leggo my obento! the bento blog

Trader Joe’s has frozen swordfish steaks.  They are reasonably priced and very tasty.  I made some Swordfish sticks from Naomi Kijima’s bento book with them.  Good stuff!

Also Konnyaku is an excellent “diet” food.  It has virtually 0 calories and next to no nutritional value, but it absorbs flavors very well.  It is a very filling item and the flavor in it can help to appease a ravenous appetite (use it sparingly, however!).   I like the texture a lot.

Rice with Furikaki, Swordfish Strips, Stewed Gobo and Carrot, Stewed Konnyaku, Stir fried Corn (soy sauce, sake, sugar).

in honor of the chinese new year i made a dim sum bento. well not a great dim sum bento, a lot of my favorite dim sum items were missing. actually, the truth is i didn’t have time to cook dinner so i had a lot of pre-cooked things.

Rice with umeboshi, potstickers, shu mai, egg roll, cherry tomato, hard boiled egg, sesame green beans, and a hot dog.

Went to Daiso yesterday and picked up some cute bento stuff.  They opened the one downtown Seattle which is way more convenient than the one way up in Lynnweird.  I love that store.

Each item pictured above was $1.50 and the bento box was $4.00.. grand total was $10.00 (plus tax).

For those who don’t know, Daiso is a Japanese dollar store that recently started opening stores around the world outside of japan.  Normally bento accessories can only be bought online via ebay or jlist.  There is usually a small price markup and there are shipping costs to consider.  I’ve usually gone to Uwajimaya.  Daiso has a better selection of bento accessories, but Uwajimaya has pretty decent bento boxes (and groceries).