Going to Obentos on Mondays has become a bit of a ritual for me. Having survived another weekend of, well, I’ll leave that up to your imagination, nothing else strikes the right balance of healthy, substantive, casual, and reasonably priced grub in a way that doesn’t shovel more guilt onto my already fragile state.
Light and airy, Obentos has bagged the prime spot in Lido’s increasingly bustling Nuo Center
Of course, plenty of actually healthy people eat there too, as is apparent during a bustling lunchtime at their new Lido venue. Easily their best yet, the restaurant occupies the ground floor corner of Nuo Center, with natural light filling the airy space and illuminating the tastefully framed hangings that come straight out of the Obentos school of design.
Kick your meal off with a plate of seed chips, veggie sticks, and spiced pumpkin dip (RMB 28)
The new menu, meanwhile, adheres to the restaurant’s quest to make Japanese-inspired food that is healthy but not at the expense of flavor, or more importantly, the enjoyment of the diner. This summer menu is one of the best examples of this mission yet, with additions that are as tasty, but more rounded, than what would expect to find from your run-of-the-mill bento, for example.
Obentos does skip out of ingredients where others might
The Thai prawn cocktail summer bento (RMB 68) is absolutely bursting with the piquant notes and hearty crunch you’d expect from a Thai salad. More importantly, this is no two-prawn-bit, and you’ll need to dig through the generous layer of juicy prawns and crumbled peanuts to even get the greens. And whereas the salad is already sizable, it of course includes the usual brown rice and sides to more than satisfy any remaining hunger pangs.
One of the lighter options on this new summer menu is the “Ain’t No Grains Here Summer Bowl”
On the lighter side of the spectrum, the “Ain’t No Grains Here Summer Bowl” (RMB 60, add salmon for RMB 20) keeps things strictly lean but filling with a plentiful grab-bag of cauliflower rice, spiced kale, zucchini, pumpkin smash, rocket, and a gooey onsen egg on top for good measure. Wafu dressing, flakes of dried seaweed, and sesame seeds bring the dish together.
Adding these new options to the already bulging menu and a space that perfectly matches the breezy but accomplished dishes at hand, and you have another win for Obentos and Lido’s dining scene. As for myself, I expect to be occupied for many more Monday meals to come.
Obentos
Mon-Fri, 8am-10pm; Sat-Sun, 9am-10pm. 1/F, Nuo Center, 2A Jiangtai Lu, Chaoyang District (8433 0671)
朝阳区将台路甲2号金尚丽1层
Photos: Tom Arnstein
