Little Miss Bento　シャリーのかわいいキャラベン

Here is the photo update of the series of 3D bento workshop that I taught in Hong Kong over Mother's Day weekend. The bento workshop was held at Whampoa Gourmet Place, Hong Hom in Hong Kong. A BIG thank you to Wonderful Worlds of Whampoa for inviting me to teach and everyone who had attended!

For the workshop, I made the above four demo bento sets/foodart. Two of the designs were taught during the workshop, that included the Ladybug Bento and the Kimono Girl Bento! Which one do you like?

Pardon for the simple side dishes, the sample bento sets were made in the hotel room with much limited food items than my usual bento but we made it a point to include vegetables for the children! :)

More fun photos from the event via the slide show below :)

This is a closer look of the other two bento set and foodart I made :)

I hope I can be back in Hong Kong soon again to meet everyone! Thank you again~

Ooooo and I was also so super thrilled to find AEON Japanese supermarket just next door! The Wonderful Worlds of Whampoa (website) is a super amazing huge mall that stretches over 1.4million square feet. The mall has over 300 shops and theme worlds, including a ship!! Yup you read correctly, they have a ship as part of their mall space!

My workshop was held at Whampoa Gourmet Place, which is one of the theme worlds/mall. Check out how huge the entire Wonderful Worlds of Whampoa is!

I will be sharing more about my shopping experience there and the great finds at AEON, as well as a dining recommendation :)

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I was doing some sketches for my bento design last night and decided to make a Wizard of Oz bento as a new addition to my storybook bento series :) It has been a while since I last made a storybook theme bento!

Well... my inspiration was partly because my hubby was watching the tv series Once Upon A Time where a recent new character in the show was the Evil Witch from Oz.

Today's Wizard of Oz bento featured characters that included Dorothy Gale, Tin Man and Scarecrow (I was too lazy to make Cowardly Lion, plus I think I have more than enough rice packed in the bento already - haha).

I am sure this is one novel story that many are familiar with, especially since it was later adapted into movie film and even broadway shows.

The ingredients for the characters were:
Dorothy Gale (rice, teriyaki sauce, seaweed, aburaage, ham, flower furikake, arare)
*aburaage is Japanese fried tofu pocket, also commonly known as inari as it is used in inarizushi
*arare is a type of fried dough. The one used here are small red color round balls for Dorothy's cheeks.
* furikake is rice seasoning topping. The one used here are small flower shaped ones.
The Tin Man (rice, seaweed, white egg sheet)
Scarecrow (rice, teriyaki sauce, carrot, seaweed, white egg sheet, picnic ham, chicken ham)

The side dishes for this Wizard of Oz Bento were baked chicken thigh, stir-fry vegetables, sauteed tofu squares and brown mushrooms, lettuce, and cucumber.

Today's bento was packed in Black + Blum Sandwich Box from Bento&co.

今日はオズの魔法使いのキャラ弁を作りました。キャラクターはドロシー、かかしとブリキのきこりです。時間あないから、ライオンが作りませんでした。それに、ご飯はもいっぱいです。

キャラクターの部分：
ドロシー　（飯、照り焼きソース、海苔、あられ、ハム、ふりかけ、油揚げ）
かかし　（飯、照り焼きソース、海苔、白い薄焼き卵、にんじん、ハム）
ブリキのきこり　（飯、海苔、白い薄焼き卵）

キャラ弁のおかず：焼き鶏もも肉、野菜の炒め、豆腐とキノコのソテー、レタス、キュウリ。

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The third edition of Gourmet Japan is back again this year, taking place from 28 April to 31 May 2014!!

Super awesome!! (Sorry for the late shout out on this)

What is Gourmet Japan 2014? It is a month-long festival that offers the sophisticated diner with new gourmet experiences. Gourmet Japan 2014 brings together renowned restaurants and dining establishments across the island to showcase a myriad of gourmet activities which includes dinners, soirees and tastings.

While most of the highly sought after special events under Gourmet Japan are sold out, do take the chance to enjoy the treats and discounts at their partnering dining establishments during this special period.

As the presenting partner of Gourmet Japan, JCB International Ltd is offering its card members 20% off all event ticket prices, 15% off Taste Japan dining offers and 20% off Mixology Japan cocktail offers.

I remembered eagerly signing up for UOB's JCB card the moment it reached Singapore's shores :P haha time to use my card!

