Dining Dojo Kyushoku: From April 8th to the 19th

At my job, I have an opportunity to try Japanese school lunch (kyuushoku 給食) at the junior high school where I teach at.  The school lunches are not made at on the school premises.  Instead, the school lunches are made at local school lunch centers that are located near the school.  One school lunch center is responsible for providing school lunch to the local elementary schools and junior high schools located in the neighborhood.

It should be noted that in Japan, high school students do not eat kyuushoku.  The students bring lunch boxes from their house or they can order a lunch from a shop that specializes in making lunch boxes.  High school education in Japan in not compulsory.

These are lunches in which I ate at the junior high school where I work at.  I am not going to disclose where I work at because schools and boards of educations take school lunch very seriously.  Each school has a person that is responsible for the dietary needs of the students.  With the school lunch centers and other dieticians, they are responsible for making the school lunch menu everyday for which school lunch will be provided to the students.

Here are the pics of the school lunch that was given to me.  Itadakimasu!!

Rice, sukiyaki, chikuwa (rolled fish cake) tempura, pickled vegetable, milk, and a strawberry crepe for dessert.

Sekihan (Adzuki (red bean) rice flavored with sesame seeds and salt, deep-fried squid, stir fried burdock root (gobo in Japanese), seaweed and tofu skin (yuba) soup, and milk

 Rice, lotus root salad, pork red miso soup (tonjiru 豚汁), fried pork (yakiniku 焼き肉), and milk

 Pork steamed buns, cucumber salad, Chinese soup with noodles (chuukamen 中華麺), and milk.

Rice, spinach and bean sprout with a vinegar dressing, nikujaga (stewed pork, potatoes, carrots, green peas), steamed mackerel in miso wrapped in foil, and milk

Hamburger with bun, corn and cucumber salad, alphabet noodle soup, and milk

Strawberry yogurt, curry and rice, bread pork cutlet, pickled vegetables (a typical dish that accompanies Japanese curry and rice), and milk

Mapo tofu (tofu with ground pork in a spicy sauce), rice, pork steam buns, cucumber salad, and milk.

 Soup with fu (a type of rice gluten), takinomi gohan (rice with bamboo shoots and vegetables, sawara (Spanish mackerel with an onion sauce, hanami dango (skewered sticky rice balls, and milk