EZLock Ag+

Japanese bento boxes have come with anti-bacterial silver ions for some time, like these ones. This helps to prevent your food from going bad, especially in hot weather.

Now Lock n Lock’s EZ-Lock range also some with Ag+ ions. After you remove the cardboard packaging, the Ag+ boxes can be distinguished by their lids of a slightly lighter shade of blue compared to standard EZ-Lock. View the latest 2009-2010 Lock n Lock catalogue here (only works with Internet Explorer).

Here are some suitable sizes for bento.

EZlock Ag+: 520ml & 620ml

EZlock Ag+: 890ml & 965ml

It might seem indulgent to buy lots of different plastic boxes, but given the importance of choosing the right box, it is worthwhile to do so. Daiso and Lock n Lock provide good selections at affordable prices. Wherever possible, choose airtight boxes as they will prevent spillage of any sauce or liquid contents (I’ve packed soups and yoghurt before), while also keeping dry foods like biscuits crisp in humid weather.

Beside the main lunchbox, I also have a selection of other plastic boxes: smaller ones for pieces of cut fruit (which accompany every meal bento I have), a round box for a single muffin, a deep, rectangular box for two muffins, and shallow rectangular boxes for angular snacks like pieces of cake. Most of my plastic boxes are not reserved for bento use only as we use them for storing all sorts of foods at home, such as dried goods removed from plastic packaging or leftovers in the fridge/freezer. With a large variety of plastic boxes on hand, I can easily find one to suit anything I want to pack into my bento bag.

Aside from boxes, I regularly carry a small insulated mug/flask, and always have a wet towel (oshibori) and plastic cutlery –either a fork and spoon in a ziploc bag or foldable chopsticks which come in their own case.

You’ll need a bag to hold all these things. Again, it’s good to have bags in different sizes to accommodate the amount of food you’ll need. The bags I use most of the time hold my lunch, fruit and a snack. I also have one larger bag, which can also fit a one litre water bottle, and several smaller zipper or drawstring bags from Daiso which hold a single plastic box and cutlery and sometimes also an oshibori. Usually, the small zipper/drawstring bag will go inside my main holdall or backpack, where it helps to keep the food items together and hopefully, prevent the food boxes from being knocked open as well.

If you do mostly rice bento rather than sandwiches, it’s much better to find a bag that will allow you to hold the bento boxes horizontally. Briefcase-style lunchbags tilt your boxes on their side and may disturb the arrangement of food or increase the chance of spillage. It’s not necessary to go hunting for dedicated lunch bags, any small tote bag with a large enough flat base will do, although I am very partial to two-layer bags that enable easy access to the main lunchbox itself.

More bento tips:
Bento primer part 1: foods for bento
Bento primer part 2: planning bento meals
Bento primer part 3: packing bento

Perhaps the first thing many people associate with bento culture are the elaborate kyaraben (character bento), but everyday bento don’t have to be that difficult. However, the fundamental ideas of packing bento can take your lunchbox from unappetising mess to something to look forward to. It feels really good when instead of being pitied for one’s food intolerances, people think your food looks better than theirs!

You don’t need to do cutesy or complicated, but it helps to have some aesthetic sense to guide you in composition, arrangement and the juxtaposition of colours and shapes. Frank Tastes provides some excellent examples of simple, almost Zen-like bento arrangments. As with developing any kind of artistic sensibility, exposure to as many examples as possible will build up your visual ‘vocabulary’ to facilitate creativity. Apart from the plethora of bento websites, if you have access to a Japanese bookstore, do browse through Japanese-language books on bento for  inspiration — the bento examples and the overall art direction are usually absolutely excellent.

It’s also important to choose a box of the correct shape and size. A shallow box is better as it allows you to lay out the foods horizontally, almost like a painting. Also, if the foods come up to the lid when the box is sealed, they won’t move around during transportation and your bento will still be intact when you come to eating it.

Just Bento oftens discusses the usefulness of bento in controlling portion sizes, and Japanese guidelines on the optimal size for men, women and children are very useful. However, I have also discovered that the volume I can finish in one meal differs according to the type of food. The type of rice makes a huge difference, not so much in terms of managing the caloric value, but in terms of how much is enough to make me feel full. With brown rice, I eat much less than the half-box portion of sticky, short-grain Japanese white rice recommended for standard Japanese bento, and it’s likely you’ll find that with long-grain white rice typical of Southeast Asia and in southern Chinese cuisines, you’ll need quite a bit more than that. Any kind of glutinous rice would be the most filling of all.

Noodle dishes are a different ball game because not only do I consume a larger volume than if I had a meal of brown rice and side dishes, you need some empty space in your bento box to allow you to loosen the noodles and pick up the strands, or to toss the noodles with the topping ingredients (in terms of presentation, noodles look much nicer with the toppings heaped on top than ready mixed).

More bento tips:
Bento primer part 1: foods for bento
Bento primer part 2: planning bento meals

Dual Lock 550ml

On Boxing Day last year, my Asvel bento box died. The sad thing was, it wasn’t totally dead, just that a miniscule knob that held the hinge mechanism of the lock-tight lid broke off and that was the end of the lid.