The dining establishments under JCB's Taste Japan dining offer include:
- Arashi Yakiniku
- b@rochester
- Dulce & Studio
- Ebisu Tei
- Fat Cow
- Kensai Kitchen
- ME@OUE
- Nirai Kanai
- San Sui Sumiyaki & Bar
- Sun with Moon
- Tonkotsu Kazan

Visit Gourmet Japan 2014 website & Facebook page for more information.

Many of my friends or blog readers will often ask me what they can do in Japan to experience local life, to discover special interests and places.

Most people either have difficulties sourcing for what they want or are worried about language barriers. Well.. it is also true and not uncommon that many activities cater to the local market and are conducted in Japanese.

This is why I am really thrilled to have discovered TripleLights (website) - a travel service based in Japan that provides licensed private/group tours for foreigners who are coming to Japan in foreign languages (majority of their tours are held in English). I hope this will be useful information when you are planning your vacation to Japan and would like to book tours!

What I like about TripleLights is that their tours are customised to personal interests and locations, plus they are really very affordable!

You can filter the tours by cities, or search by keywords via the search bar.

For instance, if you type 'food', it will recommend many related tours including Fushimi sake tasting, Nishiki food street tour, Nibbling through Tokyo and many more.

I can't wait to try out the tours when I go Japan later this year! So super excited!!!~~~~ I will definitely give you another follow up blog post on the tour after I experienced it first-hand!

One of TripleLights tours that many of you would likely be very keen could be the Nibbling Through Tokyo.

This is a 8 hours tour where all you foodies will love and enjoy!

USD 252.50 seems steep? But this is actually the cost of a group tour of up to 4 pax, so it means that if you have travel companions, it will only be about $63 per pax for a 8 hours tour!

I personally also agree that one fun part of travelling is getting to try new & different local food of the country. On this tour, you will get to experience and enjoy what dining and good food means to Japanese. Gain in depth knowledge from professionals about Japanese food and drinks, e.g. sake and matcha.

Check out the photos below and read more here:
https://triplelights.com/japan/tokyo/tour/51/nibbling-through-tokyo

After going through their website and speaking to the company, I am really excited to try out TripleLights tours. Why? Here are my reasons:

1. Affordability- Frankly I personally have been to other tours in Japan and comparatively the fees set by TripleLights are really reasonable. Plus some of the tour fees are for group bookings of up to XX no of pax as indicated, so if you have travel companions, the cost can be shared!

2. Licensed guides- By Japanese law, only people who have a license are allowed to work as a tour guide & an interpreter. However, some people who don't have enough knowledge or/and language skill are still working as a tour guides. You do not need to worry as Triplelights only engages licensed tour guides, so their skills are creditable :)

3. Convenient Meeting Location - Most of the tour guides will arrange to meet you meet (and end) at accessible locations. E.g. at train stations. Some even meet you at your hotel if your hotel location is in the vicinity.

4. Customizable tours- People can contact the guides directly through the website. This means people can have certain flexibility in arranging their tours, like extend hours, add destinations, add people, etc.

- To request for customisation of the tour, click on customise itinerary (see red button). A pop-up dialogue box will then appear that allows you to connect directly with the guides.

*****************************************
TripleLights
Visit their website at https://triplelights.com/
Visit their blog at https://triplelights.com/blog
Visit their facebook at https://www.facebook.com/traveliencejpn
*****************************************

Blog post disclaimer: This is not an advertorial post and no monetary compensation was received. All views expressed are my own.

Presenting to you a French Toast Sandwich Gift Box and Teddy Bear theme for a Thank You Bento!

I really wanted to say a BIG BIG thank you for your support, without all of you I would not have gotten so far.

Yesterday when I saw that my Facebook page reach over 10K likes, I knew that today's bento would have to be extra special as I wanted to dedicated it to all of you for your support, am grateful.

I needed breakfast and decided to make a bread based bento.

I made a gift box, made from toasted sandwich box filled with yummy french toast, blackberries, raspberries, and dusted with icing sugar. Served generously with maple syrup when eating! yummmm

Side dishes for today's bento included steamed corn, lettuce, strawberries, edamame beans, broccoli and croquette.

