Taiwan Railway Bento facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Taiwan Railway Bento(TR Bento) |
|||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
_02.JPG)
A regular Taiwan Railway Bento
|
|||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 臺鐵便當 or 台鐵便當 |
||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 台铁便当 | ||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
Taiwan Railway Bento (TR Bento) are special boxed meals you can buy when you travel by train in Taiwan. They are made and sold by the Taiwan Railways Administration, which runs the trains. You can find them at big train stations and even right on the train! People love these meals so much that over five million are sold every year. This brings in about 370 million NTD (around US$10 million) each year.
Contents
What is Taiwan Railway Bento?
Taiwan Railway Bento is a type of ekiben, which is a Japanese word for a boxed meal sold at train stations or on trains. The word bento just means a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal. These meals are a big part of the train travel experience in Taiwan.
How did TR Bento start?
Long ago, when Taiwan was under Japanese rule, train passengers had two choices for food. They could eat in a special dining car, or they could buy an ekiben. But back then, you could only buy these boxed meals at the train stations, not on the trains themselves.
After 1945, when the Chinese Nationalist government took over, train travel became very popular. Many different companies started selling food for passengers. By 1960, the Taiwan Railway Administration brought all these food services together. This helped the railway company earn a lot of money, besides just selling train tickets.
The Return of the Pork Chop Bento
On June 9, 2000, something exciting happened! The famous pork chop bento came back. It had not been sold for 32 years. The railway company thought they would sell about a thousand boxes that day. But because it was so popular, they actually sold over 90,000!
In 2015, a Japanese train company called Keikyu Corporation even sold Taiwan Railway Mealboxes. This was a special event to promote them in Japan.
What's inside a TR Bento?
The most famous part of a Taiwan Railway Mealbox is usually the pork chop. But it's not just pork! These meals come with many other tasty side dishes. You'll often find rice, a braised egg, a piece of dried tofu, and some dried white radish.
Where are TR Bentos sold?
The Taiwan Railways Administration has five main places where they prepare these meals. These are at the train stations in Songshan, Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, and Hualien.
Staff members at these stations give the mealboxes to the train attendants. Then, the attendants bring them onto the trains. During meal times, which are usually from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, you'll see attendants walking down the aisle with a trolley cart. They ask passengers if they would like a bento in both Mandarin and Hokkien.
From steel to paper boxes
In the past, the bento meals came in stainless steel boxes. After eating, passengers were supposed to return the boxes so they could be washed and used again. However, this became very expensive, and many passengers took the steel boxes home by mistake or on purpose. So, now the railway company uses disposable paper boxes instead.
Railroad Bento Festival
The first Formosa Railroad Bento Festival was held from July 17 to 20, 2015. This festival celebrates the delicious train meals and brings together different kinds of bento from Taiwan and other places.
