Japanese Culture in New York - Chopsticks NY

FUJI CATERING / NARA JAPANESE FOODS / BENTO NOUVEAU

BENTO: Changing New York's Lunch Culture

Busy New Yorkers hungry for a healthy and inexpensive option at lunch can find it with FUJI Catering's nutritious bento, a boxed lunch combining Japanese cuisine with American convenience.

Japanese Style Lunch Delivered to Your Office

Toru Furukawa wants to change American food culture. The thirty-year-old president of FUJI Catering believes New Yorkers are not getting a good balance of meats, fish and vegetables in their diets. He wants to help them achieve that balance with bento, the Japanese boxed lunch.

FUJI Catering, located on Ludlow Street in Chinatown, has been in New York for twenty years and provides bento (boxed lunches) to a mainly Japanese clientele. The company takes orders by phone or e-mail every day and delivers them to workers in mostly Japanese businesses in Manhattan, Queens and even New Jersey. Furukawa would like for his company to include a non-Japanese client base, and he has plans for making bento just as popular a choice for lunch as pastrami on rye or a burger with fries.

Each week Furukawa creates a menu with four different choices of bento. It's a healthy alternative to fast food because, although bento can contain battered and fried food such as tempura, the small portion of potentially unhealthy food is balanced by portions of healthy items such as steamed or grilled vegetables, calcium-rich seaweed, and a good source of protein in grilled fish. It is beautifully arranged in one container that has separate compartments for each dish and is 100% recyclable. The cost of one of these hearty meals ranges between $6.50 and $7.00, an unbeatable price in today's economy. In addition to the healthy and money-saving aspects of bento, having lunch delivered is convenient, especially if people are too busy to take an hour break or if the office has limited choices of restaurants in the area.

Steps for Delivering a Bento to You

FUJI Catering's workday begins while many of us are still sleeping. The twelve members of the kitchen staff of the bento-making company begin cooking at five o'clock in the morning.

Around 7:00am they start packing the biodegradable containers, filling orders that were taken by phone or online.

When the thirteen delivery people leave between 9:00am and 10:00am to distribute that day's orders, the kitchen work continues. Since FUJI Catering takes lunch orders until 10:00am, there are sometimes additional orders to fill, followed by shopping and then the preparation for the next day's meals.

Each delivery person has an area based on customer location. They have learned which subway stations have elevators so they can travel in relative ease with wheeled carts holding between fifty and sixty bento for customers.

What is Bento?

So, what exactly is bento? By American standards, the phrase "boxed lunch" brings to mind a plain cardboard box containing a bland cold-cut sandwich, a small bag of chips and either a chocolate chip cookie or an apple. But a boxed lunch in the Japanese sense is more elaborate than that. A Japanese bento consists of rice or noodles, meat (beef, pork or chicken), fish, and cooked and pickled vegetables.

The bento has come a long way from its humble beginnings during Japan's Heian Era (794 - late twelfth century) when the Japanese developed hoshi-ii, dried cooked rice they stored in a bag and carried to work. Throughout the centuries the bag evolved into lacquered boxes, the meals expanded to include more than rice, and bento consumers progressed from farmers to Kabuki audience members to school children.

Bento for American Palates

FUJI Catering wants to add American workers to that list. At this time, Furukawa is aiming for corporate accounts with a daily minimum order of ten bento. Americans are adventurous about trying different cuisines; still he will add American touches to attract new customers. For example, FUJI Catering already offers Chinese-style and vegetarian bento, and he believes adding light sandwiches and possibly even pizza to the menu will attract non-Japanese customers. "There are no rules with bento," says Furukawa; therefore, he has the ability to create versatile lunches that will provide a sense of familiarity while introducing customers to Japanese home-style cooking.

Many English-speaking websites are dedicated to bento recipes and even bento art, proving that bento is growing in popularity in this country. Furukawa and his staff at FUJI Catering want to continue that trend by delivering bento to busy New Yorkers. Yes, Toru Furukawa wants to change American food culture, and he's determined to do it one bento at a time.

FUJI Catering
27 Ludlow St.
New York, NY 10002
TEL: 212-219-9955
FAX: 212-941-1171
www.fuji-catering.com

Andrew Hayakawa, a twenty-six-year-old software engineer, is one of the regular customers of FUJI Catering. As a Japanese American, Hayakawa grew up eating bento foods, "so it's kind of like going back home," he says. He has introduced his co-workers, who are mostly non-Japanese, to the variety, healthfulness and convenience of FUJI Catering's bento. Although he sometimes has to explain to them what some of the foods are, overall his co-workers are impressed with the flavor, portion size and presentation. "A lot of the stuff my co-workers hadn't seen before, so it was like an eye-opener for them."