Today: a special episode focusing on Iwate Prefecture in northeastern Japan. We meet local Uyghur and Vietnamese bento makers. Maki and Marc make noodle-based bentos inspired by Iwate.
On today's BENTO EXPO,
we visit Iwate Prefecture in northeastern Japan.
This scenic region is home to about 10,000 foreign residents,
some of whom are avid bento makers.
A Uyghur family and aspiring plumbers from Vietnam
show us their bentos.
- What's this?
- Spring rolls!
Correct!
Marc and Maki make bentos inspired by local noodle dishes.
We love bento!
(The Global Lunchbox 9-3)
Iwate's capital Morioka was chosen by the New York Times
as the second best "Place to Go" in 2023.
Ahat and Hamida are from the Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.
They both studied at Iwate University's grad school,
and have lived here for about 15 years.
Morioka is my second home.
I love Iwate, especially the people.
Me, too!
Hamida teaches Chinese part time at the university.
She starts the day by making bentos for her sons.
They're Muslim, so she uses only halal foods.
Today she's making "polo,"
a traditional Uyghur dish of rice cooked with mutton and vegetables.
It smells good.
Let's steam it, 25 minutes.
Wow! Looks delicious!
Five stars!
The mutton, vegetables, and rice are bursting with flavor,
and topped with loads of sliced mutton.
Bye!
After sending their sons off to school,
they start cooking again.
Ahat makes a huge stack of seasoned chicken.
He works at a hotel,
but on Wednesdays, he and his wife run a food truck
which they take to the university to sell homemade kebabs.
Wow!
The grilled meat is seasoned Uyghur-style with lots of cumin.
Lots of meat.
The sliced meat is served with bread or rice
along with cabbage and two kinds of homemade sauces.
All the ingredients are halal.
Muslim students come from all over the world.
We want to help them with our kebab bentos.
When we see this food cart, we are very happy to see.
In this area, we don't find any halal food,
so I really appreciate their intention.
This student is a regular.
He's from the same region as the couple.
I've added extra.
Great to see you again.
They're like my older siblings.
Delicious!
Students are given a discount
and can buy the kebabs for a reasonable price.
They're a favorite with Japanese students, too.
It's huge and so good!
We get to experience a different culture.
Iwate University has been good to us.
Serving good food to the students is our way of returning the favor.
We're rooting for you!
We come here every Wednesday.
Everyone says they love our food.
It brings us together.
We love bento!
Now to Kitakami,
a city famous for its cherry blossoms.
We meet five young men from Vietnam.
Good morning.
They work for a pipe manufacturing and installation company.
Mornings start off with group exercise.
Let's work hard and stay safe!
Trung has worked here for three years.
He's mastered pipe welding and complex machining techniques.
I want to learn more because I want to work as a plumber in Vietnam.
His coworker Cong shares that dream.
They've earned the trust of Takahashi, their manager.
These two will help connect Vietnam and Japan.
Trung and Cong are teaching three new recruits from Vietnam
the ropes, or rather... the pipes.
Leave it to us!
The five live in a dormitory
and make their own bentos every day.
This is for today's bento.
The sweet and sour pork-and-egg stew is a popular choice.
Over here, they're making spring rolls.
It's yummy.
Ground meat, mushrooms, vegetables, and rice vermicelli
are wrapped in rice paper and deep-fried.
The bentos packed with Vietnamese food
provide a taste of home for the new recruits.
I'm homesick.
Not me.
Eat up and you'll feel better!
But why so many spring rolls?
We're making enough for everyone.
We all have the desire to share good food.
Japanese as well as Vietnamese.
The bentos also include seafood.
Fish-and-pineapple soup is a regular bento item.
But today, they're also making fried fish with tomato sauce.
What a feast.
What will their coworkers think?
- Guess what this is.
- Spring rolls!
Correct!
Eat up!
Good!
Yum!
Spicy and interesting.
They like the stew, too.
Delicious!
Their Japanese coworkers brought "onigiri"
filled with local mountain greens.
I like the crunchy texture.
Yum!
Cong dips the onigiri in the Vietnamese stew.
Good food brings everyone together.
I'm full. I'm sleepy but reenergized!
We love bento!
Wow, the Vietnamese bento looked so delicious.
I want to try them.
Yeah, it's wonderful seeing people share their culture through their bentos.
And I want to try all those kebab bentos.
Yeah, that's so nice!
Today, both Maki and I are making bentos
inspired by noodle dishes from Iwate Prefecture.
Yes, my bento is inspired by "wanko soba"!
"Wanko" means "small bowl" in Japanese.
