Many department stores use their basements as the food floor and you can imagine how convenient it is for workers to be able to pick up an entrée or side dishes to go with the dinner meal. Tourists too can pick up a reasonably priced meal to enjoy at the hotel. I picked up a bento box one day from the Takashimaya Department Store, located next to the Namba Station in Osaka. The food was extremely fresh. I purchased a salad from the conbini near my hotel to complete my meal. You will begin to notice that the Japanese love corn. They often use it as a garnish for salads and keep cans in their pantries, order corn chowder at restaurants, and I even noticed corn salad sushi that came around on the conveyor belt when I dined at a kaitensushi restaurant.
I purchased this chirashi box from one of the eateries at Namba Walk, an underground shopping mall located between Nippombashi and Namba subway stations.