As as a way to thank you, I included a step-by-step tutorial to make the cute French Toast Sandwich Gift Box

Bento tutorial - French Toast Gift Box

Ingredients
To make french toast gift box
2 thick bread slice (about 3cm)
1 egg
aprox 50ml milk
0.5 tbsp sugar
0.5 tsp snow sugar
3 raspberries
3 blackberries
maple syrup

To make ribbon:
1.5 slices chicken ham
pasta stick (or fried pasta stick)
*The raw pasta stick will soften and be totally edible after a few hours, however, if you are planning to consume the bento pretty soon, use deep fried pasta stick instead. Simply fry the pasta stick with some oil in a fry pan until golden brown.

Method
Preparing the french toast and bread gift box
1. Make one thick toast into a box but cutting and peeling out the square within the bread slice. Bake it in a toaster or oven until nicely toasted and brown.
2. Cut the other thick bread slice into 9 cubes. Removing the bread crust.
3. In a tray/deep plate, whisk and mix the egg, sugar and milk. Coat the 9 bread cubes from step 2 on all four sides. Cook in a fry pan until nicely brown on all sides.

Making the ribbon
4. Cut the chicken ham into 1 oblong shape and 6 strips.
5. Of the 6 strips, cut the ends of 2 strips for the ribbon ends.
6. From step 4, gather the center of the ham to form the ribbon with folds/gathers, place a strip over and use some pasta stick to secure it together.

Final assembly of the french toast gift box
7. Place the french toast inside the toasted bread box, top with fruits and dust with some snow sugar.
8. Place the remaining 4 strips of ham and secure the ribbon parts to complete this french toast gift box. And you are done! :)
9. Enjoy this french toast sandwich gift box with lots of maple syrup!!! yummm

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A Japanese bento for lunch - I love washoku (Japanese cuisine)! Decided to make a non-character bento and instead prepare a traditional style bento.

This is also the first time I used my new transparant clear bento box - pretty awesome right? I bought them in Japan and shipped over just recently. It is actually a 3-tier bento box, I used only 2 layers today.

I really enjoy using this special bento box, so fun!

Today's Japanese bento also allowed me to finish up some of the ingredients in my fridge which was great :) Here are the dishes in today's bento.

Tier 1: Sweet sake prawns, tamagoyaki, sakura soba, lettuce, sakura mochi slice.

*Sake is a Japanese alcoholic made from fermented rice

*Tamagoyaki is japanese rolled egg omelette

Tier 2: Rice, Kabayaki-unagi, tofu, vegetables and chicken nimono, edamame beans.

*Kabayaki-unagi is grilled eel, a Japanese dish

*Nimono is (煮物) is a simmered dish in Japanese cuisine, the stock is usually flavored with sake, soy sauce, mirin and sugar.

今日は和弁当を食べたいですね。それから、和食を作りました。新しい弁当箱を使って、楽しかったんです。このクリアなアクリルの箱は楽天で買ったんです。

内容は：桜のそば、卵焼き、桜もち、焼きえび、レタス、飯、チキンと野菜の煮物、蒲焼鰻、豆腐。

素敵な一日になりますように～

Even the cover of this acrylic bento box is clear! :) Check out this beautiful photo of the bento box, image is copyright of Primitive 陶舎花＊花. I will try to take my own photo of the bento box itself and update the post again :)

I have made numerous Japanese traditional bento before too.

Here are two of which I liked very much too. Heheh I realised that my favourite ones always seem to have a sakura theme~~!

Sakura Soba Bento (blog post)

Sakura Onigiri Bento (blog post)

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My Melody Raspberry Steam Cakes (Japanese mushipan)! A no bake recipe that is easy and super fun to make.

Do you know My Melody? She is a character created by Sanrio, a little girl rabbit that always wears a pink or red hood that also covers her ears.

I love my food cute! :P

Decided to take a rest from bento making today and made these Japanese steam cakes this morning!

今日はマイメロディの蒸しパンを作りました。今度新しいレシピを試しました。得意になった、レシピは投稿します。今回はブラックココアパウダーをつかないので、木炭粉を使いました。そして、ラズベリーピューレを生地に入れたんです。

Doing some recipe testing this time round so I did not include the tutorial this time. I didn't think that they are perfect yet, so once I refine and do some adjustments to the recipe, I hope to make and post again.

My steam cake recipes so far use Morinaga hotcake mix, the texture of the cooked steam cake resembles our local Ma Lai Gao (as in Malay cake).

