How to Make Taiwan’s Iconic Train Bento

Some food and drink is particularly suited for travel. Sometimes it’s a coincidence, like how ginger ale and tomato juice taste way better at altitude. Other times, they’re designed to be portable. Hamburgers and French fries aren’t great after a few hours, but American fast food was tailor-made to be eaten inside a car.

The absolute best travel meal is one that combines form and function, that’s cheap and filling, doesn’t need to be heated up, and is more contained than a paper bag filled with free-flying fries. In my opinion, the meal that best combines all of these desirable features is the Taiwanese train bento.

When I was young, train dining for me meant peanut butter and jelly à la Amtrak. But in Taiwan, train travel is synonymous with a wooden or paper box filled with rice, a flattened, spiced pork chop, and a sweet-and-salty, braised, hard-boiled egg. The box comes sealed up with a rubber band, and there’s no need for complicated containers or compartments: The egg, meat, and accompanying vegetables squish down into the rice like the tiles of a mosaic.

These bentos are sold within the stations and train cars themselves. The country’s train system dates from Taiwan’s early 20th-century colonial period, when Japan controlled the island, and so do biandang, or the local version of bento. There are endless variations. But the one associated with train travel—pork, egg, pickle—is still the classic choice, though it’s available at stores and stalls off the rails as well.

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