00:00:00 John Daub: This is a good looking layout of bento. Welcome, it is now midnight and I have three delicious eki-ben (station bento). Eki-ben actually, bentos that I picked up at Tokyo Station. This is a chirashi sushi bento. It's cold, it's got a lot of pickled stuff on rice. It looks beautiful. This one is a Kanagawa wagyu bento. You can see the beef, I think there's some sauteed onions in there. Oh, this is going to be so good, open up from Kanagawa, the neighbor to Tokyo.

00:31:00 John Daub: And this is a maguro ikura bento. Check this out, whoa, I think this has wasabi flavor in it and I'm guessing this is from Aomori, but I could be wrong. I always check here. It says yeah, we'll figure it out later. These bento have to be eaten today. Eki-ben are made fresh, they do not last for more than a day, so eat them while you can, which means like right now. How you doing everybody?

01:06:00 John Daub: I'm also going to be doing something very unusual today. I'm going to be releasing the new video on the Only in Japan main channel while doing this live stream and I'm going to be doing it as soon as I open this one bento right now. This is actually the thumbnail, these are the bento from the thumbnail. This is going to be kind of fun, so I'm going to release the new video in about five minutes after I've had a bite of a couple of these bentos first. Let's unbox these, we're going to unbox them, take a look at it, release the video and then I'm going to eat it and celebrate and I'm going to watch it on the big screen TV over here.

01:43:00 John Daub: Because right now check it out, right now on Only in Japan it's not available yet. So it will be "Everything Must Go," this is a fire sale for my mouth. All right, let's open these, this is going to be fun. Let's open these up and do a little eki-ben unboxing. We'll start off with this maguro ikura one, it comes with chopsticks of course. Oh look at this, whoa you can smell it, this is maguro on top of there. There's ikura here, do you see that? There's some shredded egg here and I'm not sure what that is, wasabi maybe. Oh this is gonna be amazing.

02:46:00 John Daub: All right, we're gonna eat this, this is in the thumbnail by the way. Next up is this Kanagawa wagyu. Thanks so much for the new travelers here, Grace, welcome, and nekochan62, thank you so much. By the way insiders can see the video right now, you don't have to wait for the video to be released, you can actually watch it now, insiders get early access. This is amazing looking, oh look at that ajitama, do you see that? This is wagyu, looks like it's like a sukiyaki, really moist, just dumped on top of a bed of rice. You have some ginger up there in the top right, do you see that? A little bit of negi here, this looks beautiful, I like the colors in it.

03:39:00 John Daub: Hamza, how you doing, thank you so much. That's a bit more than a midnight snack, it kind of is, but as I said everything must go. All right next up and there's like three of them here. Hey Danny, do you want help eating? Come on over brother. All right next up this is the chirashi sushi, it's just kind of sushi all mixed up with the chopsticks and there's tape on here but I've already opened it. I like kind of a fashionable box here, right? That's kind of nice, whoa I love the design, the compartments inside of the bento boxes are so much fun. This one has a hexagon, one two three four five six, I guess that's like a stop sign or octagon, sorry a hexagon.

04:44:00 John Daub: You have here a little dango meatball, some tamagoyaki, and then you have the other one which is a little bit more like a tamagoyaki, and then carrots, tofu ball, shiitake mushroom, pieces of fish. This has a little bit of vinegar, so there's a slight rice vinegar smell to it, some ginger here because this is chirashi sushi, it's kind of like vinegared seafood on top of rice so it's quite good. If you like sushi you're gonna like this, but if you think vinegar is a little bit too strong maybe this isn't the way to go for some of you.

05:07:00 John Daub: How many bentos are made daily? You know my buddy Paulo, he made a really good eki-ben video by going into an eki-ben factory recently and showed you they make thousands of these. These eki-ben here, they are actually shipped fresh to Tokyo Station by 5 a.m., all right which is crazy because some of these bento they travel all the way from Aomori Prefecture. In the video that I'm about to release in like two minutes that you're going to get a chance to see, the Aomori Prefecture bento that I ate was made like 10 p.m., then trucked down to Tokyo on the highway which is like a nine hour drive or something just to deliver to Tokyo Station all those bento for everyone jumping on the shinkansen. That's crazy, so then by 5 a.m. you have a fresh bento from Aomori, then that truck goes back for the next order, right, maybe picks up some ingredients at Toyosu Market. That's pretty crazy.