So instead I turned to using this shallow Dualock box from Lock ‘n’ Lock. The shallow shape is ideal for packing bento, as I explained here. At 550ml, it’s relatively close in volume to the 630ml capacity of the Asvel one, and it has a watertight lid.

Japanese guidelines state 630ml as about the ideal size box for an adult woman’s meal, hence this is a standard size for many Japanese boxes. That’s true if I have white rice or a noodle dish. However, I’ve found that for a meal with brown rice, I usually can’t finish that amount of food, and instead, this 550ml box provides exactly the right amount for me.

I’ve since acquired a brand new Asvel box, but I shall continue using this one a lot more from now on, especially since I have brown rice for most of my meals.

Curious what’s for lunch inside the box :)?

Aubergine & pork brown rice bento

Brown rice, stir-fried pork (shabu-shabu or sukiyaki cut from the supermarket), with pan-fried brinjal (local aubergine).

If your bento aesthetics lean towards zakka (such as FrankTastes), and you are hoping for Shinzi Katoh items to appear in your Christmas stocking this year, you might want to hint to your friends and family with these Singapore Shinzi Katoh shopping tips (^.^).

Maameemoo (Orchard Cineleisure, 02-09) is a tiny zakka heaven, with a selection of Shinzi Katoh items, including bento boxes and bags. Short totes (which can double as lunch bags) cost S$39 and there are regular new shipments, according to the sales assistant. I’ve seen a much larger zakka shop at Cathay Building, but can’t remember if they actually had Shinzi Katoh or bento items.

However, an online search turns up a few Singapore-based online zakka stores:
The Little Happy Shop
Zakkaart.com

Both of these seem well-organised at very similar prices: lunch totes at S$26.90 (The Little Happy Shop) and S$26 (Zakkaart.com), double-tier bento boxes at S$29.90 (The Little Happy Shop) and $$28 (Zakkaart.com), single-tier boxes at S$17.80 (The Little Happy Shop) and S$24 (Zakkaart.com). Don’t forget to factor in the delivery charges (pretty minimal if by standard mail within Singapore).

There is also Momo’s World, which seems to be a new online shop, less professionally-organised website than the other two and with a limited selection.

Or perhaps you want to order directly from Shinzi Katoh’s Japan online shop; prices vary according to design. Here’s a guide for English-speakers to navigate the site. Shinzi Katoh’s UK website also does international orders (currently 25% off lunchboxes): lunch totes are £18, single-tier boxes on sale at £7.50, double-tier ones – £8.65.

Don’t forget: if ordering lunchboxes, do check the size as the double-tier ones come in 460ml and 540ml. If the lunch bags are too small for you, another option could be the short tote bags which are the same height but twice the length of the lunch bags (W315×H160×D110mm).

N.B.: I haven’t purchased from any of these shops myself so no comments on the actual level of service. I’ll just keep wishing hard for my Christmas this year… or next.

Tzu Chi double-layer bento bag

Quite often I carry food for more than one meal and it’s a real hassle to get to the largest box (usually the main meal, lunch) at the bottom of the bag. Sometimes this involves unloading everything on top first, and going through the same process all over again to put the box back in!

After struggling with this a few times, I realised how much the two-layer bag from Tzu Chi Foundation would help me. Earlier, I wrote about the range of 便當 biangdang /bento equipment from this Taiwanese Buddhist organisation, which promotes concern for the environment. I’m a huge fan of their folding chopsticks.

[Speaking of folding chopsticks, I found a couple of varieties, including a screw-type similar to the Tzu Chi one, at NTUC Finest Bukit Timah, near the Chinese dried foods. However, they didn't seem to be very well-made, so I would hesitate to recommend them.]

This bag fits a rectangular lunchbox in the bottom zippered layer, the precise size of my Asvel box. I usually squeeze my plastic cutlery or folding chopsticks into this section too.

In the upper compartment, I’ll put my fruit box, tea time snacks and oshibori. There is also a small zipper pocket inside the upper layer – just nice for paper napkins but I have given those up in favour of the more environmentally-friendly oshibori. Sometimes I slip in a teabag if there’s going to be hot water at my lunch destination.

Once I put in all these, there’s no space for my 300ml insulated mug though, unlike with my Muji and Reisenthel bags.

Unfortunately, Tzu Chi in Singapore has moved from a convenient downtown location in Chinatown to Pasir Ris. So it’s worthwhile to call ahead and ask if they have stock. They were out when I wanted to buy this bag about six months ago, and I ended up getting a friend to buy it in Taiwan for me, where it cost about S$10.

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My other bento bags: cream-coloured Muji and green & orange Reisenthel.

Reisenthel lunchbag

The German brand, Reisenthel, is mostly known for its folding, environmentally-friendly shopping bags. Whilst browsing the colourful designs at Tangs one day, I chanced upon these small tote bags intended for young children – going by the photographs on the tags. However, they are a perfect size for bento too. I can’t seem to find this bag on the official Reisenthel website though.

Tangs had them in three colours: kiwi green with orange trimming, sky blue with lime trimming, and if I remember correctly also pink with sky blue trimming. The price was S$12.95.