Here is showing how the cake texture looks like when cooked.

I do hope to work on a non-hotcake mix recipe and if it is successful I will share more with you :)

What I did differently today, is to use charcoal powder in replacement of dark cocoa powder. I would recommend the latter, however as dark cocoa powder is not available in Singapore, so I wanted to see if there could be a replacement for it.

So, in today's My Melody steam cakes, the dough for the eyes and mouth features had charcoal powder added to it.

I also used freshly blended raspberry puree for the pink dough!

This is a photo of the cakes before going into the steamer.

For the hotcake mix recipe steam cake, please refer to my earlier Kiiroitori Steam Cake recipe here.

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Another 20 days to World Cup 2014! Which country are you rooting for? I will be cheering for Japan! :)

Decided to make a World Cup Soccer Bento today! The Man in my house is a huge soccer fan, and so is my Dad :P This soccer theme bento would be perfect for them~~~haha. Perhaps this could be a bento idea for you to make for your sons, husband or even for Father's Day coming up?

２０日間の後、ワールドカップがはじまります！何の国が好きですか？私は日本のファンです～～～頑張って日本～

父と夫はサッカーが大好きですから、このキャラ弁は昼ごはんのため良いでしょう～

For the character portions, I made the sausages men from 2 different types of mini sausages. The red sausages and small brown ones. This was actually inspired by several of my bento friends on Oh Bento Labo group, especially 白山さん . Heheh I loved how they turned out, their expressions tickled me. Unfortunately, one cannot buy these red sausages here in Singapore, I actually brought them all the way back from Japan.

The soccer 'grass field' is made from french beans soboro, on top on the main carbohydrate dish -fried rice in the bento.

The side dishes for today's bento included sauteed salmon with baby corn in teriyaki sauce, tofu and mushroom stir-fry, carrot strips, broccoli and raspberries.

人々のキャラクターはウインナーです。アイディアはOhBentoLabo!の友達から貰いました。ありがとうございます。

キャラ弁のおかずは：照り焼き鮭とコーン、豆腐ときのこの炒め、ニンジン、ブロッコリー、ラズベリー。

This World Cup Soccer Bento was packed in my white 2-tier Monbento Original Bento Box fromBento&co.

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A special Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma Bento for Mother's Day bento workshop.

I was very fortunate and happy to be invited by CROSSCOOP to conduct a bento workshop earlier this month. What is so unique was that while this was a Mother's Day Bento Workshop, it was attended by many fathers who were there with their children, learning and making bento for the mothers. How very sweet and meaningful!

シンガポールの日系レンタルオフィスのクロスコープで、「キャラ弁」料理教室を教えました。一緒に可愛いキャラ弁を作りましょう〜〜

在留日本人の父子が、母の日を目前に、お母さんにプレゼントするため、キャラ弁を手作りしていました。

CROSSCOOP is a well-established brand of Incubation Oﬃce in Japan that has now expanded itspresence into 6 Asian cities including Singapore. CROSSCOOP offers fully-furnished oﬃce space of various sizes and ﬂexible lease terms catering to diﬀerent business needs. Reception, waiting area and meeting rooms are also available.

They aim to provide their clients total business support from a ONE STOP platform via a premium Japanese quality service.

CROSSCOOP

80 Robinson Road #10-01A

Singapore 068898

Tel: +65 6420 6370

Email: sta-crcsg@crosscoop.com

Website: http://www.crosscoop.biz/en/offices/singapore/

Everyone did so well during the workshop!! The parents with their children were so focused and worked hard to create many beautiful and kawaii bento. The children even wrote lovely cards for their mothers too. Thank you very much for attending this workshop.

ご参加いただきました皆様ありがとうございました。

More importantly, is to say a BIG thank you to all the sponsors and partners for making this event possible through their generous support.

I was able to create all the delicious bento dishes with their yummy products! I really liked many of the products and will blog about them more in details soon!