06:31:00 John Daub: To celebrate I also have this Asahi beer which opens up like a canned good, which is pretty cool. So we're going to celebrate with this. No spam in an eki-ben episode, okay no spam here and I'm wearing this hat because it's the hat, this is how I looked in the thumbnail. All right let's go do it. Let's see if we can get to 300 likes, I always feel like we need a goal. Here we go, we're coming into my office here and we're going to release the video together. I've been working on this for quite a while, a long time, so it's pretty good, this one is in 4K. Oh this is going to be so much fun and there's the thumbnail, it's pretty basic, it's called "Japanese Gourmet Train Food Shinkansen Bento Adventure," it's true story.

07:27:00 John Daub: So are you ready? Can we get a countdown? If you're watching at home let's count down, five four three two one. I didn't count the way you probably counted, I messed you up. It's live, whoa it's public, oh it's public access, that's so cool. Coming with us to help to eat the eki-ben is Okapi because I'm a man child. That means that I can watch it on my TV. Okapi just go back here, I can watch it on my TV. All right I'm gonna check now and see if it has arrived, watching it on the big screen, it has, it's on there. Next to my Tabby Eats, oh that's awesome. On this TV I can put Only in Japan next to my nail clippers, and there it is.

08:48:00 John Daub: You get a chance to watch this while I eat my bento and that is the Tohoku Shinkansen right there and we did go all the way from Tokyo to Aomori in that episode which was just so cool. Definitely when you watch that episode on the main channel it's 22 minutes, please leave me a comment on there, anything, I love reading the comments in the first couple of hours and I try to respond to everybody. So if you're going to leave a comment do it like in the next two hours. Itadakimasu. Oh let me get in the beer for kanpai, this is such an exciting time to release a video together. Thanks so much for spending your afternoon if you're in the U.S. with me.

09:25:00 John Daub: Let's open up this beer here, I know this one is going to spill all over the place. Asahi Shift 6 also opens some of these and it always spills over the top, I don't know why it does that. Oh it just stopped, look see it volcanoes over, that's either supposed to be like that, that's part of the commercial or that's just awful, look at that big mess, looks like Fuji exploded.

10:02:00 John Daub: All right so while we're watching this I'm gonna watch the episode too, this is pretty cool. Oh there it is right there, so if you haven't watched it yet you can go ahead and do that. Boom, it's uh well 300 views. All right let's eat this eki-ben because I am really really hungry, I didn't eat any dinner yet. So we're gonna start off with this ikura and I'm quite curious what is this sauce here. Wow look at that maguro, this is really good looking akami too. Oh yeah that's so good. Let's try this now, let's put some of this sauce on here. What is this? Oh it's like a wasabi pickle, that is so good. Oh my gosh this is awesome, wow just like wasabi pickle thing. Got like pieces of the root or something inside the wasabi but it's not so spicy, it's good. Let me get some maguro and ikura in one bite and spoil myself, this is gonna be hard to beat.

12:00:00 John Daub: Hey Edo John, very cool to do a release like that, I gave it the 4054th like, well done. Edo 8-bit Namey finally caught one of your live videos, your video saved me from old travel restriction blues, here's another beer on me. Thank you 8-bit Namey I appreciate that. Raven Centeno, all those egg events look delicious. They do and now I'm going to save this for a little bit later, not too later because I get a feeling like if it's not refrigerated that stuff's gonna go bad pretty quick. This is the wagyu now, it's kind of like sukiyaki looking wagyu, should be pretty good, coming from our neighbor Kanagawa which isn't famous for wagyu but they do have some pretty good countryside out there and Hayama is famous for wagyu up there in the mountains near Zushi.

12:49:00 John Daub: Let's take a closer look at that, oh wow it's there's a little bit of ginger in there. Oh wow check it out look how many bento we ate I ate on that adventure, this is crazy right, you're gonna have to watch it yourself, we ate like seven bento on that train. All right if I give it us part two, that's really good, this one has just a deeper flavor, it's richer and deeper so it tastes more expensive this one but this is really good. The wagyu is amazing, the wagyu is juicy it's so amazing, the fat from the wagyu has soaked into the rice, do you see that? It's been like cooked in a kind of a dashi so you don't have too much of that natural wagyu taste but you can definitely taste the fats in there. The fats are not activated because it's cold but that's all right.

