I'm going to Minneapolis, Minnesota in a few weeks to visit MCAD, and I'm hoping to find some stuff for bentos there, especially bento boxes. I only have one. :( We'll be around the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and we'll probably be hitting up Mall of America, too thouuugh I probably won't get to St. Paul.

I also live very close to Philly (hopefully in, soon) and am there all the time, so any suggestions there? I found these stores in the tags:

Asian Supermarket
400 Spring Garden St
Philadelphia, PA 19123
(215) 928-1288

Assi International Plaza
1216 Welsh Road
Lansdale PA 19046

H mart
7320 Old York Road
Elkins Park, PA 19027
215-782-1801

Any others I should know of?

Thanks!

Hey everyone! I'm lucky enough to be going on a trip to Japan next week, and excited as I am about the sightseeing and the culture and the food... I must confess that I might possibly be most excited about shopping for bento supplies. Does anyone have any recommendations about the best places to find bento accessories? Things like onigiri makers, hotdog cutters, and so on. I'll be going to Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.

Kamei in San Francisco now stocks ten different kinds of high-quality Hakoya-brand bento boxes. All are priced at US$10.50, regardless of size or design. (I have no commercial affiliations with Kamei or Hakoya.) Full details with additional photos and box info are here at Lunch in a Box.

ok so i haven't really been able to do the bento thing as much as i'd like recently due to all my money and time being put into setting up my new apartment, but i have a couple not-quite-bentos to post just to keep myself somewhat active in the group

( Boyfriend's Bentos and Other Things )

I put together a list of online stores that carry bento boxes, accessories and tools, to complement the international Bento Store Locator (BSL) tool with Google Maps and user-generated store feedback. The updated list of online stores is here at Lunch in a Box; let me know if I've missed any big ones!

I'm really pleased with how everyone has been adding local stores to the new worldwide Bento Store Locator (BSL) with Google Maps -- thank you! The database has almost doubled in size since its launch on Monday. It's turning into a helpful tool, but it's only as good as the information that we all put into it. So please check it out and leave your feedback by adding new stores, commenting on existing stores about what sort of bento gear they stock, places that might have closed down or no longer carry bento boxes and accessories, etc. Please use the search box to check your area, not just the map's zoom function (the BSL only displays the stores nearest to the location in the search box). See the posting guidelines and a detailed Locator description; check to see if your favorite store is already there before adding as we're starting to get duplicates (that I delete).

Contents of preschooler lunch: Mini burger patties made from meatloaf mix, roasted asparagus and a lemon wedge, cherry tomato, mini pudding cup, home fries with garlic and rosemary, ketchup for dipping, and blueberries.  Morning prep time: 7 minutes, using leftovers and little burger patties I'd previously made, fried up and frozen (then stored in my freezer basket of bento food for easy access). Full details here at Lunch in a Box.

To mark the one-year anniversary of lunchinabox.net, I just launched the Bento Store Locator with Google Maps to make it easier for the lunch-packing community to share their knowledge of local stores in a common location. This interactive map should help readers quickly find nearby stores that sell bento boxes and accessories, check out feedback from other readers, add new stores to the map themselves, and leave their own comments on individual store entries. (Like a very basic version of Yelp.com, but focused only on bento gear.)  Full details and posting guidelines here at Lunch in a Box.

Hey everyone, so I was wondering if anyone else has had any problems with shipping from Bento Crazy? I ordered a couple things from the site and it took over a week for them to even begin to ship my order. Apparently left the company on the 29th, so hopefully I'll get it tomorrow or Tuesday.

Is this normal for the site or is it just a fluke of my order? Nothing I wanted was on backorder or anything, but it just seems a bit unreasonable for it to be taking this long.

yeah so finals kind of destroyed my ability to keep up with the group but i went back and tried. found a couple things i wanted to post:

i just *might* have squee'd myself out of my chair when i found this bento:



i'd never spent much time on Bento Crazy, but i think that was bad planning! i found a ton of stuff and at better prices then i was finding them on Ebay. a full recommendation goes with that site, and i shall be buying many things from them this afternoon.

i also have a question: does anyone know how well homemade dumplings would take to molding? i know you can get squares, rectangles, and the normal ball shapes easy, but would it work to, say, steam them in a cookie cutter to get a more interesting shape?

and one last thing, a pointer: i don't know if any of you have a costco in your area, i have one ~45 min from my house (going to be closer to 10 min from my new apartment i move in to next week!) and they have these amazing frozen chicken potstickers. they come in a 2-part pack with each side containing maybe 20 dumplings and a package of dipping sauce. they're less than $10 a package if i remember correctly, and you can take a few out, microwave them, and toss them in a bento at a moment's notice.

in other news, i am still waiting on my boyfriend's bento to get here >.>'

Hi all!