Special thanks to:

■Ito En
One of most renowned beverage manufacturer in Japan. Famously known for their authentic tea’s product, delectable
vegetable juice and coffee.
http://www.itoen.com/

■Ebara foods industry, Inc.
In Japan, when it comes to BBQ sauce, Ebara is the champion.
Their savory seasoning products makes meal more delectable and enjoyable.
http://www.ebarafoods.com/english/

■Tamanoi Vinegar
Their vinegar products are world-widely used by many Sushi and Japanese restaurant. Tracking back to over 100 years ago since its establishment, Tamanoi is veteran in vinegar producing industry.
http://www.tamanoi.co.jp/english/index.htm

■Daito Seito
Specialist in sugar manufacturing, their refined products acclaimed various awards in Japan.
http://daitoseito.net/

■Japan Local Government Alliance Singapore Office

Takeo city and 7 other cities in Japan collaborate together as a representative office in CROSSCOOP. Proud with their hometown products (e.g. food, sundry goods, travel items), they would love other countries to enjoy their wonderful merchandises.

This event was also featured by Yahoo! headlines and NNA Asia! Thank you :)

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Kerropi and Piggy Bento :)

This is a Kerropi and Piggy Bento Workshop that I conducted last Saturday for a private group. Decided to post this instead as I am scheduling today's bento lunch for next week. Another workshop post, hope I would not bore you :P

I hope you like it. Can you tell how Kerropi is colored green? hehheh It is actually using Japanese edamame beans!

The side dishes were baked teriyaki chicken drumstick, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, kamaboko and strawberries.

Here is another closer look at the bento:

Once again, the participants were fabulous. Check out their cute creations below.

I love how they played with the different expressions for Kerropi. Which one do you like?

Here are more photos of the class, thank you everyone for coming!

The last two photos were courtesy of Valencia, one of the participant who attended the workshop. She was also the one that got her friends together to come for my class - thank you!

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An Aeroplane Girl Bento! Are you travelling anywhere this summer?

I thought this bento design will be timely since I will be travelling for about 11 days. Going to New Zealand! I have some scheduled blog postings coming along, so please continue to come by my blog :)

One most exciting adventure that awaits me during this trip is my plans to do sky diving! woo hoo! Can't wait to tick that off my bucket list :P I am also so looking forward to the farmers market, beautiful scenery as well as a chocolate workshop that I will be attending!

今日は飛行機のキャラ弁ですよ。

皆さん、こんにちは！私はニュージーランドへ行きます。旅行ですね。すみません、休みですから、キャラ弁ができません。でも、以前に作ったキャラ弁と料理を投稿しようとおもっています。

The ingredients for the girl character and aeroplane included:
Girl (rice, seaweed, teriyaki sauce, arare, usuyaki tamago)
Aeroplane (rice, aburaage, carrots, usuyaki tamago)
*arare is fried dough, this one is shaped as tiny balls. I used the red ones for the girl's cheeks.
*usuyaki tamago is thin egg sheet. I used white (egg white only) and blue (egg white and some blue coloring).
*aburaage is fried Japanese tofu pockets, commonly seen in inari-zushi or inari sushi.

The side dishes for this Aeroplane Girl Bento included otah, stir fry kailan vegetables with mushrooms, lettuce, carrots, egg omelette and edamame beans.

キャラクターの部分：
女の子（飯、海苔、あられ、照り焼きソース、薄焼き卵）
飛行機（飯、油揚げ、にんじん、薄焼き卵）

おかず：野菜炒め、スパイシーなサバかまぼこ、レタス、オムレツ、枝豆、にんじん。

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Thank you Mother & Baby magazine for featuring my bento creations with your readers.

My bentos were featured in the May 2014 issue of SPH's Mother & Baby magazine over a 4 page feature spread. I shared recipes for all of the bento, the recipe tutorial steps, a short feature on myself was also included in the article.

These bento creations were designed such that they would be suitable for both boys and girls, and also with slightly different age group in mind. :)

For copyright reasons, I have made the images from the magazines below unlinked so that they cannot be viewed expanded, apologies.

I hope you like them!

And here is the magazine feature pages!

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Another french toast bento. Today's characters are Kiki and Lala from Little Twin Stars!

You might have seen something similar in my earlier bento creation. I taught this for a Little Twin Stars Bento private group workshop. They saw my bento and requested for a similar design.

This Little Twin Stars characters were made from ham and egg sheet cut-outs on french toast sandwich. We packed some vegetables and fruits to complete the bento.

