A Bento box, in Japanese tradition, is a box divided into small compartments, each enough to hold small portions of rice, noodles or meat, cooked vegetables, an appetiser, salad and a dessert. The box was ideal to pack home-cooked lunch for school children as well as working adults.
Restaurants specialising in Pan Asian cuisine have tried incorporating this Bento box concept into their menus in other cities and the reception has been warm. Mekong, the Pan Asian restaurant at Marigold, has introduced this concept to Hyderabad to cater to professionals looking for a quick but hearty lunch on a working day.
Designed for someone who has to get back to work within an hour and doesn’t have the luxury of time to pore over an elaborate menu choosing soups, appetisers, main course and a dessert, the Bento box has a more or less fixed menu listing out each course. One can choose from the vegetarian and non-vegetarian options, with the latter having the choice between meat and sea food.
Small, steaming mugs of jasmine tea greets a diner along with a bowl of warm, tossed snow peas and a large basket of prawn crackers. The crackers are good on their own and even better with three dips, the flavours varying from coriander-chilli to basil-chilli. Since the menu is fixed, the only choice one needs to exercise is between wok-tossed or pan-fried noodles and steamed jasmine sticky rice for the main course.
The restaurant tries to serve the lunch within 15 minutes of placing the order. The 10 to 15 minute wait is unavoidable since the meal isn’t pre-cooked and pre-plated. The wait is inevitable if one wants fresh food.
A flavourful helping of kimchi salad and dim sums with spinach and baby pak choy (chicken or fish dim sums in the non-veg box) are winsome beginnings to the meal. Mushrooms and pak choy tossed in spiced garlic sauce pairs well with the sticky, fragrant jasmine rice. The non-vegetarian box has either stir-fried chicken with mushrooms and oyster sauce or the stir-fried sea food with mushrooms and oyster sauce.
The portions look deceptively small until one begins to dig in. The box is sumptuous yet light and one needn’t worry about feeling drowsy back at work. The dessert is mostly a pastry, cheesecake or walnut brownie. The restaurant doesn’t serve its more popular desserts such as water chestnut with coconut milk or darsan with coconut-jaggery ice cream in the box because it is impractical. These desserts would melt and be a mess in the box by the time one works his way through appetisers and main course. On the day we tried the Bento, we were served delicious walnut brownie.
Meanwhile, there are refills of jasmine tea and the finishing touch with mini dark and white chocolates. The meal is priced at Rs.700 inclusive of taxes and available during lunch time, Monday to Friday.
What: Quick meal in a box, vegetarian and non-vegetarian
Where: Mekong, Marigold, Monday to Friday, lunch time.
When: Ongoing
Priced at : Rs. 700, inclusive of taxes.
