Mayhem-Online

Archive for the ‘Japan’ Category

So I’m going through another weird phase and this time its all about bento and creating a bento. Bento are, of course, Japanese lunchboxes though you can get these from any store who sells a lunchbox with dividers and just say that its a bento box!

Anyway I went to a local store here in Adelaide called “Little Tokyo”. They sell a lot of Japanese items even though its such a small shop. They also sell Japanese grocery items too, as I’ve often bought pocky from them So the other day I looked at their bento boxes and bought a set that was a two tier lacquared type with some chopsticks that come with their own plastic container and a little tote bag. It was pretty cute! Then it was time to fill the bento box up over the weekend. I had also bought myself a bamboo steamer and used it over the weekend to make some manju (Steamed buns) which I also added some nice filling to. Unfortunately they’re too big to fit in the bento box so they were left out lol.

My main problem with Japanese food is their love of seafood. Unfortunately I’m kind of allergic to most kinds of seafood which is really weird considering my own heritage, nevertheless its a bit difficult to get things like sushi unless its not got any seafood in it. Then again, I’m not all that fond of nori either so that puts about 80% of their dishes out the door lol. However, the bento can be filled with anything its just up to your imagination. I tend to pick at food all day so for me just having the bento and a couple of other items was a better way of keeping my weight in check (I need to lose some!) So, in my first bento box is rice – which is the usual thing you would find – though I used Jasmin instead of the Japanese rice. I’ll be using the Japanese rice next time as it doesn’t go all over the place lol. The rice has got some peas, onions and a bit of egg leftover from my tamagoyaki. Yes that yellow thing at the top of the tray is tamagoyaki. I was actually pleased with myself that I could do that as I’ve never really been good at making a normal omelette let alone a rolled one! It turned out okay though and it tasted fine. Then theres some carrot sticks and some grape tomatoes. Doesn’t seem like a lot but it was filling. I also had a little plastic pot that had some soy sauce in it for flavouring the rice, and I had a small pack of sultanas and an apple.

I ended up going back over to Little Tokyo at lunch time today to see if they had any furikake (rice seasoning) which they did. Funnily enough most of the seasonings had nori in it (nori is seaweed if you didn’t know), however I thought I’d give them a try so I bought a few different kinds – egg and seaweed, black poppyseed and salt, wasabi (also contains seaweed) and sukiyaki. I used the wasabi as it came in a container whereas the others were all packets. It tasted pretty good – granted I could taste the seaweed but the other flavours (almost) drowned it out lol. (My problem is that I have oversensitive taste buds, and I can tell if there’s something in my food that I don’t like! Mum always tried to sneak something in that might look like something that I would eat but I could always taste it and would go “No you’ve got *** in there and I’m not going to eat it!!” :p)

Anyway I’ve made tomorrow’s bento lol. Its just salad which sounds a bit boring but I’m going out for dinner with some friends tomorrow night so I didn’t want anything too fancy for lunch. I’ve also just bought a new bento box plus some accessories via eBay. I’d forgotten I still had an account even though the last thing I bought was back in 2003! The bento box is a special deal, its smaller than the one I have but its 3 tiers plus some extra space under the top lid. It also has a band to keep it together (unlike mine) and includes some extras such as some cups, some bento grass (plastic stuff to separate food) and some little bottles for putting soy sauce into. The plastic tub that I used today is really only good for thicker stuff like the mayonnaise-type salad dressing that I’ve got for my lunch tomorrow, but these little bottles are specifically for the thinner sauces. And they’re cute too! I also bought some little shakers which I’ll put my rice seasonings into. There really are heaps of bento things you can get online which just amazed me. Its funny, but you see all these fancy made bentos where the lunch is turned into a picture of sorts and you go “Wow how did they do that?” and then when you visit eBay stores that sell Bento items, you see all the stuff that these people would probably have used! Moulds, cutters, even stencils to put fancy faces onto the rice! Its pretty cool, though I’m not sure if I really want to go that far lol.