Kyoto’s Nishiki Market has great bento boxed lunches, and here are our top 3 picks

Whether you’re looking to eat in the park, along the river, or on the Shinkansen, “Kyoto’s Kitchen” has you covered.

Nishiki Market is often referred to as “Kyoto’s Kitchen.” The covered arcade, located a short walk from either Shijo, Karasuma, or Kawaramachi stations consists of five blocks of stalls and shops that have been serving downtown Kyoto for generations, and the market has become a popular spot for sightseers too.

Of course, if you’re a traveler odds are you’ll be looking for ready-to-eat items, as opposed to ingredients to cook up yourself. Luckily, some of the merchants in Nishiki Market sell bento boxed lunches. These make great grab-and-go options to eat in a park or along Kyoto’s Kamogawa River, to take back to your hotel, or to enjoy on your train ride out of town to the next stop on your Japan travel itinerary, as Nishiki Market isn’t that far from Kyoto Station by subway.

So the question then becomes which Nishiki Market bento to try. Our central Japan-based reporter K. Masami went looking for the answer, and she came back with three can’t-miss bento recommendations.

Two of these are actually from the same shop, called Nomura, which opened about 90 years ago. Nomura’s chief specialty is tsukudani, a style of traditional Japanese cooking in which vegetables, seafood, or meat is simmered in a mixture of soy sauce and mirin (sweet cooking sake).

Nomura’s Dashimaki and Karaage Bento, pictured above, cost Masami about 1,000 yen (US$6.80), and included kikurage (wood ear mushroom) tsukudani, which was delightfully flavorful, and if it wasn’t still so early in the day, she would have cracked open a beer, which she thinks would have gone splendidly with the kikurage’s salty taste and crunchy texture. The dashimaki, Japanese-style omelet seasoned with flying fish broth, was similarly fantastic, and could have carried the bento all on its own, so when you add in the karaage fried chicken too, the total package is immensely satisfying.

Nomura also has a Nori Bento, or “Seaweed Bento,” for 993 yen. This one is kind of a misnomer, though, since it also has tsukudani and grilled salmon.

The salmon here is done in the Kyoto saikyoyaki style, in which the fish is pickled overnight in white miso before grilling. This classy, regionally representative flavor is accompanied in the bento by, once again dashimaki omelet and tsukudani, this time chirimen (whitebait).

Everything here is lovingly made and high-quality, and Masami, who’s in Kyoto multiple times a week, can see herself putting the nori bento into her regular lunch rotation.

Rounding out Masami’s picks for the best bento at Nishiki Market is the 1,080-yen Yakitori Bento from Torisei, which has been in business for around 110 years, even longer than Nomura. Torisei’s specialty is chicken, and the Yakitori Bento is basically an assortment of things you’d find as yakiroti, grilled chicken skewers, only without the sticks.

Inside the box are pieces of chicken thigh and tsukune (ground chicken meatballs) seasoned with Torisei’s special glaze, served over a bed of white rice along with onion, dashimaki, and mixed greens. If you want to dial up the intensity of the flavor, there’s even a container of extra sauce to pour onto the chicken, which gives you enough that it’ll seep into the rice too so you can enjoy its taste until the very last grain.

Of course, these are far from the only bento options at Nishiki Market, and if you’re enjoying an extended stay in Kyoto there are others worth a try too. But if you’ve only got time for one Nishiki bento run, Masami says you can’t go wrong with any of these three.

Shop information
Nomura / 野村
Address: Kyoto-fu, Kyoto-shi. Nakagyo-ku, Fuyachodori Nishikikoji Sagaru Masuyacho 502
京都府京都市中京区麩屋町通錦小路下ル桝屋町502
Open 10:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Closed Thursdays
Website

Torisei / 鳥清
Address: Kyoto-fu, Kyoto-shi. Nakagyo-ku, Nishikikojidori Tominokoji Nishiiru Higashi Uoyacho 186
京都府京都市中京区錦小路通富小路西入ル東魚屋町186
Open 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Website

Photos © SoraNews24
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