The other day when I was ordering and eating at a local restaurant, I recently realized that I found comfort and a sense of normalcy in Japanese teishoku meals.
What’s teishoku? Teishoku (定食) is essentially a Japanese “set meal” supposed to reflect what Japanese people traditionally eat with nutritional balance. A normal set would have a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup (usually miso soup, but can also be a light broth with vegetables), a small plate of pickles, a main protein dish of choice, and a smaller side dish that likely has some veggies. Japanese restaurants in America would likely call this a “~ set” or “~ bento” (Salmon Teriyaki, Chicken Teriyaki, etc), with the side veg usually being a salad instead. This is pretty standard for a Japanese place and menu.
Before actually moving to Japan, back home I used to disregard these kind of sets on a menu as “normal Japanese food”, and actually thought they were kind of boring (I do enjoy a good teriyaki salmon bento though!). Maybe it’s because it was always the same main dishes being listed everywhere, usually the “something teriyaki” or sometimes karaage/fried chicken, but if there was what-I-called a “generic” Japanese place around, the menu would be divided into Appetizers, Bentos/Sets, Ramen, Sushi, Desserts, and Drinks. I always just lumped them together into, “Oh yeah, that’s just a Japanese restaurant”, if it wasn’t a ramen place or another dish-specific place. They just didn’t seem special or original.
Now that I’ve settled in for a bit now, I’ve come to look forward to teishoku selections at the restaurants I go to. Or really just the teishoku set up in general. I think it’s mostly because of the actual variety there is now in terms of menu selection. Here, again, other than specialty shops and especially in the countryside where I live, every restaurant is essentially what I called a “standard Japanese place”, but instead of having options limited to items like a Teriyaki Bento, there’s many more options to be found and depending on the resaurant (the other day I had a katsutoji teishoku, aka a katsudon top). The veg here usually isn’t just a leafy salad, and differs depending on the place and season. Teishoku meals are the standard here (duh!), and while most of the time items will be labled as a teishoku, sometimes if it isn’t, the teishoku sides will likely be included, whether explicitly mentioned or not. For example, unless you order a soupy dish like noodles or something, chances are that a rice dish will come with a soup on the side. Japanese food culture really likes its soup.
I also think part of it is because I’ve been eating kyushoku at school. I like eating, and part of eating is using your eyes, so I did used to think some of the normal portions for the sides were small (though that does depend on my school and whoever is portioning food that day, but also a singular small meatball is still a little suspicious), but once I finished everything, I felt full. Also when I cook at home, I’m no Japanese housewife, and I don’t make a bunch of small dishes for one meal, because I don’t have the time or the effort for that. Instead of a couple items, ‘typical’ Japanese meals are supposed to be made up of many smaller portioned items, and I think I’ve also come to respect the effort put into making each individual item that comes on my plate too.
Last, my favorite food is white rice, and teishoku will always come with a bowl of white rice (size and refills depend on the store though!). I’m a sucker for plain white rice, and always save it to eat at the end.
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