My new bento just arrived in the mail today from www.bentocrazy.com! I was very excited for it's arrival since I have seen it in many places, especially eBay. If anyone wants to know I definitely would recommend this Bento Crazy because of the amazing service. Mine was actually a custom order since I wanted to pick and choose what I got. While on eBay sometimes I couldn't find what I wanted and sometimes it had too much! (Is that possible? lol) Anyway without further adieu! Here are some previews of the pictures, they are much bigger under the cut.

~*~~*~

( Strawberry Candy )

Tags: recommended stores

An Accidental recipe :o!
Okay so a few nights ago, I was like, I WANT QUICHE (you know the mood.)
and so i decided i would make some ~mini quiches~.
So I dug out the necessary ingredients but LOW AND BEHOLD i was fresh out of puff pastry.
Not being the type to make pastry i simply went ahead without it. And it was great (especially because the boyf has unwittingly been put on the south beach diet)! Kind of like an omlette but i put them in mini muffin cooking trays, they were cute! (sorry no pics!)
anyway the recipe is as follows.

Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1 cup Bisquick baking mix
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 to 3/4 cup favorite meat (dried beef, hamburger, ham, sausage, pork roll).

Brown meat and onion (until clear). Blend other ingredients in mixing bowl. Stir in meat and onion. Let stand 10 minutes and place into half of preheated oven; bake at 325 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes or until center sets. Let stand for at least 5 minutes. Then serve!


And two bentos for sale :) ( Click! )

I've seen a lot of folks asking for advice on where to buy bento gear locally or online. Is everyone familiar with the bento shopping guides that the LiveJournal bentolunch community put together? They've got one organized by geographic area (retail stores worldwide) and one for online stores as well -- check them out along with the reader comments for updated shopping info.

For anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area, a while back I put together a local shopping guide for bento gear at Lunch in a Box, my speed bento tutorial, tip and recipe website.

Target stores now carry some cheap lunch containers that have been mentioned here. I bought a couple, tested them out, and wrote a full review here at Lunch in a Box. (Box info: Whim by Cynthia Rowley 1250ml salad set and 1000ml divided lunch set, US$2.99 each in their seasonal section in the front of the store. Lids are not watertight.)

Hallo! I'm MK, relatively new, mostly lurking so far, but once I have something worth posting, I will.  I just started making lunches for me and my mom, who works during the day while I'm at school.  She works too hard.  Anyway. 

Since I'm still learning, and I'm not that great of a cook either, I'm tending to stay toward safe and easy things - celery with peanut butter and raisins, filling-less onigiri, trail mix, etc.  I tried hot dogs but it was kind of a disaster - never doing that again until I can make it work.  Our boxes've been fine - tasty, filling, somewhat healthy - but the problem is...

...neither of us are vegetarians.  We love meat.  Very much.  And I'm wary of using it wrong, so I've opted out of using it at all, but it's starting to suck.  Today, for example, I packed single-serving salmon cups that didn't need refrigeration, but...meh.  I mean, it was good, but bland eating it by itself.

Neither of us can refrigerate our lunches.  What is a good meat to use in a bento (onigiri filling, etc) that is safe while unrefrigerated?  Mom picks at her lunch all day, and I don't have time to eat until 1:30. 


In other news, I must say I really love the Lock & Lock boxes we're using.  Short of *actual* bento boxes, they're fantastic.  And I found them, along with star- and heart-shaped foil cupcake cups at Volde-Mart!  The dark side really does have cookies.