Features I like are the zip closure, the zippered inner side pocket, and the square base, which makes this ideal for square bento boxes that don’t fit so well into my Muji and Tzu Chi bags which are designed for rectangular boxes.

This is big enough to hold a lunch box, extra boxes for fruit, teatime snack, cutlery, oshibori as well as my 300ml insulated mug.

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My other bento bags: cream-coloured Muji and double-layered Tzu Chi.

It being the Christmas season and with plenty of sales in the shops, you might be looking to buy an insulated mug. I just saw a newspaper ad for a Thermos warehouse sale this weekend — sorry, I can’t remember the details because I already have enough insulated mugs & flasks and don’t intend to buy anymore (^_^) !

Insulated mugs

These are three stainless steel insulated mugs that I have: 290ml Thermos food/soup jar, 300ml Tiger brand slim mug, 450ml Tiger mug with compartment on top of lid for storing tea leaves. Not in the photo is a large 1 litre Thermos food flask I have in which you can make congee (rice porridge).

I’ve learnt that one of the very important thing to look out for is whether the screwtop grooves are on the inside or outside.

Tiger mug - grooves inside

Thermos jar - grooves outside

Initially, I used my 290ml Thermos food jar for hot beverages such as tea and powdered grain drinks but soon found that the drink would seep down the grooves and drip down the outside of the mug, making for a very sticky experience. With solid foods, or if you only open the mug once or twice, this is not a problem, but with hot powdered grain drinks, I would replace the lid and shake the mug in between sips throughout the day and every time I opened the lid, I’d end up having to wipe my hands and the mug with a wet tissue (or oshibori, if lucky enough to have one on me ^.^).

To solve the problem, I got my second insulated mug, the burgundy-coloured 450ml Tiger brand one, where the grooves are on the inside. I discovered that of all the stainless steel insulated flasks on sale in Singapore, only Tiger brand has the grooves inside. The bad news is that the big sales – sometimes storewide at department stores or for individual stainless steel brands such as Thermos and La Gourmet – usually exclude Tiger brand. Tiger is also the most expensive of all the brands T_T.

This particular Tiger model has a ‘take-apart stopper’ where the rubber parts can be removed to make cleaning easier. Tea-drinkers can also use the screw compartment on top of the lid for storing tea leaves. However, I’ve never used it as I usually brew tea in a pot and pour the ready-made tea into the mug.

After using my 450ml Tiger flask mostly for carrying tea, I realised that almost half a litre of tea is simply too much caffeine for me, resulting in stomach discomfort (and insomnia if drunk in the evening). And with no/low caffeine or herbal teas, such as kukicha, mugicha, or oksusucha, a large amount of strong brew can produce a rather unfortunate laxative effect on me!

Which led to the purchase of the 300ml Tiger slim mug. This is about the volume of a normal coffee mug, with an elegant, lightweight design that makes it perfect for the lunchbag. I use this flask almost everyday now. It’s so well-used that the charcoal-coloured coating has been scratched in a few places already.

A final word on choosing stainless steel insulated brands, I totally wasted my money on a La Gourmet mug. It’s the type with plastic lid that has a small opening with a sliding cover for you to drink from. No matter how I screw the lid on, the liquid leaks out through the screwtop grooves when I try to drink. The leakage is so bad it’s completely impossible to drink with the lid on. In fact, my freebie giveaway stainless steel mug with where the plastic drinking lid is sealed with a rubber gasket, works way better. Will never be tempted by cheap La Gourmet prices again.

Some readers have asked about my bento equipment, which I occasionally – only very occasionally – write about. Perhaps my favourite of all my bento things are my bags, a natural extension of my love of bags in general :). I love the shape of lunch bags and in my pre-bento past, have been known to carry Daiso lunchbags as handbags, even the silver-coloured insulated ones!

To kick off my bento bag series, here is my classic cream-coloured Muji bag (about S$13), which I bought after having busted my third Daiso lunchbag! (They’re OK for just a simple lunchbox but a 700ml bottle of drink will certainly bust those cheapo S$2 handles!). It’s the same Muji bag I wrote about here, but this one came separately, not in a set.

The high quality of this Muji bag was such a welcome relief and indeed a pleasure. The silky, lined interior and botton-clasp top flap are lovely touches.

It also matches well with my white Asvel bento box, and white plastic cutlery.

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My other bento bags: green & orange Reisenthel and double-layered Tzu Chi.

If you want a box with an ice-pack, then the Fit N Fresh might be what you are looking for (although there are some Daiso as well as Lock n Lock plastic boxes that have a section under the lid where to fit in an ice pack).

Some of the Fit N Fresh range is available in Spotlight at Plaza Singapura – great place to shop because if you can also check out Daiso and the Lock n Lock range at Carrefour at the same time!

Just Bento has reviewed a small Fit N Fresh chiller plastic box here. Personally I wasn’t impressed, the lunchboxes aren’t very attractive, don’t look leakproof and don’t seem to be particularly well-made, certainly not of the quality one might expect from a US brand. Anyway, these are not especially useful for me because my packed lunches are almost always rice with side dishes that are best warm or at room temperature, rather than chilled.

