Just Bento

So, you think that Japanese moms (and wives) prepare homemade bentos completely from scratch? Think again… continue reading...

I’m busy getting ready for the photo shoot for the bento cookbook, which starts next week, so I don’t have a lot of time for long posts at the moment. So I thought I’d do a brief write up of this bento I had for lunch today. It’s a good example of a higher-end takeout bento, of the kind you might buy in the food hall of a department store, at specialized stores or stalls in the bigger train stations, and so on. continue reading...

A new movie opened in Japan in late September called Nonchan Noriben (the rather sparse listing on IMDB). Here’s a trailer:

The Nonchan part of the title is the name of the little daughter of the main character, Komaki. The Noriben part of the title refers to the name of a classic type of bento. I explained how a noriben is made here, as well as a little bit of the culture behind it. Basically, any bento consisting of layers of rice and nori seaweed is a noriben. continue reading...

One sign that bentos are becoming trendy, if they aren’t already, may be that they are being made into iPhone apps. There is of course the database app from FileMaker, Bento (which messes up searches for bento recipes!), which uses the divided bento box as a metaphor for organizing data. But there are a few apps that actually use the edible box of food we love as the main theme. Here I review three of them - A Bento Box: Virtual Sushi; Obento!; and Charaben. continue reading...

I am a bit wary of putting Japanese YouTube videos here, because soon after I do they seem to be taken down. But I’m taking a chance with this one (via sherimiya on Twitter) because it’s just too funny. It’s from a program on TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System), one of the major Japanese TV networks, called Jitan Seikatsu Gaido Shou (時短生活ガイドショー), an infotainment show about how to save time in all kinds of ways. continue reading...