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August 29, 2007

Bento #100!!!!!

After long, tiring, endless, painful hours of planning (2 hours this afternoon) and a quick tossing together in the kitchen tonight (3 1/2 hours) I have finally completed my 100th bento! It's a sealife theme featuring some creatures that I've seen before on the crazy Japanese bento site e-obento.com.


The corners each hold 3 pieces of maki: 1 cucumber, 1 ume, and 1 avocado. Tucked inside the three pieces is a piece of okra. I have no idea what it tastes like, but it looks cute. heh. The ocean water in the middle is made of white rice dyed blue and green to give it a more aqua look. Click this close-up picture to enlarge.


At the bottom I have some furikake "sand" with a crab hotdog on it with cheese/nori eyes. I learned tonight that Redondo Hawaiian Winners, though nice and bright red, do not make for good bento hot dogs. They're very difficult to cut due to the little balls of fat. Plus, finding little balls of fat is gross in itself. I'll stick with turkey hot dogs!

The coral is cut with an exacto knife out of bell peppers. The fishies are carved out of carrots and bell peppers. The starfish is made out of kamaboko (fishcake) and has sesame seed eyes and a nori mouth. The squid in the middle is made from a Redondo hot dog and the head is a thin slice of turkey hot dog.

Since this is an obscene amount of rice, I doubt I will be eating the ocean. The 12 pieces of maki and the two hot dog pieces are more than enough to fill me up for lunch. It sure doesn't feel like I've done 100 bentos!

Many of you know that I'm giving away some bento items in celebration of today's lunch. I wrote everyone's name on a piece of paper and folded them all up and put them into a little lacquer bento box. Baby Girl picked one out and the winner is...

Jennie from the US!

Why Jennie loves bento:

Because I need and want my children to eat healthy well balanced meals. Plus sometimes it is just cool!

Congratulations Jennie! Funnily enough, I shook those little papers around like crazy and yet the person who won was the last person to enter. ^_^ I'll be in touch for address info and what not!

My regular readers may remember that I mentioned a certain okazuya shop a couple weeks ago in Hilo called Y's Lunch Shop. My Aunty K did in fact deliver me some of their awesome fried fish and musubi and it tasted exactly as I remembered it. Having just relived the old taste memories of high school so recently, I was very sad to receive an e-mail informing me that the "Pop" of this little "Mom and Pop" okazuya store had passed away. Frustratingly, I don't remember his first name; I only knew him as "Mr. Miyamoto".

He was a very kind old man, I remember going next door to buy something to eat and sometimes he'd give me a couple extra potatoes. (probably cause he'd seen me scrounging in the car for any little coins to use) I remember sitting on the back steps watching him bring back bags of food from the downtown KTA, wondering how it was possible for him to buy ingredients at the same market we shop at and yet produce such amazing fried chicken, egg, fish, and spam musubi. They'd be there at I swear, 3 or 4 am to start cooking their addictive food. Sometimes at the end of the day when they hadn't sold everything, he'd pack it all up and give it to me or my brother. I had this massive crush on his oldest grandson who I never did get the courage to talk to during the summers he was in Hilo.

I dedicate my 100th bento to Mr. Miyamoto, who smiled a lot and gave to us whenever he could. May Y's Lunch Shop always be there on Keawe Street. Hilo just wouldn't be the same without it.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the 100th Bento! It's so cute!

~amy~ said...

Oh Pikko!!! SO cute! Your squid is particularly impressive but i love your coral! Its just beautiful! Congratulations!!!

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the 100th bento! It was well worth the 3 1/2 hour effort, it's so lovely. *clap clap clap*

Sooz said...

It looks absolutely amazing! Good job :)

Anonymous said...

That's beautiful! Congrats on your 100th bento. Love your site. It's very inspirational. ~kayobe

Yvo Sin said...

Congrats! I'm only up to #29... wow, that is really impressive. It's really pretty! And this is a really sweet dedication.

Katrina Junkin said...

OMG that looks beautiful!!! :) Great job!!

Carla said...

So awesome!!! Congratulations!

Y's is still open??? You're kidding!

Pikko said...

Thanks everyone!!

Carla: Yes, Y's is still open. I've heard from my Aunty that they will continue to be open after this, so that's great news!

Unknown said...

I can't find the link to your online bento shop - can you please let me know what it is so that my friend at work can order some stuff? And I'm totally impressed with #100 - WOW! Have to show it to Uncle Leonard. :)

Unknown said...

I can't find the link to your online bento shop - can you please let me know what it is so that my friend at work can order some stuff? And I'm totally impressed with #100 - WOW! Have to show it to Uncle Leonard. :)

Christine said...

Congratulations Pikko! Awesome!

Unknown said...

Scratch the earlier request (I'm such a dork) - I found the link!

Unknown said...

Hi, I am a new reader! That is the most impressive bento I have ever seen! Amazing effort!

Darqflame said...

Awesome job Pikko, looks great, I don't think I could eat that much either!

Congratulations Jennie on your win
(I am jealous!)

Jessie said...

You are so creative!!!! I love the ocean scene, but where is the dolphin??? you are right though that is a lot of rice!! i think lance would think it was the perfect amount though! haha :)

congratulations on 100!!!!

Pikko said...

Believe me, I wanted to put one in! I just couldn't think of what to use to make him. I also had a turtle in mind, but the bento ended up being so crowded I ran outta room. :(

Nexa said...

Congratulations lady, it's georgeous!

I think if I were going to try to do a dolphin, it would have been a blue-jello dolphin for dessert. Blue jello for a little pond is cute, especially with little fruit fishies and marshmellow fluff waves, hehe (I tried waves made with cool whip, but as you might imagine, it doesn't hold up real well). Sorry I nearly never take pictures lately...I will star doing that part again!

Mer said...

This is a really amazing bento. Worth every minute of work you put into it, I am sure.

Thanks for sharing!