Finally! I have found functional bento boxes (as opposed to cutesy and child-sized type which are plentiful in Daiso) in different capacities on sale in Singapore! If you’re looking for a basic bento box similiar in design to my Asvel box, head straight to Meidi-ya.

Lustroware clear boxes in three sizes: 490ml (S$13.90), 670ml (S$14.90), and 890ml (S$18.90). They are microwavable, have leakproof seal, and a movable divider.

There are also dark grey and black, very large men’s style bento, some of which come with insulated slipcase, and which cost up to S$31.90. There are single layer and double layer men’s boxes.

The boxes are all labelled with Ag+, indicating silver ions to give the plastic an anti-bacterial property.

All the Lustroware boxes which I saw in Meidi-ya are manufactured in China for the Japanese market.

Recently I had to pack a series of bento lunches that were vegetarian, as well as taking into my sensitivities to salicylates, glutamates and amines, not to mention avoiding foods that aggravate candidiasis. Now that was a major creativity challenge! I also made an effort to plan more variety between each of the meals than I usually do and also to splurge a bit on as much organic ingredients and produce as possible. Salt is the only seasoning used in the savoury dishes shown here.

The most suitable box for these lunches was the EZ-Lock compartmentalised box, which I described here. In my earlier posting, I commented that it’s normally too big for a single meal for me, but I managed to eat up most or all of the food in these vegetarian bento.

Vegetarian bento 1

* Origins Healthcare wild rice + brown rice blend. My current favourite brown rice, unlike many brands, it doesn’t have a stale & rancid taste.
* fried taukwa (firm tofu) stuffed with shredded cucumber, to be eaten with pureed pumpkin (orange contents of smallest section on left) and topped with toasted pumpkin seeds (inside blue mini condiments container). Based on this recipe, minus all the sauces and seasonings.
* stir-fried broccoli with chopped garlic

Vegetarian bento 2

* Origins Healthcare wild rice + brown rice blend
* stir-fried brinjal and cubes of fried taukwa with caramelised onion
* dhal with onions, garlic and little bit of red capsicum, no curry spices
* raita (live cultures yoghurt + chopped cucumber) — packed with mini ice pack, which I melted and bent into the shape of container, then put the whole bento container into the freezer to solidify the ice pack into shape.

Vegetarian bento 3

* couscous, cooked with garlic, onions, raisins, dried cranberries plus toasted pecans, raw tomato, cucumber and spring onions. This was delicious but not at all a good dish for my dietary restrictions! Anti-candida diets should not include nuts and dried fruit or refined pasta — which is what couscous is; tomato intake must be monitored for salicylate and glutamate levels, although fresh tomato is much better than tomato products.
* Japanese sweet potato, satsumaimo, with caramelised onions
* stir-fried broccoli with chopped garlic

Vegetarian bento 4

* vegetable okonomiyaki with onions, bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots, dried soya mince. I happened to find some organic yamaimo, which inspired me to make this.
* dhal, leftovers see vegetarian bento 2 above
* guava fruit

I also had a fifth vegetarian bento but I forgot to take photos ☹. It was Chinese stir-fried noodles (organic wholewheat) with garlic, onions, bean sprouts, carrots, red capsicum and egg. The side dishes were slices of raw cucumber and cubes of guava fruit.

A friend saw me with all this and asked if I had brought the entire kitchen! This is a typical set-up if I want to stay happily-fed for an entire day. It can be quite a lot to lug around if I’m on the move, but it’s fine if I’m staying in the same location all day.

Apart from the rice cooker and the kettle in the background, this is my lunchbag and its contents:
* drinks: 1 litre water bottle, 500ml insulated mug-style flask
* 1 lunch bento
* 4 snack bento
* plastic fork & spoon
* oshibori

The lunch in 630ml Asvel bento box: organic wild rice blend (Origins Healthcare, available at NTUC – my favourite brown rice!); kabocha Japanese pumpkin stir-fried with shallots; fish braised with enoki mushrooms, shallots and a tiny bit of miso.

Left to right (in E-Z Lock boxes): brown rice cookies; butter cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting (the frosted one is a bit smashed on top from the bento box lid; for lunchbox-friendly frosting method, slice out the top, put in frosting and replace the ‘lid’); dragon fruit; oolong tea konnyaku jelly. [Full recipes coming soon.]

Mini sweet potato cupcakes (in white box with orange lid). [Recipe maybe coming soon, these were a semi-disaster, not sure if it’s worth sharing the recipe at all and reinforced my perception that baking recipes in Chinese cookbooks often look rather odd :P .]

Kukicha is a great barely-caffeinated hot drink to sip throughout the day. However, I learnt the hard way that if brewed too strong and drunk in too large quantities, it has a serious laxative effect on me! This could be my particular food sensitivities at work, might not be the same for everyone. The brewing instructions on the packets of western brands of Asian teas can often be completely wrong. While black teas such as English breakfast should indeed be brewed at 100℃ for 3 to 5 minutes, this is never the case for Chinese, Japanese and Korean teas. Kukicha, hojicha and mugicha/boricha should be brewed with 100℃ but only for 15 to 30 seconds. The flavour should be delicate, not overly-strong.