先週キャラ弁教室を教えました。キャラ弁のキャラクターはキキとララです。生徒さんに頼まれたんですから。

素敵な生徒さんが来て、一緒にお弁当を作りました。楽しかったんです。このキャラ弁はあまり難しくなかったんです。皆さんは上手ですね！

キャラ弁は可愛く出来上がりました。良かったね〜〜ご参加してくださった皆様のお弁当ですヽ(*´∀｀)ノ

This was definitely not the easy bento design, a lot of patience was needed to create the different layers of cut outs from egg sheet and ham for the characters. At one point, the class was so quiet cause everyone was so focused! I think everyone did so well ~~Check out their bento!

Here are some photos of the hard work they went through!　Thank you all for coming!

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About 2 weeks back, I finally found some pockets of some free time and decided to hand make traditional Japanese udon for dinner.

I loved the taste of the homemade udon noodles, they were so chewy and oh so very yummy. In addition, the fun of making the noodles from scratch had totally enhanced the experience!

Udon is Japanese wheat noodles. The ingredients used are actually simple - wheat flour, salt and water. Udon can be eaten cold and dipped with sauce, or served in hot broth. Very yummy!

I knead the udon dough through the traditional method of stepping on the dough (yes using my feet, hahah please don't worry, strict hygience was practised!).

This traditional method enables the making of chewy and delicious homemade Japanese udon noodles!

I hope you will enjoy this recipe. It is adapted from Cookpad recipe 2573775

Recipe for Homemade Japanese Udon Noodles

Ingredients (serves 2 pax)
wheat flour 200g
water 100ml
salt 6g

Method
1. Add salt to the water. Mix well to dissolve the salt.
2. Add the salted water to the wheat flour in 2-3 parts, using a pair of chopsticks to mix. Then use your hands to knead so that it comes together to form a ball of dough.

3. This comes the fun part!! Place the dough from step 2 in a plastic bag, then place the plastic bag in a large ziplock bag but do not seal the bag! I used jumbo size ziplock bag.

4. For added hygience, please wash your feet (or you can wear socks).

5. Place the dough which is now in the ziplock bag sandwich between a large tea towel (or clean rug). Now using your body weight, step on the dough. I use mainly my midfoot and heel area.

6. The dough will spread, so you will need to stop at some point (don't burst the bag!). Take the dough out, fold it back into a ball. Then repeat the stepping process.

7. I knead on the udon dough by stepping for about 15mins. I think probably stopping to fold the dough about 8 times (I kind of lost count after a while since I was watching tv - HAHA).

8. The dough will become very stretchy and soft~~

9. After completing the kneading by stepping. Fold the dough one more time. Place it back in the bag and leave it at room temperature for 2-3 hours. This allows the dough to proof.

10. Once you are ready to make the noodles, remove the dough from the bag. Spread your worktop with corn flour. Roll out the dough to form a thin layer.

11. Dust some corn flour on top and stack the dough.

12. Using a sharp kitchen knife, cut the dough into strips to form the udon noodles. Once again, dust the cut noodles with corn flour, using your hands to tidy the noodles and spread those layers out, if they stick.

13. In a large pot of boiling water, cook the noodles for about 6mins.

14. Drain the noodles from the pot, immediately rinse the noodles under running tap with cool water.

15. Serve with hot broth. In my case, I made dashi soup for my udon noodles, served with aburaage (tofu pockets), aosa seaweed and soft boiled egg.

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I made this Panda and Bunny bento for a bento demo workshop demonstration for Lee Kum Kee. We ended up changing the design as we wanted to highlight the use of their new ketchup sauce. But I thought of sharing all the bento with you anyway. Hope you like them all ;)

I used teriyaki sauce to color the ears and hands of Panda brown color, I like how that gives the overall 'softer' look to the Panda. Doesn't the Panda look a little more demure? heheh.

The bunny sandwich were made with parents in mind. I know of many parents who want to make something cute but are in a rush of time - This would be an easy bento to make :) Remove the bread crust. Roll the bread slices with your favourite sandwich filling. Add ham slices for the ears and seaweed for the facial features.

The last bento I wanted to share with you is a simple tomato ketchup sauce bear character bento. Lee Kum Kee has recently launched a new tomato ketchup sauce where the bottle tip is designed to allow one to squeeze out the tomato sauce and create ketchup 'drawings'!

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Father's Day Bento! Check out the mug of beer and necktie! :) A more 'manly' bento lunch~~ heh.