14:21:00 John Daub: Now before I go to the next bento it's time to do this ajitama. How many people here when they eat ramen they always order ajitama with ramen? If you don't you have to, sometimes it doesn't come on the ramen but you can always order ajitama with your ramen on the side, almost always, I always do. I don't know how they get the yolk like that, I think that they have to cut the hard-boiled egg and like devil it or something, it's secret ajitama recipe. Some of the ramen chefs they won't tell you but with a yakiniku bento like this it's so good, the egg and the meat, a lot of calories at 1 a.m. All right everybody kanpai as we're watching Peter and I enjoy it on the shinkansen. Oh there's Pokushima station, we ate seven bento, weird that was just insane.

15:37:00 John Daub: All right next up is this chirashi sushi, I'll pan down a little bit so you get a better angle. There's some good stuff in here, I like the baby corn and the shiitake mushroom is really nice you see that. Yeah it's got a little bit of a vinegar taste to it, vinegar smell, it's gonna have a vinegar taste to it. These bentos all them together they're about ten dollars each that's pretty consistently eki-ben between 800 yen and 1600 yen typical probably about ten dollars at Tokyo Station, about twelve dollars I'd say because they have better ingredients. Excuse me, I got these bento at the same place that I bought oh this is interesting story, I got these eki-ben at the same place I bought them on the main channel episode and the link for that's also going to be in the description here.

16:27:00 John Daub: The bento that I ordered for the shinkansen was no longer there, this is interesting, all of the bento that you see here are seasonal meaning the factories that put these together they use ingredients that are seasonal and fresh now which is kind of incredible and they make a lot of money off of this too by making so many of them but they only use fresh seasonal ingredients. So except for like this one Peter has on the side on the right you see he's like a child's bento that's still available but the one that I'm eating that's only in the spring and now they have the summer bentos out. That was I was a little bit shocked because I wanted to get that salmon ikura bento that I ate in this video but it wasn't available anymore. Yeah let's give this chirashi bento a try but first I'm gonna have to eat this amazing looking meatball dango.

17:29:00 John Daub: Look at that that is so good you can smell it, hmm tastes like they put some panko or something in there give it some volume, a little bit of breadiness in there that was good. Let's try the chirashi rice here, the vinegar I can taste a little bit of that, the rice vinegar on there. Oh drone shots, whoa I'm gonna have to watch the episode, I might be doing this not just to eat the bento but to watch the episode. It is almost 1am in Tokyo right now. Baby corn, a piece of fish, what is this one hmm is that fish or anago, just like anago, very interesting and I love these little tofu balls in bento but there's always one thing that you save in your bento.

19:04:00 John Daub: All right there's always one thing when you eat sushi it's always one thing, if you get like a nigiri sushi set there'll be like maybe 12 of them on there or 10 or 12 or more there's always one that you always save always like is it the unagi is it the tamago is it the maguro and you eat that one last. Mine is sometimes ikura or negitoro or the anago or unagi I don't know it's just a happy ending. But for me for bentos this tamagoyaki with a little bit of dashi in there I always eat this last maybe because it's a little bit sweet, it's just really, tamagoyaki like this has a pretty good consistency breaks apart in your mouth it's almost like dessert to me so moist. This one's a little bit saltier but sometimes there's a slight sweetness but a good tamagoyaki chef, you can't eat it without tamagoyaki it's just a little bit sweet but it's a little bit, everything can really do the job so you can taste the dashi but you can't really taste the sugar it's just enough that it's pleasing.

20:23:00 John Daub: Oh that's that yudon bento that self-heats Peter and I ate, oh those were sold out when I went today to get these bento too they're really popular. So there you have it, these three bento it cost me about thirty dollars for the three of them all together that was the bill but I used that for the thumbnail of the video so you got a chance to see me eat the thumbnail of the new Only in Japan episode. So if you have a chance go over there to the main channel and take a look at that new episode it's called Japanese Gourmet Train Food Shinkansen Bento Adventure you're gonna love it it's 22 minutes of paradise traveling on the shinkansen eating bento looking out the window it's so much fun you're gonna like that episode and leave me a comment.

21:31:00 John Daub: Yeah give me a comment so what'd you think. Okapi he's now Toby's accomplice according to the last episode. Just a little bit of a note on that last episode on the main channel kind of an update video I think it's always important to update you when things change on the channel. This new episode is in 4K so I think this needed to be celebrated, do you see that 4K 112 views that's okay but I'll be doing more 4K content and that is pretty exciting I filmed a lot of the shots in 8K there you go it's pretty cool.

