NY’s BentOn Helps You Bring Balance to Your Meals

Instead of rushing through another lunch break with a heavily processed meal from the fast food restaurant down the road, visit BentOn for a balanced plate packed with all the nutrients you need to get you through the rest of your day. By offering the classic Japanese Bento (lunchbox), BentOn strives to provide the busy New Yorker with a nourishing lunch that satisfies without weighing you down!

The authentic Japanese Bento Store has two New York locations—Midtown and Long Island City— open exclusively during lunch hours; however, they also offer delivery options directly to your home or business. Their vibrant bento boxes change daily, including traditional Japanese dishes, offering daily meat, fish, vegetable, and rice options.

We wanted to learn more about what BentOn offers and how they incorporate the Rice Factory’s rice into their daily offerings. To get a deeper insight, we spoke to BentOn’s founder, Toru Furukawa. 

Tell us, what is the intention behind BentOn? Why only open during lunch hours? 

Our mission is to provide busy individuals with a well-balanced meal. To do this, our nutrient-packed bento provides a fresh variety of food groups that give you energy for the rest of your day. We hope to show people that they don’t have to settle for greasy low-energy foods just because they are on the go. Since lunchtime is the meal that most people rush through, we make sure to provide them with ready-to-eat and fresh bentos during these peak hours. 

At BentOn, we currently provide three different services: Daily BentOn and Event Catering, both exclusively available at our Midtown location, and Meal Kits, which are currently available nationwide. Our meal kits are perfect for anyone who wants to have a tasty and nutritious Japanese meal that they can whip up in the comfort of their home. In a world where a lot of our free time is spent doing chores, this helps lighten the load while still keeping people nourished and their bellies happy, 

The idea is to help the modern professional have a healthy, balanced meal on the table within 10-15 minutes; because “healthy,” “tasty,” and “easy to cook” should be synonymous. This effectively reduces the time it takes to meal prep, plan menus, and do your groceries, not to mention searching for niche Japanese ingredients in the suburbs! We believe that just because you live alone, you don’t have to eat the same thing daily. Additionally, we hope that our service supports families who have their hands full working demanding jobs while raising kids. 

What are your signature dishes or bento combinations? 

Some of the most popular and in-demand menu items in the set kit include the wagyu beef hamburger steak with onion sauce, the Alaskan sushi, which comes with salmon and salmon roe, as well as the hijiki (seaweed), and chicken tsukune teriyaki donburi, which is a traditional Japanese rice bowl dish. For our side dish kit, some of the most popular choices include the yellowtail with teriyaki sauce and the grilled mackerel with miso. 

What inspired you to start using rice from the rice factory NEW YORK? 

Well, since our meal kits are pre-packaged and re-heated, whether using hot water or the microwave, the rice's texture, stickiness, and moisture content are very important. We currently use the Rice Factory’s Nanatsuboshi rice from Japan, whose wonderfully sticky and moist texture greatly impressed us. Once we saw how it performed in our meal kits, we started regularly using this rice variety from the Rice Factory.

Although I am currently the president of BentOn, I was previously in charge of rice cooking at a food service company in Japan, which gave me a depth of knowledge about the Japanese rice world. As someone who has always had an interest in rice, I am very impressed with the rice factory NEW YORK’s quality, as well as the kindness and positive attitude of their staff.  

How are customers responding to the rice from the rice factory NEW YORK?  

Our customers are delighted to be able to eat fresh, high-quality Japanese rice, especially our clients in the suburbs, where authentic Japanese products are not as accessible. 

Do you have any news about upcoming events for BentOn?  

We are looking forward to learning more about the rice milling process, hoping to one day offer our Ohio clients freshly milled rice deliveries straight to their homes. 

Is there a message that you would like to share with our readers?  

Thanks to the rice factory NEW YORK, we are now able to access delicious, high-quality Japanese rice despite being located in the US. At BentOn, we continue to do our best to make your dining table richer and more enjoyable by incorporating this reliably tasty rice in our dishes and meal kits!