Sometimes I even carry my insulated flask/mug empty to events where refreshments are provided so as to avoid using unenvironmentally-friendly styrofoam cups — plus I also get to sneak my hot drink inside when everyone else has had to finish theirs in the food area ☺ .

Essential equipment:. oshibori from Daiso and reused airplane plastic cutlery. Sometimes I use these foldable chopsticks instead.

I’m sorry this Daiso consumer watch is a month late – which means that Daiso is probably completely depleted of stocks by now, but please keep a lookout at the three Singapore Daiso branches :). [Daiso shopping tip: never go on weekends! It's too crowded to move and all the items are in a huge mess -- a most distressing shopping experience!]

The Urara range of bento equipment by Lube Sheep is one of the most common bento boxes/sets out there. Just Google and it appears that every other bento fan on the internet seems to have one, often purchased through J-List/J-Box. No wonder that Just Bento recently posted a review of the Lube Sheep lines.

I was overwhelmed when I came across an entire wall of Urara products at Daiso recently. Tons of blue Dragonfly (とんぼ – a new Japanese word for me, which also brings back childhood memories of Tombow stationery ^_^! I still swear by their ‘Mono’ erasers!), red Rabbit (うさぎ) and yellow flower (はな).

Not only did they have these same long two-tiered sets which everyone seems to have (above), there was a two-tier box in a more stocky rectangular shape (volume: 250ml+ 360ml; total approx. 20ml more than the long version, which is what I chose) and even a two-tiered box with triangular upper half for a large onigiri! I can’t even find pictures of these other shapes on the official Urara homepage by the manufacturer, Nakano Lunch. Everything else you see on the Urara official page was also available at Daiso, with the exception of perhaps the boxy thermal bag.

These are the items I ended up getting:

blue Dragonfly short two-tier box

lunch belt [Shopping tip for lunchbelts in Daiso, Singapore : they are to be found all over the shop - felt ones in sewing section, cute ones with character goods, some near the bento equipment, some in stationery. Basically it's because the staff have no idea what they are for! I tried explaining to one of the staff in Plaza Singapura once but I don't think she believed me, or didn't care or whatever... anyway, in all three Daiso branches, the lunchbelts are all over the place! Good luck!!]

lunch bag

fork in plastic case (useful for snack bento)

ランチーフ, which I presume can be used as a furoshiki and place mat

bag for plastic cup

I didn’t buy the tiny plastic cup, but loved the quality of the bag which has a smooth, gauzy lining, great for storing miscellaneous odds & ends.

There’s also a wonderful range of chopsticks in three lengths, one type with a cloth case and separate plastic boxes available for the other types. However, as I already have a much more convenient pair of folding chopsticks, I managed not to succumb to the Urara chopsticks.

P.S. A word of warning: I had another Daiso disaster (see my previous disasters here and here). One of the handles on a lunchbag I bought broke when I put a 1 litre water-bottle inside it, along with my bento box. It was the only bag I had with a square base – just right for the square type Lock & Lock box. I have since consoled myself with an extravagant Muji purchase (especially compared to S$2 Daiso items!) – more on that one later (^_^)!

Thanks to the shopping tips from Frank Tastes in the comments here, I have this new acquisition, an Asvel brand bento box, which I have a feeling might turn out to be my favourite box. It’s from Japan and specifically meant for packing bento. Lunch in a Box recently reviewed her son’s new Asvel box and FrankTastes uses a similar one too (see comments below).

There were two other sizes, one about 490ml for a child, and another about 900ml for an adult man. This one is 630ml – theoretically just about the ideal size for me, and in practice too, holds exactly the right amount to fill me for a meal. The main box is microwaveable, though not the lid, it’s got a liquid-tight rubber seal which can be easily removed for cleaning, and it also has a tiny hole for steam release which also has it’s own removable rubber seal. Inside, there’s a removable, moveable divider. I also like the minimalist white interior which provides a neutral yet opaque backdrop for the colours of the food inside. Very importantly, as it’s shallow and wide, foods can be packed tightly up to the lid to prevent them moving around.

One key feature of this purpose-made bento box that distinguishes it from generic plastic containers is the perfectly see-through lid. I guess that this must be a high-quality plastic going by the fact that only ‘Premium’ range Lock & Lock have fully-transparent plastic (body only, lids are semi-opaque coloured plastic). A see-through lid is of greater significance in bento culture because of the emphasis placed on the way the food inside is presented. A box like this allows one to admire the display within in the manner of admiring an artwork within a frame, and without having to open the lid. Of course, there are many Japanese bento receptacles which are fully opaque, and there the function is different: opening the lid, one has a sense of anticipation in looking forward to a surprising and unexpected arrangement of an array of jewel-like food items.

Although I have a wide range of Lock & Lock boxes and two-tier cutesy bento boxes from Daiso, many of them have some drawback or other. The Daiso boxes are a bit too small for a meal, are non-microwaveable, and are non-liquid-tight, requiring elastic bands to hold shut – cute but rather fiddly. There are a couple of Lock & Lock (or L&L copycat brand) boxes meant as lunchboxes, such as this one and this one, but both of those at 900ml+ are way too big for a single meal for me (but are the ideal size for men’s bento). Other Lock & Lock may be the right volume but are too deep for rice bento; they are very useful for sandwich bento though. None of my other boxes have this special see-through lid too.