To mark the start of the week, I am happy to share with you this latest bento tutorial.

This time, it will be for the making of the Father's Day theme bento - in particular, I will introduce to you how to make a mug of beer from Japanese rolled omelette (tamagoyaki)!.

Maybe this is considered a much healthy choice :P as compared to actual beer! heheh.

As I am still travelling in New Zealand, I scheduled this recipe tutorial to time it slightly earlier before Father's Day.

I hope you like the idea and simple recipe tutorial to make the 'beer' mug!

Oh yes, if you are curious, the necktie was made from carrot slices. And the shirt collar was made from thin egg sheet (egg white only).

Bento Tutorial - Beer Mug for Father's Day Bento

Ingredients
2 large eggs
1 tsp japanese white soy sauce
15ml dashi stock
1 tsp mirin
1/4 tsp corn starch
1tsp sugar (optional)
1tsp water

Method
1. Separate one egg into yolk and white.
2. Sieve the egg white mixture. Dissolve the corn starch in water and add to the sieved egg white mixture, mix well.
3. To the remaining yolk from step 1, add in the other egg, and the seasoning that includes white soy sauce, dashi stock, mirin, sugar. Whisk lightly.
4. Lightly oil the tamagoyaki pan and cook about half the egg mixture from step 3 (making about 2 rolled layers)
5. Pour the egg mixture from step 3 on one side, and the egg white mixture from step 2 on the other end. Cook the egg and roll to form the 3rd layer.
6. Repeat and cook another yellow and white layer. Roll up the egg omelette roll.
7. Cut the top section of the egg, leaving about 1-1.5cm of white. Halve the cut out piece, remove the center yello egg core of the cut piece, leaving only the white half loop-like egg white. This is for the handle of the 'beer' mug.
8. And you are done. Pack it into the bento!

This Father's Day Bento was packed in my white 2-tier Monbento Original Bento Box from Bento&co.

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Rilakkuma is enjoying a cup of iced drink under the sun!!

This was a bento design I taught quite sometime back but did not have the chance to share it yet.
I hope you will like this fun bento!

I love the little drink made from sausages and the sunglasses that Rilakkuma is wearing, the latter was made from seaweed and thing egg sheet.

The side dishes for this bento included prawn croquettes, french beans, lettuce, tamagoyaki egg and strawberries.

Here are some photos from the workshop. Check out how everyone were so focused in making their bento - big thumbs up!

Here are the creations that the workshop participants made - good right :)

This is the birthday girl taking photo with her completed Rilakkuma bento!

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I must say that one's taste buds really does change with age. I remembered the days when I was student and was not a fan of cinnamon. Now that I am older, I do occasionally enjoy it in breads and sometimes dusted on a hot drink.

Today I wanted to share with you my butter roll recipe made with a variation - yes, with cinnamon sugar added and shaped into cute snail buns. I have yet to try out an authentic cinnamon roll recipe but if you have good ones, do share with me :)

Below is the recipe and some pictures of the steps. I focus more to show you how I made the snails, you can refer to the butter roll recipe pictures here.

Here is a close up look of the bun. I drizzled on some lemon glaze on top of the buns. Oh my, the lemon zest and tangy taste really jazzed up my taste buds when I ate the buns! yummmmmm~~

Homemade Snail Butter Roll with Cinnamon

Ingredients
butter bread dough after 1st rise (recipe)
cinnamon powder 2tsp
8 pcs mini dark chocolate chip
sugar 4 tsp
lemon glaze

Method
1. After making the butter bread dough and its first rise completed, divide the dough into 3/4 and 1/4, shape it into 2 balls. Cover with damp cloth and wait for 2nd rise (about 10mins)
2. Roll out the large bread dough into a thin layer, spread the cinnamon powder mixed with sugar. Roll it up tightly (like making sushi). Divide the roll into 8 parts.

3. To the remain smaller ball of dough from step 1, divide into 8 parts. Shape into longish tube like shape, assemble under the cut rolls from step 2.
4. Cover with damp cloth for 3rd rise.
5. Add in the chocolate chip for the eyes, use a chopstick to stick the chocolate chip deeper into the dough. this is to prevent it from popping out later when the bread cooks as it will rise while baking.
6. Coat the top of the bread with some egg wash.
7. Bake at 180C for about 14~15mins or until nicely browned.
8. Remove and set aside to cool slightly. Drizzle on lemon glaze.

