Archive for the 'equipment' Category

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Bento shopping in San Francisco Japantown

It’s been a long time since my last bento gear shopping update, so there’s a lot to cover! Today I cover San Francisco Japantown, with a couple of new stores on the list. Highlights are the new Kinokuniya Stationery & Gift store with a variety of bento gear, the conveniently located (but partially hidden) Daiso dollar store, and the Sanrio store with a new shipment of heatable aluminum bento boxes.

Full store info and shop addresses are at the bento gear shopping guide for the San Francisco Bay Area, and you can also find reader updates at the Bento Store Locator with Google Maps. Photos of shop inventory were taken and used with store permission (click on any of the small photos for a larger version). (Click to read the full post.)

* Daiso (NEW)
* Kinokuniya Stationery & Gifts (1st floor) (NEW)
* Kinokuniya Stationery & Gift (2nd floor)
* Daikoku by Shiki
* Ichiban Kan
* Moritaya
* Nijiya Market
* Sanko
* Sanrio (NEW)
* Soko Hardware

(Warning: Photo-heavy post ahead!) Read the rest of this entry »

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Published by Biggie on March 11th, 2010 tagged SF Bay Area local, equipment, shopping | 39 Comments »

Bulgogi & spam musubi bento lunches

May I just say that kindergarten bentos have been kicking my butt this year? Bug’s new school starts super-early, and I’m NOT a morning person. Most mornings I’m thankful for every time-saving trick I can find, and I’m guilty of not taking many pictures as we rush out the door.

It’s been getting a little better lately, though. We’re hosting a homestay language teacher for a month, which has prompted me to get on top of our crazy morning routine (and declutter the house!).

Contents of kindergartener lunch: Shrimp & chive har gow dumpling, sauteed mushrooms, bulgogi (Korean grilled marinated beef), steamed broccoli with vinaigrette, and cheese cubes.

Morning prep time: 13 minutes, using a leftover dumpling and bulgogi from an earlier meal. In the morning I briefly steamed the broccoli and re-steamed the dumpling (to re-soften the dough wrapper) in my microwave mini steamer, then sauteed the pre-cut mushrooms. (I got a bag of cut mushrooms as sample at a food event, but I usually cut my own mushrooms with a knife or hard-boiled egg slicer.) I let the mushrooms and broccoli drain and cool in a sieve set over a bowl for a few minutes to prevent condensation inside the box once it was closed up (which also improves the food safety of a packed lunch). Read the rest of this entry »

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Published by Biggie on March 1st, 2010 tagged bento, dumplings or buns, equipment, meat, onigiri or sushi, poultry | 24 Comments »

Giveaway winner & Sacramento Bee article

We’ve got a winner in the Kids Konserve metal lunch kit giveaway (see my full review), and some additional giveaways around the bento community. If you didn’t win this one, the company is giving away another of their metal lunch kits for Earth Day on April 22nd, 2009. Comment on their blog post for a chance to win.

Congratulations go to reader Cyntilla in Italy (comment #278), who would pack a double-layer ham & cheese sandwich with crispy lettuce and corn salad, a fruit salad (strawberries, apple and kiwi) in one container, some meat and veg stir-fry in the other, and mint white tea in the drink bottle. Cyntilla, I’ll be in touch to get your shipping address for Kids Konserve to send your kit.

In other news, I was in a Sacramento Bee feature article the other week about bento lunches (”Bring Your Own Lunch“), and filmed a seven-minute video about making speed bentos (it’s on the online article). We filmed it in their kitchen studio in Sacramento, which took almost four hours plus drive time — we were so hungry by the end that Gina, the cameraman and I devoured everything I made right after the shoot. Still, it was the first time I’d done non-live video for bento stuff, which was a really interesting experience. Thanks, guys! Lunch in a Box was also featured on iVillage.com’s parenting site, in a slideshow called “The Rules of Bento”.

Other Bento Giveaways: (taken from the bento contest announcement section of the Lunch in a Box Forum)

Two Ichiban Kan bento kits from Mission: Vegan (deadline April 22, 2009, open to all)
Ichiban Kan bento starter kit from Maisie Eats Bento (deadline April 5, 2009, open only to people with blogs)

FURTHER READING:

How to care for your lunch gear and other bento supplies
Lunch in a Box Forum: Bento community contests and giveaways (publicize your own giveaway here)
All giveaway posts on Lunch in a Box
Bento FAQ and Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and reviews

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Published by Biggie on April 3rd, 2009 tagged equipment, giveaway | 14 Comments »

Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: California Hanami

On Saturday we hosted a hanami, the Japanese tradition of a picnic under cherry trees when they’re in bloom. Sakura cherry trees blossom only during a brief time during the spring and the pink petals soon fall from the trees, so there’s an urgency to enjoying that ephemeral moment when they’re at their peak. In Japan, you’ll find all kinds of people crowding onto blankets under cherry trees even on busy sidewalks, sprawling out with bento meals, and beer or sake. For our California Hanami, we invited friends to our favorite hanami location in San Francisco, a small clearing of cherry trees in Golden Gate Park across from the Buffalo Paddock. The only thing that was missing were drunk Japanese salarymen in suits trying out their English!

Foodbuzz sponsored the food as a part of their monthly 24, 24, 24 food blogging event, so we were able to put together the most elaborate hanami picnic I’ve had to date, instead of store-bought bentos or quickly slapped-together sandwiches. I always used to envy the well organized people at hanami who were able to cook meat or chicken on little portable grills — if you were lucky they might strike up a conversation with you and offer you a bite of their tasty food. I decided that this was the year that we would have the great-smelling grilled feast.

Food: We had a variety of marinated meats to grill: chicken thighs, marinated beef short ribs (kalbi), skewered bulgogi beef, and spicy pork sliced thin and skewered. Vegetables like enoki mushrooms and bell pepper strips went on the grill, while salad vegetables like cucumbers, baby carrots and celery were easy to dip in ranch dressing. Rice balls are good finger food, so I made a variety with different fillings: grilled salmon, umeboshi sour plum, Gohan Desu Yo! seaweed paste, kimchi, and plain furikake. Seasoned noodles, sliced ripe strawberries, tiny tangerines, beer and a big bottle of Onigoroshi sake rounded out our little feast. (Read on for food details and reviews of the different picnic containers.) Read the rest of this entry »

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Published by Biggie on March 30th, 2009 tagged Containers, bento, equipment, for kids, meat, onigiri or sushi, review, rice | 22 Comments »

Giveaway: Kids Konserve metal lunch kit

Like the look of a stylish metal lunch set but don’t want to plunk down the cash? Kids Konserve has kindly offered to give away a lunch kit and metal condiment container that I reviewed in full here. The winner of this international giveaway can choose between their classic green set, or one of the cute butterfly- or caterpillar-themed lunch sets.

Bonus: If you don’t win the giveaway and want to order something on your own, they’ve also given Lunch in a Box readers a special 10% discount off items purchased from their website through September 30, 2009 (coupon code is lunchbox). (Read on for information on how to enter the giveaway, and other March bento community giveaways.) Read the rest of this entry »

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