I'd be curious to know if there is any research on the changing eating habits of various cultures. The Japanese have clearly become dependant on the thousands of convenience stores which you can tell by visiting one any time between about 7pm and 12am.

You'll see tons of people of all types. College students, salary men, business women, OLs, you name it standing around trying to decide on their dinner for the night. Well, someone got the bright idea to open a bento shop and serve better food than the convenience store but be just and convenient and better tasting.

Origin Bento is like a takeout salad bar. Above you can see they have about 16 kinds of salads from tomato and eggplant salad to potato salad, tofu salad, okra salad and more. Next to they have a bunch of hot foods, more then 25 types like karaage (fried chicken), meatballs, sweet potatoes, yakisoba, onigiri, fried shrimp, white rice. Everything is priced the same, 150yen for 100grams so you just pile as much as you want in the containers provided, bring it up to the counter and they can ring you up very easily.

Finally they have over 30 kinds of bento sets you can order and it will be freshly prepared.

It's actually very good. For a while there was one just a block from my apartment. It closed but 2 others opened in its place. They are a little further but one is near the station I use to go to work so if I don't manage to get out to eat it's an easy stop on the way home and I've never been disappointed yet.