Wakasa Lunchbox
👋 Haisai! This is CULT.
Today, I’d like to talk about a very delicious bento shop called Wakasa Bento (わかさ弁当泊店). While not many Koreans visit, people from Western countries, Taiwan, and Japan often travel to the island regions of Okinawa’s west coast using ferries. It can be a bit dull to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours on a ferry, right? Even if the sky and sea are beautiful, they can get boring after a while. So, why not purchase a bento in advance and enjoy a meal on the ferry?
Wakasa Bento is one of the bento shops I recommend because it’s affordable and incredibly tasty 👍
📌 Wakasa Bento Location and Opening Hours
The location of Wakasa Lunchbox is at Tomari Port. The entire area shown on Google Maps is the port, making the shop quite easy to find. It is closed every Sunday, and ⏰ the opening hours are from 7 AM to 1 PM daily. [Google Map]
They sell a limited number of lunchboxes each day, and once they’re sold out, the shop closes, so it’s recommended to visit a bit early.
It’s located at one side of Tomari Port, making it very easy to find. If you have a rental car, I recommend parking nearby and coming to purchase your ticket before the ferry departs. There are plenty of parking lots around here, although they are paid.
First of all, the standout feature of this bento shop is… the price is very affordable. It’s between 400-600 yen, making it possible to get a 500-yen one-coin meal, as the old Japanese saying goes. Can you even manage lunch for 500 yen these days? Also, I often hear in group chats or open chats that many people praise Japanese convenience store bentos, but I personally don’t think they can compare to Wakasa bentos.
Just a heads up, if you go during lunchtime, it’s often already sold out. Many dock workers and people working nearby come here. You can have a hearty meal for 500 yen, so would you pass this up?
I arrived at around 11:30. It seems the Okinawa soba was already sold out, but there were still plenty of the 600 yen… the most expensive fish lunch boxes available. Since I really like fish lunch boxes, I was blessed with the fortune of being able to go to a Japanese lunch box shop late.
There’s curry rice, a piece of hamburger steak, and a fried egg, all for just 500 yen. Is this really profitable? It’s astonishingly cheap. Plus, the portions are huge.
Other menu items included hamburger steak, stir-fried sausages, and stir-fried pork. As expected, the fish lunchboxes were the most left over. Personally, I quite like situations like this.
We paid a total of 1,100 yen. Just a note, it’s cash only. Asking for a card or QR payment at this price feels a bit… like I’m the one being cheeky. Anyway, I happily cycled back home swiftly.
🍱 Delicious Bento
This is a bento with fish as the main dish. It includes three pieces of mackerel, tempura, miso sauce, and various other items. To have such a menu at this price… At this level, it would probably cost over 800 yen at a convenience store!
The lunch-only bento sold at Lawson is 660 yen, but it doesn’t have such a variety of side dishes.
Mackerel is not very oily and is quite lean. It’s excellent. As a fish side dish for a lunchbox, it’s nearly perfect 👍. The vegetable tempura was also very tasty as a side dish with rice. It was great that the oil was sufficiently drained, so the rice underneath didn’t get too greasy. It was a very happy lunchtime 🥰
Here is the curry rice lunchbox. Perhaps because I came by bicycle, it looks a bit different from when I first bought it. When I’m cycling and encounter some tricky terrain, I boldly pedal over it, so it seems the curry has taken a little journey of its own in the process.
This bento is also very excellent. Above all, for 500 yen, it’s incredibly filling. I was very hungry as it was my first meal after an 18-hour fast, but after eating these two bentos, I was a bit stuffed. And I usually eat quite a lot.
Anyway, the hamburger steak is delicious, and the curry rice is excellent. It’s a bit of a watery curry rice, but it’s not too strong and easy to eat, which I liked. Again, the curry rice bento is plentiful.
What do you think? When taking a ferry trip on the Okinawa West Sea, wouldn’t it be quite nice to buy a bento you like from Wakasa Bento and enjoy a meal on the ferry? Of course, I think it’s also a pretty good idea when enjoying a rental car trip along Route 58. Just be careful not to spill while eating inside the car, or you might be charged a cleaning fee 😮💨
I recommend the bento from this shop. I’ll take new photos of the menu and introduce them below.
I’ll stop here for now and come back tomorrow with more Okinawa travel information. Matayasai 👋
