Where the heck to I start?

So, you're so excited about bentos and you've been obsessively checking blogs every day for the past four days, but you still haven't gone out to get a bento box yet?

Welcome to when I discovered bentos.

I discovered the art of bentos when I realized I had a bag of Japanese sticky rice and a crap load of those red azuki beans (pictures shown) from Mitsuwa, a Japanese market from Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, an awesome place to shop for bento gear by the way.

Like any self-respecting college student, I typed sticky rice and azuki red beans into google and a recipe for Osekihan (pretty much sticky rice with red beans) from a site called JustHungry popped up...Hmm....

2 hours and a ton of surfing later, I'm at JustBento, clicking on every box I can and obsessing about when and how I can get my hands on a box.  Bento is one of those things you either love or can never understand.  I loved it and was hooked.

So, where the hell can I get a bento box?  And what...do they have to all come with flowers?  Let's just say I usually don't care what other people think, but I mean everyone has a breaking point.  I'd rather not whip out my 20-dollar Hello Kitty bento box and start picking at small bits of broccoli with chopsticks in a six-hundred person lecture hall.

Enter Ichiban Kan.

REVIEW: As my first store that I've ever seen with bento boxes, I was amazed.   All this for $1.50 a pop?  

One Small Step for Man...

If you've found this site, you probably have been following the likes of Biggie and Maki for months and just got here by accident.  Welcome!

Biggie and Maki's blogs, lunchinabox and Just Hungry/Bento sites, are amazing resources for the always expanding bento-making community.  They are the masters.  I started with them and continue to check their blogs weekly for recipes and tricks of the trade.

But I still decided to create this blog...and I have a somewhat valid reason. 

 I am a 20 year-old male college student.  

This is a strange demographic for bento making.  I'm lazy.  I go shopping one every three weeks or so (no car, only bus pass, and again the theme of lazy).  And, like most people, lazy or not, I don't have a lot of time in the mornings or money any time of day.  So, sounds like most bento sites except for the whole typical lazy college thing.

Well, there's one more thing...the male part.  Bento boxes and bentos in general are generally geared towards the female population.  Little powder blue boxes with wide-eyed kittens, utensils that are suited for 5-year olds, and the worst part, 600-mL portions.  Now, I am all for eating healthy and dieting (I lost 45 lbs with Weight Watchers before coming to college, and may even be a little obsessed with the points system), but come on.  I need more mL-age.  I have eaten out of a 1L box (not packed tightly) and definitely gone for a candy bar afterwards...

So what are my goals?

-Cheap lunches

-Fast lunches

-Big lunches (though try to be healthy...but I am a foodie and enjoy eating way too much)

-More practical, rather than cute (no food picks, dividers, or egg molds here...although I secretly probably enjoy them more than I'd like to admit)

About me...I've only been at this for like a month and a half so although I may not have experience, this may show exactly how to start from scratch.  It's hard to acclimate to experience and I'll share exactly how I started out by posting some of my first bentos, why I picked them, and why they worked/didn't work at all.

Unlike many other bento enthusiasts, I am not that awesome at Japanese.  I started taking it in college, but have ultimately been slacking in the class due to biology classes killing me.  I am a quarter, though it does not really show that much, Japanese so rounded up, I'm white.  If I use any Japanese words, I will try and define it as best as possible, and let you know how the hell I found it in a store.

So ya, feel free to e-mail me at any time.  The only thing I love more that procrastinating, is procrastinating via e-mail.

S0, hope you enjoy.