Just Bento

(Originally published in April 2008, and updated substantially in August 2009.)

A very frequently asked question is where and how to buy the bento items and boxes mentioned here, especially in the Bento Item Spotlight (formerly Bento Item of the Week) feature, as well as on other bento blogs and sites. I’ve listed you several options, which I hope will be useful.

Look locally first

As much as I love online shopping, I believe in shopping at your local stores first. You’re supporting your area’s businesses, and you don’t have to pay shipping costs. Besides, it’s arguably a bit better for the environment (especially if you take public transportation!) since the goods have already travelled to your area.

You might argue, “but I don’t have any stores near me that sell bento stuff!” I don’t either. But it’s always possible to find alternatives for lunch boxes, dividers, picks and other accessories. As I wrote in one of the earliest articles on this site, it’s not necessary to buy a box that is labeled as a Bento Box in order to bring bento lunches. You can use cupcake cups, paper or silicon, as bento dividers, picnic utensils, and so on. Check out the Bento Gear Flickr pool for a lot of creative ideas from fellow bento enthusiasts.

If you live in an area with Asian dollar stores, aka 100-yen stores, they are usually a good source for cheap and cheerful bento boxes and equipment. In the U.S. these for now are mostly in California and the west coast, though New York also has a few. Japanese or Asian housewares stores may also carry some things. To locate Japanese grocery (and related) stores near you, consult the reader-contributed and commented Japanese grocery store listings (go to your geographical area page from there) on Just Hungry. Also check out the Bento Store Locator on Lunch In A Box, another user-contributed listings page.

One caveat to avoid disappointment: General Japanese grocery stores usually do not carry bento gear, though recently more stores seem to have become aware of the increasing popularity of bentos and are carrying a small selection. Their non-food sections tend to concentrate on things like proper ceramic tableware and traditional gift items. This may change if the popularity of bento lunches continues to grow, but for now don’t expect to find much in the way of boxes and such. You may still be able to find some accessories like plastic baran (dividers) meant for sushi or decorative picks. You will, of course, find all kinds of food items. (A good example is Japan Centre in central London. When I visited there a few weeks ago, I saw a few bento boxes, plus some other things that could be useful to the bento maker, but the bulk of the store is devoted to food, as is their online store.) In addition, bento lunches are not part of other East Asian cultures such as China and Korea, so you may not find any bento gear at primarily Chinese or Korean stores (such as H-Mart or Super 88 in the U.S., Paristore in France, etc.) (Update: Readers have reported seeing a small selection of bento boxes at H-Mart.)

Japanese bookstores and giftstores can also be worthwhile looking around in. Kinokuniya for example carries a decent selection of bento boxes.

Bento gear shopping meccas

Not sure where to shop for bento stuff in Japan? Check out this forum discussion.

Besides Japan, where are good places to shop for bento gear? You might not necessarily plan a whole trip around buying bento stuff, but it might be handy to know if you are in the midst of a bento mecca, just in case!

U.S and North America:

• The San Francisco and San Jose area in California - home to Ichibankan stores, a Mitsuwa Marketplace in San Jose, and more. See the Japanese food shopping in California page.
• The Los Angeles/SoCal area has several Mitsuwas as well as Marukai and Daiso.
• The Seattle, Washington area is another good bento-shopping area according to readers (I’ve never been there myself - someday!)
• Honolulu, Hawai’i has a huge Japanese-American population and plenty of stores that cater to them. I spotted bento boxes at Marukai (you may need to purchase a 1-day membership), Shirokiya, and so on. See Bento Sightseeing in Hawaii.
• The New York-New Jersey area is much less of a mecca than California or Hawaii, but it has a Mitsuwa, several small Japanese grocery stores, and the biggest overseas branch of Kinokuniya. See the Japanese food shopping in the NY-NJ-CT area page.

Europe:

• Düsseldorf, Germany has a large Japantown, though when I was there my Düsseldorf report) I didn’t spot a whole lot of bento gear per se. It’s worth looking around there though - try the bookstores and gift stores as well as the food shops.
• Paris also has a fairly large expat community, and the Japanese quarter is quite worth a visit if you are a Euro-based Japanophile. See A Frugal Eats Japanese blitz through Paris and Bento sightseeing in Paris, and Workshop Issé.

Online merchants that sell bento boxes and accessories

If your heart is set on getting a ‘real’ Japanese style bento box, for most people mailorder is the only option. The good news is that the number of online bento supply stores seems to be increasing!

Site sponsors and affiliated sites

I have tried most of these stores myself (ordering as a regular customer, no special treatment!) and have been very happy with their services. I think you will be too.