22:13:00 John Daub: Any questions before I bugger off go to get some sleep? Um I got a haircut it's really short I'm kind of embarrassed, he asked me what how would you like your haircut and I just said surprise me and he cut everything the same length and the product of my haircut is that I don't mind too much actually I have the same haircut as Leo my son who has almost no hair so it's kind of funny that we have the same hairstyle. In fact on the Discord server I put a picture of me and Leo's hair compared it's kind of the same he just looks you know 40 years younger than me I have oyaji hair so I'm going to be wearing the hat to make sure it doesn't spend too much time out in the open it's got to grow back a little bit.

23:20:00 John Daub: Thanks great haircut I appreciate the compliment I've been going to the same barber for 14 years now yeah since 2007, ever since I moved to this location from Shinjuku [?], I still go there it's a 30-minute train ride just because I want to see my friends there. When you get a haircut in Japan and you have a barber shop at the barber shop it's like a life consultation session and they know about Kanae they know about Leo they know about my job they watch me when I'm on Japanese TV. I remember when I was on TV and I went in it goes I saw you on TV I'm like yeah really that's cool I didn't know what it was on I was like really NHK no no you always saw you on Hito Obi whoa so that's kind of neat.

24:21:00 John Daub: We've shared some pretty cool adventures and I do feel a little bit more familiar with and we like so I've been working with a lot of people in my like it's a little bit different now than in the summer and I kind of like I'm always filming on Only in Japan with my barber and I send them a gift in the summertime to say thank you like some beer or some oranges from Kyushu or something like that to say thank you. We do that in Japan for people that appreciate you we don't tip them but it is good to give if you're using services from people like a summer gift or a winter gift twice a year just something small, it's better than a tip I guess and they're very appreciative.

24:51:00 John Daub: A lot of people don't do that for the barber but I've been going there for 14 years and I appreciate the service even if it's really short. I'm still going to go back I don't care. You could end up with a Vulcan at the Vulcan conference. My hair looks like it's painted on right now it's just like Greg's like from Greg's yeah we can be like we have like little hair brothers hair brothers that would be a lot of fun.

25:23:00 John Daub: How is Japan doing with the pandemic? It's doing okay. We'll see what the news brings next week with the Olympics. I think the Olympics are still going to go on but more people are calling for it to end. It adds a little bit of drama I guess but the games have to go on I think. Should they? No they should be moved to October which is when the 1964 Olympics took place but because of television contracts and business they can't do that. October would have been perfect it's nice and it's cooler but still warm the days are a little bit shorter there's not as many tourists. There's no tourists at all right now but it would at least have given us a chance to get vaccinated here but yeah.

26:08:00 John Daub: Do you see international travel without masks going next spring for Japan? I have no idea I think it's going to be up to the airlines. Japan wears masks anyways all right let's be honest people in Japan are wearing a mask in the winter during the pollen season for hay fever. I wear a Japanese mask anyways in the winter every year because I don't want to get sick or I don't want to get anybody else sick on the trains. Tokyo is such a crowded place packed into like sardine cans the influenza would go crazy wild if people did not wear masks. I think it is you know I wear a mask because I'm thinking about other people not to protect myself which is also a reason to wear a mask a little bit but really to protect other people and I think Japanese are the same way they wear the mask to protect other people especially if they're sick.

27:07:00 John Daub: We've been doing this for I've been doing this for 20 some years since I came to Japan. The first year was weird like boy everyone looks like Michael Jackson why are they wearing these sick masks? And then after a year you get used to it you start to do it yourself. Peter wears masks because it also keeps his voice moist he told me so he'll wear a mask also in the springtime keeps the pollen out but also keeps his vocal cords nice and strong for narration jobs. So little fun tidbit now we can confirm with him if that's true or not when we see him but I believe he said that to me like 10 years ago yeah moist voice.

27:43:00 John Daub: I asked a stranger to sneeze on me to build my immunity you did not D-Gray okay what's up with that? Oh are you sick? Will you sneeze on me? No nobody does that really? The whole world should be like Japan wear mask when sick that's just polite. I think when you're sneezing and you have runny nose and you have to go to work you wear a mask and it's considered you know it's about taking care of the people around you. I like that about Japan most people do that not everybody but most people.

28:14:00 John Daub: Rob C writes in would be smart if we all carried on wearing masks in the winter that makes sense I agree. I think it does for just regular influenza but it's not a Western thing and I can see why people are a little bit upset about it. But I do think that masks are pretty cool pretty good and useful especially on public transportation like the Shinkansen right? Even in the winter you probably should wear a mask because you know the air is circulated every seven minutes on the Shinkansen I believe but you probably should wear a mask in public transportation in the winter just because you don't want to get sick. When you travel to Japan you don't want to catch especially in the winter especially in the cities catch influenza or catch a cold traveling around in the winter. Might as well just wear a mask and when you're outside and not around people you can take it off but on public transportation I always wear a mask.

