The World's Greatest Steak Sandwich

Bento Box on Plane

We had a few hours before we were to picked up at the hotel to be taken to Narita Airport for our flight home. Tokyo was sunny! We walked to Takashima in the Ginza and bought some rice and gifts to take back with us.

We walked back to the Four Seasons, completed our packing. We had planned to ship a box of books and other things that couldn’t fit in our suitcases back to the States. The hotel sent someone up with an assortment of heavy weight cardboard shipping boxes. I filled one and they suggested to us that we might just want to take the box with us and check it in as luggage. I was a little dubious but decided to give it a try. They took the box and eventually returned it all sealed up, strapped and with a great carrying handle. No one know how to wrap things as well as the Japanese. We did check it in, and when we picked it up in Los Angeles, it was in perfect condition.

The previous night, for the second time this trip, we had dinner at Shima. The purpose of going back was to order what is supposed to be the world’s greatest Steak Sandwich to go. The sandwich is prepared on thick slices of toasted bread, smeared with mustard and then a homemade tomato relish, then piled high with Kobe Steak. The crusts are cut off and the sandwich is cut into 3 pieces that exactly fit in a bento box. We brought the Steak Sandwich back to our hotel room. They also gave us a cheese cake. We placed both in the refrigerator in the hotel room overnight. My intention was to take the sandwich with us and eat it on the plane, instead of airline food.

If the middle of the night I woke up, in terror. What if I got all the way through customs and as I passed through security they confiscated the sandwich? After all the commitment to return to the restaurant and schlep the sandwich back to the hotel and then to the airport, I still might not get to eat it. In my mind, I started creating backup plans. If they confiscated it at security, I would eat it right there in front of them. I could take the sandwich out of the bento box and hide it in my computer case. There had to be way to get it on the plane. Long story short, they didn’t care, and I had worried for nothing.

On the flight, when dinner was served, I pulled out my bento box and had one of the three sandwiches. Cathy had some of the 2^nd sandwich, and I wound up bringing the rest home. We shared it for lunch the next day here in Los Angeles. Was this the greatest steak sandwich in the world? You will have to go to Japan and get one, to decide for yourself. For me it was an experience well worth the stress.