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A final scheduled post before I get back to bento-ing! I will be back from New Zealand soon so here is a bento I made sometime back.

A fun and cute noodle bento lunch meal! This Teddy Bear Noodle Bento was easy to make and very fun. The ingredients you need include some noodles, vegetables, mini sausages etc.

The side dishes were baked salmon fillet, sauteed asparagus, hard boiled egg cooked just right with the yolk slightly under and so yummy!, some sweet peas, strawberries and lettuce.

For the noodles, I cooked some pink and white udon noodles. I added some leaf-shape pasta pieces. The green 'leaves' are actually sweet peas sliced up into small pieces. I also added some flower furikake.

The ingredients for sausage teddy bear included: 2 mini sausages, cheese slice and seaweed. The cheese was used for the base of the nose, while the seaweed was used for the eyes and nose.

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Moo~Moo~ Cow Bento!

I just returned from a holiday trip at New Zealand. We visited the North Island only as we did not have time to travel south, but we took part in many fun adventure activities and road-trip to enjoy the scenery.

The one animal that I kept seeing in New Zealand was cow! Heheh there were just so so many of them, of different species and colors. Plus many sheeps too (but I will leave this for another post).

No wonder New Zealand milk is so famous :D Below is one of my favorite photo snapshot of a pair of cows grazing on some grass near the roadside, both of them looked straight at the camera when we stop to take photos - totally hilarous.

今日は牛さんのキャラ弁を作りました。ニュージーランドの旅行でたくさんの牛を見ました。写真を取ったら、牛さんはカメラのレンズが見られた、面白いですね～ハハ

I could not resist but to make a cow bento today! Definitely inspired by my holiday trip.

Today’s bento was packed in my Oyaku Kingyo (black color) from Bento & Co. They still have the red box available, super cute box!

I kept the meal size smaller today as I wanted to cut back on my diet for the time being after almost 2 weeks of large kiwi meals :P. This bento box was a perfect size.

The cow character was made from Japanese rice, seaweed, pink and white kamaboko. The rice forms the body and head, the seaweed was for the facial features and patches and kamaboko is for the cheeks and tail.

I also made a mini milk box :) did you spot it?

The cow character was placed on a bed of stir fry minced pork and some lettuce leaves. At the side, I packed some sautéed French beans, carrots, mushrooms.

Check out more cow photos from New Zealand. Heheh.

キャラクターの部分
牛さん（飯、海苔、かまぼこ）
牛乳　（はんぺん、海苔、ストロー）

牛さんおにぎりの下は焼き挽き肉とレタスです。おかずはサヤマメとにんじんのソテー、きのこです。

Hope you like this fun Cow Bento today :) Moo~Moo~~

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Mothers Day Bento - 3D Bento Workshop in Hong Kong

Wizard of Oz Bento　オズの魔法使いのキャラ弁

Gourmet Japan 2014

TripleLights - Experiential Travel and Customised English Tours in Japan

A Thank You Bento - French Toast Sandwich Gift Box

Bento tutorial - French Toast Gift Box

Japanese Bento　和弁当・和食

My Melody Japanese Steam Cake (Mushi-pan)　マイメロディの蒸しパン

World Cup Soccer Bento　ワールドカップ・サッカーのキャラ弁

CROSSCOOP Bento Workshop Event　クロスコープ「キャラ弁」料理教室

Kerropi and Piggy Bento Workshop　けろっぴとぶたさんのキャラ弁・キャラ弁教室

Girl and Aeroplane Bento　飛行機のキャラ弁

Mother & Baby Magazine Feature

Little Twin Stars Bento Workshop　キャラ弁教室・キキとララのキャラ弁

Homemade Japanese Udon Noodles　手作りうどんレシピ

Recipe for Homemade Japanese Udon Noodles

Panda Bento, Bunny Bento & Bear Bento

Father's Day Bento Tutorial　父の日のキャラ弁・作り方

Bento Tutorial - Beer Mug for Father's Day Bento

Birthday Party Rilakkuma Bento Workshop　キャラ弁教室・リラックマのキャラ弁

Recipe for Snail Butter Roll with Cinnamon

Homemade Snail Butter Roll with Cinnamon

Teddy Bear Noodle Bento

Cow Bento　牛さんのキャラ弁