The doggy bag comes to Japan

Japan has no entrenched doggy bag custom, so it is very uncommon for restaurant customers to request boxes or bags to take home leftovers. However, the current eco-friendly product boom may change the way Japanese restaurants and customers think about leftovers:

To explain the Doggy Bag custom, they interview Americans at an expensive steak restaurant in New York City, finding out that most of them take home leftovers rather than let food go to waste. A look at trash statistics for Japan shows that a lot of leftover food from restaurants is being thrown away, so it might make sense to encourage Japanese people to do the same.

In the Meguro area of Tokyo, a group of restaurants have launched a doggy bag program to advertise their eco-friendliness. This doggy bag system requires customers to purchase 800 yen doggy bags that can be washed after use so that customers can fold them up and carry them to participating restaurants. The restaurants also offer an eco point card, giving away free beers to regular doggy bag users.

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11 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - November 4, 2008 at 6:52 am

Categories: Japanese Food Tags: doggy bag

Harry

It isn’t “very uncommon” for people to get a doggy bag in Japan but they wouldn’t be familiar with that term. I’d say more food gets taken home in Japan than by diners in a country like Britain. For instance, it’s very common to take home leftovers from a sushi restaurant and the tipsy salaryman taking his wife some uneaten maki is a cliche.

Most Indian and Chinese restaurants will give you containers and bags if you ask and many restaurants with a demae service will also have them to hand. Diners will often take the food on to a favourite bar or snakku and share it with the other regulars rather than taking it home.

There’s still food wastage in Japan but that’s down to kitchen practices rather than people leaving food behind.
stereo

Doggy bags are hardly new to Japan. They are called Ori or Oribako 折箱 in Japanese, and dates back to the Feudal Era. A major banquet like wedding party is not complete without Ori to take home the leftover to share with other family members.
Supercoolmanchu

Mendokusa.. It should be the restaurants’ responsibility to have recyclable to-go containers readily available for their customers. But I guess Japan would be the place peculiar enough to expect customers to carry their own ‘doggy bags’ with them at all times.
Rated R

Yeah, I was gonna say, “wtf?” Small mom-n-pop restaurants always offer oribako in my experience. Could be a regional thing? I live in the inaka.

Granted, I NEVER see oribako in chain restaurants, not even small chains.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

I’m just reportin’ what the Japanese media tells me. Although I have on occasion done the oribako thing, I’d still say it’s not very common.

At many restaurants I’ve been to in America, waiters tended ask if they could box my leftovers up for me to take home. A lot of it probably has to do with the large portions in America, as well as the over-eagerness of waiters fishing for bigger tips.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080927a2.html Bruce Smith

‘Doggy’ bags are good. But let’s not imagine that people take it home and feed to their pets. You take it home and eat it yourself. So if they are re-using bags or containers then that is a very bad idea for the very obvious reason of food-safety or hygiene. The restaurants must provide the containers and the containers must be new. A restaurant owner should never trust their customers to bring a clean container.
helical

I think there’s also the reluctance to let customers handle a restaurant’s food outside the premises after some period of time rather than right there at the table/counter immediately after it was made.
I think establishments fear the sticky battle of placing the blame in case someone gets food poisoning after eating food one took home a night or two before. Was the food tainted? Or did the customer just leave it out too long? That’s why convenience stores throw out so much perfectly fine bentos at the end of the day.
The recent hysteria involving the expiration dates reflects the culture better-safe-than-sorry as well.
http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

Helical hit the nail on the head.

The “doggy bag” issue in Japan has two sides to it. First, because Japan is so big on 責任, restaurants want to avoid being falsely accused of food-poisoning customers, when really the customers mishandled the food after it left the restaurant. Second, and more superficially, the quality of the food diminishes as time passes, and the restaurant does not want lesser-quality food associated with its name.
Harry

Helical and Alex, you are both trying to explain something which doesn’t exist. Japanese restaurants are happy to let you take food home. If 責任 was so important, no sushi shop would ever make home deliveries.

You’ve got the cart before the horse. The food expiration scandals are part of it as helical says. They are not the reason restaurants don’t do doggy bag – they do – but are the reason the expiry date laws are being relaxed. It’s quite hard to sell the idea of relaxing standards when everyone is up in arms about food safety and so the press is full of articles about food wastage because that’s the only way they can be made more acceptable.

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

I explained part of the reason doggy-bags don’t exist.

You explained take-out/take-away, not repackaging half-consumed food.

I think the second point I explained above is the main reason for restaurants, especially upscale ones, to deny doggy bags for customers. (I’m not saying every restaurant denies doggy bags, but a much bigger portion of restaurants compared to the U.S. don’t have the system)

Out of curiosity – Has anyone ever received or witnessed someone receiving a doggy bag from a fami-resu? (Not take out, but repacked food)

http://madtokyo.wordpress.com john turningpin

You are all missing the point.

>…giving away free beers to regular doggy bag users.

Hell yeah.

p/s – Re: “Japanese restaurants are happy to let you take food home,” it all depends on the restaurant. I’ve had to jump through hoops to be able to finally take the stuff home, and only then after promising to finish eating it that same day.

The doggy bag comes to Japan

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