When Bentos Attack!

Nothing too strange here... starting in the upper left and working clockwise, we have tomato, potato salad, and lemon, delicious lemony fried chicken, random pickled vegetables, and a bed of rice topped with a pickled plum. An excellent Friday lunch.

This was picked up at a nearby restaurant, which was a semi-classy takeout place. (Maybe a chain?) The menu was located on the front of the counter, out of view of the cashier, which made my charades version of ordering more difficult. Ever polite though, the employee came out from behind the counter to see which menu item I was pointing at and hooked me up. I'm told fried chicken is a very Nagoya food, and really it must be... have you ever heard of fried chicken being big in Japan? I certainly wasn't expecting to be eating it here.

Here's the thing, this is effectively fast food in prep time and price, but the care in presentation is noteworthy. This is how it looked when I brought it home; notice how the top of the bag is actually taped shut? Maybe they're just trying to prevent me from stealing things on the way out of the place (why it's done at the department stores), but it still shows a great amount of care for a restaurant without anything to pilfer on your way out. I'd like to think they were just doing a nice job packaging it.