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ventaHow does one use google again?
Specifically, how does one use it locate real, physical shops that one can really, physically visit? Obviously it's easy to answer (say) "where is the nearest branch of Smiths?", but it I want to answer "where is the nearest shop which will sell me a specific, but faintly obscure, item?", how do I go about doing that?
I'm sure there must be a perfectly simple, obvious solution, but I appear to be missing it. All I can turn up is online stores. Yellow pages seemed like a good guess, but unless you can phrase your question sufficiently broadly, you don't get any sense out of it.
Having kept up making bento boxes for lunch for a month, I figured I'd reward myself with a proper bento box. Primarily the reason for wanting one is that my plastic takeaway boxes are a smidge too small for some meals, and are an inconvenient shape to fit in my bag. They'll clearly "do", but I'd like something nicer.
Before anyone suggests this: yes, I know there are plenty of online bento box suppliers, many of whom are of unimpeachable character, sell boxes of superlative quality, and are capable of having a shiny box couriered to my door by a trained fleet of dancing unicorns.
However! I am not particularly familiar with bento lunchboxes. I have never, as far as I'm aware, met one. I should like, ideally, to eye up the size of the box in the real, test its weight, examine the seal on the lid, see how flexible/breakable the plastic is, and so on. In short, I wish to meet the box before I purchase it[*]. This requires me to find a real, physical outlet.
I figured hey, I live in London, how hard can it be? Surely one can buy almost anything in London. Particularly if one has had the foresight to move to an area of London with a large Japanese population. However, the only genuine vendor I have thus far been able to locate is Japan Centre in Regent Street. I trundled optimistically along there last Friday, to find they had a tiny selection of tiny boxes, all cutesy-wutesy kiddy patterns and with no seals at all on the lids. I asked if they sold any larger bento boxes, or boxes intended for adults, and the assistant looked at me as if I was howlingly insane.
(This whole lid thing is bothering me. Maybe strapping your box up and carrying it carefully in a bag is fine for some people, but my box has got to cope with being flung around on a railway baggage rack or dumped on a lap, by quite a clumsy person, and I damn well want a proper silicon/rubber seal. Some online retailers mention a seal, others don't, which leads me to believe there isn't one.)
So the question I would most like answered is: where can I find a shop in my approximate area which sells bento boxes? The more general question is: how do I locate shops on google?
Any ideas?
[*] Yes, it might not be possible. But it is plan A.
Specifically, how does one use it locate real, physical shops that one can really, physically visit? Obviously it's easy to answer (say) "where is the nearest branch of Smiths?", but it I want to answer "where is the nearest shop which will sell me a specific, but faintly obscure, item?", how do I go about doing that?
I'm sure there must be a perfectly simple, obvious solution, but I appear to be missing it. All I can turn up is online stores. Yellow pages seemed like a good guess, but unless you can phrase your question sufficiently broadly, you don't get any sense out of it.
Having kept up making bento boxes for lunch for a month, I figured I'd reward myself with a proper bento box. Primarily the reason for wanting one is that my plastic takeaway boxes are a smidge too small for some meals, and are an inconvenient shape to fit in my bag. They'll clearly "do", but I'd like something nicer.
Before anyone suggests this: yes, I know there are plenty of online bento box suppliers, many of whom are of unimpeachable character, sell boxes of superlative quality, and are capable of having a shiny box couriered to my door by a trained fleet of dancing unicorns.
However! I am not particularly familiar with bento lunchboxes. I have never, as far as I'm aware, met one. I should like, ideally, to eye up the size of the box in the real, test its weight, examine the seal on the lid, see how flexible/breakable the plastic is, and so on. In short, I wish to meet the box before I purchase it[*]. This requires me to find a real, physical outlet.
I figured hey, I live in London, how hard can it be? Surely one can buy almost anything in London. Particularly if one has had the foresight to move to an area of London with a large Japanese population. However, the only genuine vendor I have thus far been able to locate is Japan Centre in Regent Street. I trundled optimistically along there last Friday, to find they had a tiny selection of tiny boxes, all cutesy-wutesy kiddy patterns and with no seals at all on the lids. I asked if they sold any larger bento boxes, or boxes intended for adults, and the assistant looked at me as if I was howlingly insane.
(This whole lid thing is bothering me. Maybe strapping your box up and carrying it carefully in a bag is fine for some people, but my box has got to cope with being flung around on a railway baggage rack or dumped on a lap, by quite a clumsy person, and I damn well want a proper silicon/rubber seal. Some online retailers mention a seal, others don't, which leads me to believe there isn't one.)
So the question I would most like answered is: where can I find a shop in my approximate area which sells bento boxes? The more general question is: how do I locate shops on google?
Any ideas?
[*] Yes, it might not be possible. But it is plan A.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 01:33 pm (UTC)I have also found that thread, but was optimistically hoping that it was out of date (since bento boxes have alledgedly been growing in popularity in the UK). In fact, I think I found that thread by typing "buy bento box London" :)
It doesn't help, of course, that restaurants sells things called bento boxes all the time, so I keep finding places that sell the food rather than the container.