station offers more than 300 kinds.

January is not just the Bokoi-meshi ekiben’s peak season, it’s also when the nation’s largest and oldest ekiben food festival takes place at the Keio Department Store in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It’s a two-week tournament that offers a chance to taste freshly prepared ekiben from all over the country; the bestselling ekiben creators are invited to join the official roster.

Rare, Historic and Seasonal

The author, designer and ekiben enthusiast Shinobu Kobayashi once wrote that it’s possible to trace the seasonal variation of eel preparations in bento from stations along the Seto Inland Sea. Hiroshima’s characteristic bento, anago meshi (conger eel rice), is so famous that it appears regularly in travel shows and anime set in the area. It even has its own series of collectible plastic miniatures. The anago meshi from nearby Miyajimaguchi Station is a bento with rice and eel that’s first been simmered, then grilled. Texturally, it’s firmer and meatier than regular unagi (eel); sweet but smokier and drier.

Hippari Takomeshi — one of Japan’s most uniquely styled ekiben — is a palm-sized glazed ceramic pot filled with stewed octopus tentacles. Along with rice, pickles, shiitake mushroom and other flavours native to Hyogo Prefecture, the contents hide an akashiyaki, an octopus dumpling similar to takoyaki (octopus balls), served with broth instead of mayo and Worcester sauce. The octopus is from Hyogo’s Akashi City and is famous for its red colour and thick tentacles so strong they can walk on land. The ingredients are layered and cooked inside the ceramic, which is modelled after the traditional octopus traps once used by fishermen in the churning waters of the Akashi Strait. The ceramic comes in several dozen collectible colours, including one painted a vivid gold.

Another design standout, masu no sushi is a miniaturised version of a traditional dish made famous in the early 1900s in Toyama prefecture on Honshu’s north-central coast. A medallion of thinly sliced red trout is layered on vinegared rice and pressed in a bamboo container lined with bamboo leaves laid out in a radial pattern. It includes a little implement for slicing, but you’ll often find masu no sushi pre-cut into pie-like servings. At Toyama station, vending machines are stocked with more than a dozen variations of this cake-slice style sushi.

Box Clever

Around one out of every 10 ekiben are train-themed, and while these are presumably made for children, adults seem to enjoy them the most. They come in collectible containers moulded to resemble train engines of all types, including each generation of the shinkansen engine as well as the freight and passenger cars. And train ekiben are full of school lunch favourites with approachable Westernised items familiar to an overseas traveller — the likes of hamburger, fried chicken, sausage and egg.

My favourite train bento design is the R65 configuration of the 0 series of the shinkansen, the first commercial bullet trains introduced in the 1960s. Another favourite, the Enoden ceramic bento — was sold at the Keio Ekiben Tournament in January 2024. Outside of tournament conditions, you’ll need to reserve the ceramic ekiben in advance, online, from a station that’s served by the Enoshima Electric Railway. This highly photogenic electrified trolley runs along a scenic section of the coast just south of Tokyo. The rice bento is topped with tiny, ghostly white fish called shirasu.

Fish feature heavily in the country’s ekiben but the Kuroge Wagyu Motaro bento, made with Matsusaka beef, is one of the best-ranked local varieties in Japan. It features rice topped with wagyu from the local breed, called Kuroge or Japanese Black, which produces a meat known for its fine, intricate marbling. When you lift the ekiben’s motion sensor-equipped lid, it begins to play a Taisho-era children’s song called Furusato (‘Hometown’). A nostalgic song written from the perspective of a city-dwelling adult dreaming of the countryside where they grew up, there’s little better to inspire a scenic train journey.