And eety-beety bottles of ketchup.

for me, it's payday so i am doing a little shopping and thought i'd share some finds

hey guys, i just got my regular sale email from http://www.asianfoodgrocer.com
they've got some good sale items like nori, rice crackers, wasabi dressing, [if you don't have an asian grocery near you]
but watch the prices at the bottom of each page... for some reason the somen sauce has been marked UP from $2.09 to $2.69
I have at least half a dozen asian markets near me and sometimes i can still find things at this website that none of the stores here carry. their prices are generally a little lower even on the things i CAN find here but the shipping charges balance out

On the topic of shopping for bento boxes for a good price...check this out...

http://www.amazon.com/Manga-Cookbook-Bento-Box-Gift/dp/492120523X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208287762&sr=8-4

It comes out in September though (so a little ways off) but it seems like a good deal.  Though, I have no idea how good (or bad) the book is since I've only been able to look at sample pages also on Amazon (if your item search the book itself and not the gift set it will allow you to take a peek).

I also don't know if the Bento would be microwave safe or not.

Any thoughts?  Do you think it's worth pre-ordering?  Anyone have any personal reviews or experience with the book?  I'm thinking about going for it but I'm not sure if it would just be better to get other sets elsewhere or something where I may have a slightly better idea of what I'm getting.

A few shopping updates: Ichiban Kan's online store for the U.S. market is experiencing a delay in restocking their cheap bento gear (3 more weeks), and Japan Centre now ships an expanded selection of cheap bento gear from Daiso throughout Europe.  Full details are here at Lunch in a Box.

Today was my day off so I decided to start my bento-ing today. I didn't actually buy too much that was all that exotic aside a small bento box, (It's a kid size but all they had) some rice cakes, and furitake for a later lunch. Everything else I got at my local grocery store.

So for anyone who lives in the Chicagoland area.

Anywho, as for the actual bento, I went a little nuts. I had to make bentos for two people, my father (who's diabetic and too macho for cute food which totally puts a crimp on the fun.) and myself. 


Then in a second lunch container I put down a little bit of the leftover baby spiniach for "grass". I read arie's post about apple bunnies and decided to try that out and took ss_biggie's advice to get the ears to curl. They came out pretty cute. (I don't have a camera! So no pictures! :( ) I used little mushroom chocolates, to fill in a few bare spots, and added one rice cake in a paper liner, and a handful of dried cranberry/nut mix in another paper liner. (I couldn't resist trying one rice cake, and used the abanonded liner).

Only thing was... I didn't use the bento box I bought cause it was just too small! I stared at it for a few minutes and then caved. I don't have time for breakfast in the mornings so I'd bought some mini-crossiants. I put two of them in the box and used more cranberry/nut mix to surround it and done! ^_^

Here is a site that I have found where you can find many bento boxes and many bento accesories.  I have perchased things from this sight before and everything is shipped from Japan. 
 http://www.jbox.com/BENTO/BENTO_1.html
You can also find more japanese items at
www.jbox.com

If you are a seller, or if you had a good experience when buying Bento related items online and would like to share the fun with fellow members, please feel free to leave a comment to this post with a link to the store, which will be added to this post.

Of course, if you have any stores nearby where you live selling bento boxes or supplies, feel free to share with fellow members! Comment to this post with name and address of the store, thanks!

If you are a seller, please don't forget to state where you're available to ship, thanks!

ONLINE STORES:

www.iloveobento.com We're shipping worldwide now.
Also, if anyone has purchased from our store, and your shipping seems high, please email me... contact@iloveobento.com. Sometimes the cart calculator is wrong! Yikes! We're working on it.

www.megasuperbento.ecrater.com - lots of affordable bento supplies and can do custom orders. I have tons of feedback on Ebay under ohhhhhthehorror. As of April 2008, ships to US and Canada only.

www.japancentre.com for cheap bento stuff in the UK

http://www.ichibankanusa.com/

Ichiban Kan
_{Also has a store in SF & a newsletter}



SELLING LJ USERS:
alicelisle
feverlights


STORES IN MY AREA:

 US:

Asian Supermarket
400 Spring Garden St
Philadelphia, PA 19123
              (215) 928-1288       

Assi International Plaza
1216 Welsh Road
Lansdale PA 19046
_{*This store is HUGE!}

H mart
7320 Old York Road
Elkins Park, PA 19027
              215-782-1801       



One World Market
42705 Grand River Ave, 
Novi, MI 48375

They sell bento supplies pretty often, although they change out their stock fast, so pick it up while you can! It's a Japanese food market, so bento foods are easy to come by.

Right next door is another store called Mirai, and they are a Japanese shop. They occasionally carry bento boxes.