Maki wrote a great post on thermal bento sets the other day and I'm looking into them. I'm interested in the second type she reviews, where the rice and soup containers are kept warm and the others carried outside of the thermal bit. Has anyone had any experience of these? Can you recommend any? I live in the UK if that's any help, thanks.

I'm having lunch at work now, I had it on my husband's office before, and he was the one in charge to wash the boxes after lunch and bring them back home (i have to carry my laptop to work so it's very uncomfortable for me to carry my purse, my laptop case AND the bag with my bento). Now, I can leave my laptop in my office, so i carry my bag with my bento ^^

Hi everyone!

I am considering getting a Laptop Lunches box, for an upcoming project. They do seem to be quite popular, and I don't have this type of box in my collection. However, for me to order it and have it sent here, it's going to cost like US $70 at the very least at the end of the day. So my questions are -

Hi!! I’m thrilled to offer you cute bento boxes and bento making items (egg shaper, food cutter, onigiri mold, nori cutter, bento cups and etc) . Every item on our site is hand selected, packaged and shipped from the Japanese countryside like you shopped there yourself. Chosen for an international audience you will find an eclectic collection of items far beyond the typical Hello Kitty gadgets people associate with Japanese retail products.

http://www.from-japan-with-love.com/kitchen-items.html

Not quite sure this is the right section for this (and it's my own forum! dang!) but anyway - I just saw an eBay listing that may interest people who are looking to stock up on bento boxes. It's a lot of 12 (12!) bento boxes, including many favorites like Lube Sheep, Totoro, etc. I guess they must be used...but hey...12 boxes!

Seeing how popular the What's Your Box thread is, and since I'm as curious about what other people use as bento boxes as anyone, I started a sister Flickr group for our existing Just Bento group: Just Bento: Bento Gear. This is a pool for posting pics of bento boxes, accessories and other gear, not bento contents. There's nothing there yet but I hope you'll all join and post your bento gear porn! ^_^

I'll show you mine, if you show me yours! :) I use a couple of different sets. For me, I use either a Hakoya two-level box (in ume blossom motif) that I bought at Loft last fall. Very sturdy, and I use it at least three times a week. I also have a Floream set with a keep-warm rice thermos and side dishes (that look a lot like denture cups, frankly). I use this set for warm leftovers, like mapo dofu or curry, since my workplace doesn't have a microwave.