• From Japan With Love carries a very nice selection of reasonably priced bento boxes and accessories such as face punches, inner cups, bags and a lot more. You’ll especially love this site if you like cute/kawaii designs. Ships worldwide. (Disclaimer: I’m happy to welcome From Japan With Love as a site sponsor.)
• CasaBento carries a wide selection of bento boxes of various styles (cute, traditional, modern), accessories and supplies, as well as kitchenware, including 220V rice cookers. They guarantee fast shipping and response times, and ship worldwide. Quoted shipping times: 2-3 days to the UK and Europe; 5-8 days to the U.S., Australia/NZ, and other countries. The online catalog in English, French and German. (Disclaimer: I’m happy to welcome CasaBento as a site sponsor.)
• Bento & Co. is a French-language bento merchant (they tell us that they’re working on an English version of their site) based in Kyoto, operated by husband and wife team Thomas and Erico. Very attractive website, clear listings. Their selection leans towards the sleek and elegant rather than cute. You can email Thomas in English about their products. I’ve been a longtime customer since I love their taste, and am always happy with their shipping speed and communication. Ships worldwide. (Disclaimer: I’m happy to welcomeBento & Co. as a site sponsor.)
• J Flair Homestyles carries many bentos with the popular Shinzi Katoh designs, and other cute bento boxes. Check out the rest of their site too for all kinds of cool/kawaii Japanese products. (Disclaimer: I’m happy to welcome J Flair as a site sponsor.)
• J-List and its PG-rated part (same store without ‘adult’ products) JBox. This store remains one of the most reliable sources of bento supplies, with a large selection of all kinds of styles. They ship just about anywhere in the world. (Disclaimer: Just Bento is a J-List affiliate, but I’m also a happy long time customer.)
• Japan Centre carries a small selection of bento items from Daiso, the major 100-yen shop. Non-food items are shipped worldwide, and food items are shipped throughout Europe. (Their physical store in London carries a bit more than is listed online. If you want them to carry more online I think it’s worthwhile to let them know about it.) (Disclaimer: Japan Centre is a long time advertiser on this site, but I’ve been a happy customer for years before they started advertising.)
• Amazon.com also has a slowly increasing selection of bento supplies for sale, mainly from Marketplace sellers who usually only ship within the US. (I haven’t found any bento stuff for sale on Amazon UK, FR and DE yet. You can find plenty on Amazon Japan of course, but none I’ve seen so far ship internationally. But you can try using the shipping services for shopping from Amazon JP - see below.)

Other favorite stores

• ILoveObento is a US based online store with a variety of attractive bento boxes. Ships worldwide. (I have ordered a box from them, and it came very fast and the shipping was quite reasonable.)

Stores I haven’t tried yet

• Bento Crazy is an online store run by Myria, a mom of 2. Formerly based in Japan, the store is now based in Maryland. Mostly cute and kid-oriented selection Check out the blog here. Ships within the U.S. only.
• Sugar Charms is a cake decorating supply store that also carries a lot of bento things. Ships within the US only.
• Ichibankan USA. The online store of this California based 100 yen (dollar) shop sells ‘cheap and cheerful’ bento boxes as well as higher quality ones from Hakoya (a well known bento box maker). Shipping is within the continental US only at the moment but is scheduled to start shipping elsewhere soon. Update: Ichibankan USA has now closed their online store indefinitely, but their San Franciso area-based brick-and-mortar “100-yen” (dollar) stores are still in operation.

Getting the most out of eBay

The main source of the widest variety of bento gear for non-Japanese speakers and residents is eBay. There are now dozens of merchants selling bento related supplies. Whenever you are buying something, make sure to comparison shop (some merchants are way overpriced). Most merchants are based in Japan or Hong Kong, and ship worldwide, but expect to pay quite a lot for shipping. I like to stick to the merchants who have clear descriptions of the dimensions and capacity of the bento boxes they sell.

Did you know that eBay offers RSS feeds of their listings, based on search terms? You can set up one and subscribe to it in your favorite news reader. For bento things, go to Advanced Search and enter bento in the terms to search for, and enter amy, cd, music, mac, osx, software in the terms not to search for. This filters out all, or most, mentions of Amy Bento (an aerobics instructor), CDs and music related items from Brazil or Portugal (Bento is a popular nickname in Portuguese it seems), and listings of Bento the software program. You can also select House and Garden as the category. Once the search results page is generated, scroll down until you see the RSS button, and click on it to subscribe. You will get a nice listing with prices and thumbnail pics. This is how I generate the eBay Bento listings page (which you can just bookmark if you don’t want to bother with the searching).

Buying directly from Japan using shipping services

The items listed on eBay, J-List and such are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bento gear - a lot, lot more is available only in Japan. Unfortunately, most of the online stores that sell them are in Japanese only, and do not ship overseas.

But you don’t have to give up there. If you don’t have a handy friend or relative that lives there, there are an increasing number of shipping service web sites that will get the stuff you want and then ship it to you, for a fee. The fee varies but is usually around 10-15% of the purchase price, plus the actual cost of the goods and shipping. Some sites also charge a membership fee. This route may only be for serious collectors, but considering that they are offer a combination of translation, buying, shipping and payment services, it’s a fairly good deal.

An updated list of shipping (or shopping) services is maintained on this page. One that has gotten several positive comments is i-tm4u. For instance commenter Anna from Russia used them to buy a handcarved wooden bento box, and ODG from Hong Kong also had a positive experience. Tenso is another popular service. One of these days I’ll try out a couple of these services for myself and report back. (At the moment I rely on the free “mom” service…)

Searching Yahoo! Japan Auctions and Rakuten Ichiba

Update: Rakuten now has an International section - see this forum discussion.

There are two huge online sources in Japan for bento stuff: Yahoo! Japan Auctions (which is so popular that eBay had to give up in Japan), and Rakuten Ichiba (marketplace). Both sites are in Japanese only, and only accept Japanese search terms. Here are some direct links to bento-related search results (let me know if you’d like to see some others):

Yahoo! Japan auctions:

• Bento　弁当
• Bento bako (bento box)　弁当箱
• Lunchbox ランチボックス
• Handmade bento ハンドメイド　弁当 - you can find things like handmade bento bags
• Wooden bento box 木　弁当箱
• Stainless steel bento box ステンレス　弁当箱
• Aluminum bento box アルミ　弁当箱
• Character bento (kyaraben) キャラ弁 - this one is good for searching for cute bento making equipment like face punches and molds

Rakuten:

• Bento 弁当
• Bento box 弁当箱
• Lunchbox ランチボックス
• Handmade bento ハンドメイド　弁当
• Wooden bento box 木　弁当箱
• Stainless steel bento box 　ステンレス　弁当箱
• Aluminum bento box アルミ　弁当箱
• Character bento (kyaraben) キャラ弁