Here is my first meal in the new box:

Contents:
1) Brown rice decorated with carrot slices. The carrot had dislodged by the time I opened the box at lunchtime though, so the aesthetic attempt was pointless :).

2) Cauliflower stir-fried with garlic, salt and carrots (which I extracted for decorating the rice).

3) Stir-fry of squid, egg, tomatoes, leeks, spring onions, garlic and salt. I deconstructed the dish to pack the components separately for aesthetic reasons. It seems to me that Japanese cuisine presents foods as individual components whereas Chinese cooking tends to combine many ingredients and colours into a single dish?

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Update 10/2/09
Recently got my second Asvel bento box, identical to the first, because on Boxing Day last year, my Asvel bento box died. The sad thing was, it wasn’t totally dead, just that a miniscule knob that held the hinge mechanism of the lock-tight lid broke off and that was the end of the lid. It lasted just under one year :(.

Here are more details of the box from the packing.
1) Silver ion anti-bacterial.
2) -20°C to 140°C
3) 184mm x 135mm x 52mm
4) Made in China by Shanghai Asvel factory.

Place of purchase: Hong Kong — City Super, IFC.
Price: HK$65.

Travelling with food intolerances can be a bit of a headache and the best solution is often to pack your own food for the journey. A short while back, Lunch in a Box blogged about avoiding airline food by packing your own bento, which is what I did too.

I was rather paranoid about going hungry on the 24hr+ journey and made all this food. In the end, it did look way too much so I put the rolled oats bars into the suitcase instead.

All food packed in microwave-safe plastic containers from SKP, thanks to the tip from Canton Pixie. They are supposed to be disposable, but are hardy enough to be washed and reused several times. The black boxes are about 500ml in volume.

Clockwise from the top:
1) Roasted chicken sandwich: homemade wholewheat bread, crockpot-roasted chicken, lettuce, tomato, seasoned with salt and mustard freshly made-up from mustard powder.

This is my standard sandwich recipe, which you would already have noticed in my other bento, the only difference is that I decided to try using mustard. Prepared supermarket mustard tends to have additional ingredients (and possibly preservatives) so I bought some plain Colman’s mustard powder. In any case, as I’ve not tested my tolerance to mustard powder, I used just a miniscule amount. It wasn’t worth using it, the taste wasn’t strong enough to enhance the sandwich, yet it was sufficient to impart a bitter edge and faint odour of rotten eggs. *Sigh*, so much for the taste experiment.

My roast chicken is made in an electric crockpot as I find this gives a wonderfully-tender result and you don’t have to watch the time too carefully. The only drawback is that there won’t be the crispy skin produced by oven-roasting. I don’t season the raw chicken with anything, but of course you can rub salt, pepper, lemon juice, honey, garlic, herbs – whatever you wish. You’ll need to raise the chicken carcass away from the bottom of the pot. One way is to use one of the small metal racks for steaming; alternatively, a less environmentally-friendly method is to crush aluminium foil into loose balls to cover the base of the pot and place the chicken on top of them. If you turn the electric crockpot onto ‘High’ or ‘Auto’, check the chicken for doneness after 2 hrs. The fats will all have dripped to the bottom of the crockpot. Sometimes I put potatoes in round the side as well.

I originally cut the sandwich into these tiny pieces intending to fit them into a different shaped box, but the box turned out to be too small. The bite-sized sections are handy for snacking, but they also result in the filling spilling out, hence the clingfilm wrap for each section.

2) Rolled oats, okara & almond bars. Recipe is here. Packed with paper napkins to cushion them and also stop them from moving around inside the plastic box.

3) Fried rice topped with lettuce strips, and side dish of chopped pear. The ingredients comprised sliced pork, chopped French beans, garlic, onions and homemade salted egg.

Although Chinese salted eggs are usually eaten hard-boiled with plain rice, I decided to experiment with scrambling the raw eggs, the way one normally does with fresh eggs for fried rice. Only after cracking open the egg did I discover that salted egg yolks are solid when raw! It had to smashed up when the egg was being cooked.

The egg seasoned the rice with a nice salty flavour, but I don’t think I would use this method again. Firstly, the special taste of the salted egg, in particular the yolk, is lost when it’s incorporated into the fried rice – what a waste of the salted eggs that took me five weeks to make! Secondly, it can be hard to gauge the amount of rice and other ingredients to go with the salted egg so that the final dish is of the correct saltiness.

The rice here was brown Japanese rice, genmai, which gave a sticky and chewy texture as compared to long-grain rice usually used for Chinese fried rice.

4) Buckwheat pancakes with stewed green apple (no added sugar) and brown rice syrup. Read more about the pancakes and brown rice syrup here.

The syrup was packed in a lidded sauce dish and tiny ziploc bag, then put inside the larger ziploc bag used to contain all my hand-carry liquids and gels!

In order to stop the foil dish of stewed apple from sliding around, I filled the gaps with two small pieces of steamed sponge cake.

