Friday, June 6, 2008

Bento!!!


There seems to be a lot of people blogging about bento. While checking out Hawaii blogs, I stumbled upon a bento-making contest sponsored by Adventures in Bentomaking. If you look through her blog, it would inspire people to start creating bentos. My favorite creation of hers is the Sanrio character dish.

My mom's friend Shar made her this bento container and my mom thought I would make better use of it than her. I've never come around to making a bento, but decided to test out my skills at attempting to make food look good.

In my "make believe" world where Calories do not matter, this is what my bento would look like. It would be filled with chocolates, Haribo gummies, and Japanese candies.

This is the healthier semi-vegetarian bento. The only animal product in the meal is the egg in the meatless meat jun. The teaser (or appetizer) is edamame with furikake. Rice with a cherry blossom design accompanined by flower-shaped zucchini and meatless meat jun (made with foo chuk-dried soybean skin) filled zucchini. Lastly the dessert is plum flower-shaped lime kanten (agar) with strawberries.


I've concluded that I'm not cut out for bento-making. While it was fun using stencils and nori punches, I am a wee bit too impatient. If I had been hungry while making this bento, I think the final result would look like the first picture (yeah, I'm talking about the empty container).

**addition***After looking at bentos online, I think I'm going to attempt a different bento. I am going to go for the cuteness factor. And strangely enough, the bentos that look cute have eyes. It's like your food is too cute to be eaten.

7 comments:

K and S said...

first off, cute bento container! next, my bento would definitely look like your 2nd photo too :)
third, I don't think I would be able to have the patience with nori punches either--love your beautiful bento!

Par said...

I like how you would describe each thing on the picture!

Erika said...

wow, gorgeous. Perhaps you can make one more bento attempt once you have the egg molds! They would definitely up the cute factor....

genkitummy said...

kat-
thanks for your comments. yeah, i love my sweets!

kay-if i make more bentos after these first two attempts, i'll add cpations to my bento

erika- did you buy those molds? i can't wait to see them! i guess i'll have to make another bento box to showcase them!

Anonymous said...

Hi :) this is the "shar" I was so surprised to see the bento I made for you on your blog..I did make it for you and not your mom...thought it would make you less homesick. I read your blog previously and you sounded familiar and lo and behold it is you..small world. Hope that chibi and peanut are okay. I dont see mom anymore..haha.. btw congratulations on your engagement..

hope you are doing good.

take care
sharbears :)
shar

genkitummy said...

Hey Shar! Wow, that's neat! Someone I know (that I didn't mention my blog to) actually read my blog!

Thank you for the cute bento bako. I love it! I sometimes break it into the different compartments and just take my snack in the smaller container.
I think chibi and peanut are doing okay. i've been in illinois so long that i heard get to see them. :(

Anonymous said...

Hi Lauren, I just read your blog by accident awhile back ..bc of Kats link on adventures in Japan. Such a small world.

Take care