What are the contents of a typical Japanese bento box?

(-: there is no such thing as a "typical" bento.



But, if I were making a dream bento tomorrow, I'd choose a side of rice with furikake sprinkled decoratively over the top (furikake: dried seaweed, fish and sometimes eggs and sesame seeds). On the other side, I'd have a bite-sized piece of fried chicken (karaage), a little cup of hijiki seaweed and julienned carrots, a little cup of spinach and katsuo-bushi flakes, a little cup of gobo (burdock root) and a cherry tomato.



You have to balance the flavors and the colors, this is the key thing.



A salmon bento is also very popular; replace the fried chicken with grilled salmon, and basically that's it.



Oh, and tamago-maki (fried egg rolled up) is also extremely popular in a bento.What are the contents of a typical Japanese bento box?
You can put anything in a bento really. No hard and fast rules.