5) Snack box of fried sweet potato strips, steamed sponge cake, and chopped pears. I used a cute plastic sheet bento divider between the sweet potato and the sponge cake, and kept the juicy pears enclosed in foil.

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I was worried about having my food confiscated at the airport security check, but fortunately, I got through without any problem. I’ve also found out that while liquids in containers of more than 100ml are banned on flights, empty containers are allowed – at least at Singapore Changi Airport and the few other places I’ve been to. So I carry my Lock & Lock bottle on board and get the flight attendant to fill it up with warm water. (Do note that disposable plastic bottles will melt if filled with hot water.) Lock and Lock bottles are far cheaper than nalgene plastic bottles, so in the event that my empty bottle does get swiped by airport security, no need for heartache.

The other ‘problem’ I anticipated would be the curious stares and questions from fellow travellers, and this may sound strange but having to keep explaining my bento boxes and describe my food intolerances can be a source of great stress to me. The mere thought of having to answer questions about why I’m not eating the food provided, or of having to fight with serving staff in ‘no outside food allowed’ places is sometimes enough to make me decide to stay at home. So I had also planned my response to any questions: ‘I don’t like aeroplane food so I don’t want to eat it.’ True enough, the girl sitting next to me asked me once when the meal was served and again when we met at the baggage claim!

I did accept the aeroplane meals, just to see how much of it I could tolerate – using a combination of muscle testing and eating a bit to see how I felt. Mostly, bread and butter was fine for me, and the cooked meals had bits with no sauce that were all right, but if I had had to rely entirely on the aeroplane food, I would have been verrrrry hungry by the end of the trip.

In fact, I had tried to order a special meal for the flight as the airline’s website listed a ‘Low Calorie Meal’ (no sauces, no fried foods, low salt, low sugar) which sounded relatively less likely to produce a food sensitivity reaction. However, I had left it too late and after 15 minutes on hold with the airline reservation office, I gave up without an opportunity to try calling them again as special meals have to be ordered at least 24hrs in advance.

The best experience I’ve had with ordering special meals on the plane was a couple of years ago when I travelled long-haul on Singapore Airlines (and it’s not because I’m from Singapore that I say this :)!). I called and requested something that was outside their list of special meals: if I recall correctly, my request was no MSG, no soya sauce and no sugar (a watered-down version of an anti-candida diet). Amazingly, they agreed to do it! The meal out of Singapore Changi Airport was a deliciously tender beef steak, and I was impressed with their attention to detail by giving me diabetic jam at breakfast.

Even more amazingly, although I did not call the airline on the other end to arrange for the special meal on my return journey, when I got on the plane several weeks later, my ‘extra-special’ meal was served up! Unfortunately, this time round it tasted pretty horrible though and I had to resort to asking for a normal meal or risk prolonged hunger :P. Well, that was a few years ago and I don’t know what the current level of service is like now. If one had a serious food intolerance problem, I wouldn’t completely rely any kind of externally-prepared food anyway because you just can’t be sure.

And one thing I like to check out on planes is the disposable plastic cutlery ^_^, which has become prevalent after 9/11. So far, I’ve collected two types of sturdy plastic cutlery that are more like baby utensils than fragile disposable picnic ware. Why the fetish for plastic cutlery? It’s light and small-sized, so great for bento (^.^)v!

Contents:
1) Japanese short-grain brown rice (genmai), topped with toasted pine nuts.

2) Miso pumpkin dish, which I’ve described here. Leftover from lunch, so all the fish cooked together with the pumpkin had already been eaten up.

3) Chicken and French beans stir-fried with salt and garlic. I packed the chicken and beans separately here, with the chicken in the middle and the green veg on the right side.

4) Plain omelette, rolled and sliced.

5) Fruit: guava in brown silicone baking cup, pear in orange cup. I didn’t really need to use the silicone cups as the box has built-in sections but I accidentally split garlic from the stir-fry into the small sections and I didn’t want my fruit to taste oily and salty :P.

This was a successful bento in various ways. I managed to include items in five colours (goshiki, one of the principles of traditional Japanese cuisine and bento, read more here), maintain a reasonable balance of yin/yang and it was tasty too.

There appears to be much less rice here than the proportions recommended in bento books: four parts rice, two parts protein side dish, one part vegetable side dish no. 1, one part vegetable side dish no. 2 [4:2:1:1], or as Just Bento explains, “4 parts rice to 2 parts protein to 1 part other ingredients”. However, I’m not a huge rice eater, mostly because I usually eat brown rice which is more chewy and filling than white rice. Also, one eats more rice when the dishes are very salty, spicy or have heavy gravy, but this is virtually never the case with my barebones, food-intolerance-friendly meals. I put in this bento the amount I usually eat in one meal, about three-quarters of a one-bowl sized microwavable plastic container from Daiso which is specifically meant for rice (it has an uneven surface in the bottom so that the cooked rice won’t stick).

Recently, I commented on using a box of the appropriate size. This E-Z Lock box from Lock & Lock has very handy divisions but is actually too big for a single meal for me. The large compartment is 610ml, which should contain my entire meal, including the fruit (I actually ended up the fruit much later, after I got home).

