bento!

[shalna]

I know, I know, I never post...

Anyway, I've become very curious about bento boxes. Anyone here use them? Any suggestions for where to buy a cute one (apparently Finnish stores don't have them, not even online stores) and where to find nice recipes and ideas for a bento lunch online? Any favourite bento cookbooks?

annabattista? Anyone else?

Comments

[tvillingar]

Tokyokan in Annankatu might have bento boxes, as they have every other Japanese kitchen paraphernalia. Mind you, I've only bought some rice bowls from there so I could be wrong (they had the cutest little bunny bowls few years ago, I wonder if they still have some left?).

[shalna]

Their online store doesn't have any bentos, but it would be worth it to check if the actual store has them. Thanks for reminding me! I'd also like some rice and egg molds and other small things, so I could check if they have them too.

[tvillingar]

Pay no attention to the time stamp. La la.

I think LJ has a bento community, I've run into it at some point. Bentobox? Bentolunch? Something like that.

[shalna]

Ha, I'm often up at the oddest times too...

Yes, I found bentolunch. It seems to be still active.

[wonderlinda]

I even had to google this. I had heard the name bento box but had never known what it was really. Am i right to understand that it's a sort of lunchbox from Japan but usually decorated in a cute way?

[shalna]

Well, yeah, there are some very cute bento boxes, but also more sophisticated ones. The traditional bento box would be a lacquered box, I think. I've read that neatly packed takeaway or home-made meals in bento boxes are traditional in Japan and bento can also refer to the meal itself. Making really cute bentos (meal arrangements that look like Hello Kitty for example!) seem to be an art form of itself, but I doubt I'd go that far with my bentos. They do look really cute though!

[wonderlinda]

yeah, i googled some images and some look very fancy! It seems typical japanese to pay so much attention to detail of something as trivial as a lunchbox :)

[annabattista]

Yay, a new bento obsessive

[shalna]

Hee, a bento obsessive in making, I suppose... :)

Thanks a lot for all this info! I ended up ordering a cute 600 ml bento from kawaii shop Modes4U. Right now I plan to use my bento for my snacks, probably not for my lunches. I feel I should plan my snacks better or I'll never eat enough veg and fruit. I hope having them chopped and ready to eat in my bento would make sure I'd actually eat them during my day at home with my son.

I may start preparing bento lunches when I go back to work next year and Just Bento & Just Hungry seem to have the kind of things I'd like. I ended up ordering the Just Bento cookbook too and can't wait to receive it, as well as my bento! I'll take a look at the Bentolunch archives too. :)