And "wanko soba" is a traditional all-you-can-eat style
of eating these buckwheat noodles from Iwate.
The soba is continuously served in single slurp portions until you're full.
So, I'm going to pack soba noodles into "inari"
to make a soba inari bento!
Wow, that's a great idea.
Let's see how Maki makes her wanko soba inspired bento.
She boils the soba noodles and chills them with cold water
and drains them well.
OK, let's season the soba noodles.
OK!
To the bowl, add sushi vinegar, sesame seeds, and sesame oil.
And then, add soba noodles and dress with it.
It smells so nutty and delicious.
The oil also keeps the noodles from sticking together.
Now let's see how Maki packs this into pre-seasoned inari wrappers.
Open the pockets and twirl a portion of soba on a fork.
It's like pasta.
And then drop, maki-maki-maki.
OK, here is my "soba inari."
That's so much fun.
And I love that each inari is kind of like a little edible wanko
with a bite of soba in it.
Maki uses crab sticks to make "koinobori" or carp streamers.
And then, she adds a field of flowers with "tamagoyaki" and carrots.
Time to try them out!
It's got a really nice meaty texture on the outside.
And the noodles on the inside have got that beautiful nutty flavor
from the toasted sesame oil.
I love them Maki, it's delicious.
Glad to hear that.
So, Marc, what noodle dish are you going to make for your bento today?
Well, I'm going to be using these udon noodles to make "Morioka Jajamen."
It's another specialty of Iwate Prefecture.
Morioka Jajamen is a popular comfort food in Iwate Prefecture
based on Chinese "zha jiang mian."
In the Japanese version, udon noodles are topped with
a savory sweet mixture of meat and miso.
And my version is packed with umami-rich ingredients.
One way I boost the umami is by grating dried shiitake mushrooms into a powder.
I'm also using some thin udon noodles that I've boiled in advance.
OK, let's make our "nikumiso" or meat miso.
OK, let's do it.
It all comes together in one pan.
First, I'm going to stir-fry onions, garlic, and ginger in toasted sesame oil.
Then, I'm going to add ground pork.
Stir-fry this until the meat is fully cooked.
Makes nice little crumbles that is going to blend with the udon noodles.
Now I'm going to add umami-rich shiitake powder
and a bunch of ground black sesame seeds.
A double hit of aromas.
So, once you get that toasty smell from the sesame seeds,
we're going to go in with our sake, sugar, and the miso.
Miso, yeah!
We're going to dissolve the miso into this mixture, OK.
The nikumiso is done when it's nice and thick like this.
So let's set some aside to use as a topping.
And to the rest of this, we're going to go ahead and add our udon noodles.
OK, and when you have a nice sauce coating the udon,
our Morioka Jajamen is done.
Great.
Let's have Maki give this a try.
The miso is rich and full of umami
from the sesame seeds and shiitake.
I like it.
Both Maki and I were inspired by noodle specialties from Iwate Prefecture
and turned them into bentos.
So we hope you'll... give them a try!
Our last stop is a hotel in Hanamaki.
Last year, over 80% of the hotel's international guests were from Taiwan.
One of the people responsible for this trend is Chen.
She's been working in sales for the past eight years
and has been conveying the charm of Hanamaki to Taiwan.
Hanamaki boasts some of the best "onsen," or hot springs,
in northeastern Japan.
Hanamaki Onsen is great.
It makes your skin silky smooth.
Chen has been working with her boss, Sato,
to promote the hotel in Taiwan.
Chen loves Hanamaki and Japan.
She plays a key role in forging ties between Taiwan and Japan.
It's Chen's day off.
She's organizing a picnic.
I wanted to treat my colleagues to a homemade bento.
She's making the main dish with local pork.
I'm making Taiwanese pork belly.
It's my mom's recipe.
After searing the pork, she adds soy sauce, sugar, and rice "shochu."
And simmers it for more than three hours.
It's ready!
The amber-colored pork is tender enough to pull apart with chopsticks.
It's so tender, it melts in your mouth.
Perfect!
The soup goes so well with rice.
She also prepares a squid and vegetable stir-fry and more
to complete her home-style bento.
Time for a picnic with coworkers.
Here you go. Dig in.
Chen recommends eating the pork over rice.
It's so good!
It's a special treat for her Taiwanese coworkers.
It's so good. It's the taste of home.
Are you crying?
I feel like crying.
I'm speechless!
I enjoy making bentos for everyone.
A perfect day off, with bento.
We love bento!
We hope you enjoyed this Iwate Special.
And we'll see you again here soon on BENTO EXPO.
- See you soon!
- Bye.