The two smaller compartments (145ml & 200ml) are good for packing other foods for a snack before or after the main meal, which is something that I often need to do as well. With the separate, water-tight compartments of this box, you don’t end up with the problem, which I described here, of the “Part 2″ food rolling and spilling inside a half-empty container.

This dedicated lunchbox is also practical because it’s shallow. This allows the food to be packed tightly, right up to the lid, so that it’s held in place whilst being carted around. In this case, the food still wasn’t packed tightly enough to be held in place so I put an anti-bacterial plastic sheet between the food and the lid – more to hold the stuff in place than because I feared it would go bad :)!

Many of my Lock & Lock boxes, even though they have the appropriate volume, are too deep for the foods to be nicely laid out side by side. The solution for rice bento is to use the rice as a base and layer the side dishes on top, in the manner that Frank Tastes has done here. Deep boxes are also useful for thick sandwiches, or packing them sliced in half with the attractive cross-section face-up, like this bento, also from Frank Tastes.

Contents:
1) Thai Hom-Mali brown rice (which I’ve commented on here), shaped with heart and star shaped rice moulds from Daiso. Topped with the garlic, sliced leek and juices from the pork stir-fry
2) Pork stir-fry with garlic, sliced leeks and salt. In red silicone baking cup.
3) Tamagoyaki with chopped spring onions, fried sliced shallots and salt. Unlike conventional tamagoyaki, there’s no soya sauce, mirin or sugar used here.
4) Cauliflower stir-fried with sliced carrots and salt. In green silicone baking cup, also used extra cauliflower florets to plug in the gaps in the box.

On bento box size

Lunch in a Box and Just Bento have detailed guidelines on how to choose bento boxes of the appropriate size. In my experience, the recommended sizes are actually fairly accurate in terms of how much I can eat at one meal.

The bento here is in a 870ml square Lock & Lock box which I’ve often carried (as you can see here). From experience, I’ve discovered that when tightly packed, it’s way too much food for me. This one was a dinner bento I brought to a friend’s house party and there was more than enough for dinner plus a midnight snack when the conversation carried on till late.

To have one bento box worth of food to last two sittings isn’t a good idea because the food needs to be tightly-packed to stop it rolling around inside the box. After eating up half or most of the food, the remainder inevitably becomes an unappetising mess by the ’second sitting’. Much better to pack two smaller boxes: one about 600ml for the main meal, and another 250ml-300ml box for the extra snack.

This was one of my “Lunch Part 2″ bentos. These come about when for some reason I can’t finish my lunch at home (usually running late :P) and I pack the rest of it in the reverse of a takeaway “doggy bag”. It’s quite an experience to pack and arrange bento at the same time as eating at the dining table and with one eye on the clock @.@!

The box

Two-tiered box from Daiso. A bit small for a full meal, but just right for “Part 2″ meals :). I finished it all about two hours after “Part 1″ and it was most satisfying.

The rice

I wrote earlier about the very unbrown-like Thai Hom Mali brown rice, which you can see here on the left. It doesn’t seem filling at all and I had gobbled up so much that there wasn’t enough for the bento, so I added in regular, white Thai jasmine rice (which the rest of my family eats) on the right hand side. Put next to each other, the white rice is clearly er, whiter, and is also more sticky.

Main dish: miso fish & pumpkin

This is what the dish really looks like, before I picked out a couple of pieces to go into the bento (top left hand corner). Full credit for this dish goes to my family’s Indonesian domestic helper who has been as inspired by my collection of Japanese bento books as I have :) – which also goes to show that you don’t need to be able to read the language to get a lot out of cookbooks with great photography!

Slice the fish (probably a grouper or snapper variety used here) and pumpkin, coat lightly in cornflour and shallow fry. Drain on paper towels while preparing the sauce. Fry thinly-sliced leeks until cooked, adding enough water to make a gravy. When the leeks are about done, stir in half a teaspoon of miso. If desired, thicken the gravy with cornflour.

Right now, I happen to have a organic wheat+soya bean miso, which is also extremely salty, so this tiny amount is enough to season the dish, impart a subtle miso taste as well as give it this rich orangey-brown colour.

In general, on the odd occasion when I do add sauces of any kind (particularly fermented ones such as miso and soya sauce), I use as small an amount as possible to minimise the chance of food intolerance reactions, and if necessary, I won’t consume the same foodstuffs two days in a row.

1) Stir-fry of sprouted soya beans, carrot and garlic, seasoned with salt.

2) Slice of pineapple & mugicha agar-agar.

]]> http://mainmainmasakmasak.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/rice-bento-miso-fish-pumpkin/feed/ 0 niceties bento fishpumpkin miso fish pumpkin http://mainmainmasakmasak.wordpress.com/2007/12/11/lock-lock-for-xmas/ http://mainmainmasakmasak.wordpress.com/2007/12/11/lock-lock-for-xmas/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2007 05:09:11 +0000 niceties http://mainmainmasakmasak.wordpress.com/2007/12/11/lock-lock-for-xmas/ ]]>

If you’re popping down to the post office to send off your Xmas greeting cards, Singpost is selling these Lock & Lock gift sets from its Festival Gift Catalogue.