29:01:00 John Daub: I would love to do a collaboration with Ralph Macchio. In fact I asked YouTube if Ralph Macchio comes to Japan please hook me up. I had a partner manager and I knew a lot of people at the YouTube Japan office in Roppongi they moved to Shibuya recently and I said look come on this would be the greatest thing ever John and Ralph that's the name of the episode. And I could like show him some of my moves which would be really embarrassing. I got beat up in high school because I looked like him in 1984 onwards for quite many years okay everyone thought they were Cobra Kai and I was Ralph Macchio and I didn't know no crane kick I didn't know no wax on and wax off I didn't know nothing. So kids would try that Cobra Kai on me in the hallway not cool okay so Karate Kid really look you know Macchio owes me all right in a way just saying I'll at least buy him a bento how about that?

30:20:00 John Daub: Have you seen his movie Crossworlds? I have not I've seen his movie Outsiders and I'm a big fan actually he's a very talented actor Cobra Kai is a great show it is now on Netflix smart move. You talk more than you eat I think I'm done with the bentos it's 1am you really do I mean I can eat more does that please you? Here is the ikura and maguro bento this one is the winner it's not even close this one is a hands down winner.

31:03:00 John Daub: And oh we got new members hey thanks so much D-Gray welcome and don't let anybody sneeze on you and Ken Rutley hi John enjoying the stream sending you can I leave a big hello from Halifax the hair looks epic. My friends at Tabby Eats are always saying things are epic it's not bad I mean it's okay it's just kind of a lot of air getting in there you know a lot of air just a little bit just for comparison here's the wagyu bento right there just one more bite I can't winner winner chicken dinner there you go. The ikura maguro strange wasabi sauce with wasabi in it which is awesome and a little bit of egg on there this is the best.

32:08:00 John Daub: And this one was sold oh inside information get your pens and get a pen and a piece of paper if you're traveling to Japan. The Eki Benya Matsuri shop the shop that I introduced in the main channel episode that has all the bento in there quite often they're sold out. But if you still don't see a bento you like there are three or four Eki Benya stands inside of the station and quite often those are not sold out because everybody goes to the main shop making that there's a lot of choices actually if you just go around the corner or on the platform of the shinkansen you'll find some Eki Benya that are still available. The Tokyo Station Eki Benya which is quite expensive I think it's like 1700 yen $17 is one of the best ones that's my recommendation and my friend Martina from Simon and Martina Martina always ate that one too and whenever I put a picture of the Tokyo Station Eki Benya on Instagram she would write me and she would say that's my favorite bento and I said I know I know and when she would post a picture I'd write that down and she'd say I know I know I miss those guys I miss them both.

33:21:00 John Daub: Thanks so much for watching this and for checking out the new episode please do it'll be online forever now and I guarantee you're going to like this episode it's in 4K and it looks great on your 65 inch OLED TV or if you don't have that on your smartphone and if you don't have that how are you watching this? Have a good day and tomorrow I will be bringing another oh oh okay hold on a second oh I'm like you're going to freak out so tomorrow night I'll be doing a Patreon Q&A okay this is the end of the month guess what just came in the mail?

34:13:00 John Daub: This is my YouTube Creators Award for the new channel this just came in the mail 100,000 subscribers I have the 1 million subscriber in there from the old channel it was my channel I took it and I have the Only in Japan Go 100,000 subscriber so now this is my third award which is pretty awesome. So thanks so much for subscribing to this new channel I'm going to do a Patreon and YouTube if you're an insider and maybe if you're also a traveler I'm going to share tomorrow I'm going to unbox this Creators Award and celebrate with you. So if you're on this Only in Japan Go channel a traveler or an insider or a Patreon supporter you'll be able to watch this live stream because it's for our community and later on you'll be able to see it hanging in my office just a little bit of a present for everybody who's been supporting the channel I really do appreciate it.

35:19:00 John Daub: Okay now go I got to get to bed go watch this one you're going to like it it's 22 minutes of total fun. Katayama's in the house thank you Katayama awesome that's pretty fun all right see you tomorrow everybody if you have any questions leave them in the comments below thanks for joining me for dinner over and out.