Bento boxes!

[eyesroll]

In addition to many many bottles and bags and packets of various foodstuffs I picked up on my trip to Mitsuwa Market (thanks for the advice, everyone!), I got four bento boxes (two each of two kinds). I figure they'll give me an incentive to pack my lunch rather than buy it at the (blech) law school deli -- even if lunch is last night's spaghetti and salad.

One set is a black, thin double-decker, with a chopstick holder. The top compartment has a partition, and the bottom one has its own tight-fitting lid. It'll fit easily into a backpack and will provide a decent lunch for me (my SO will probably need to add a container of yogurt and a piece of fruit or something -- he's almost twice my size).

The other set is a square, a little bigger than a takeout clamshell, with four square-ish removable dishes. That'll be more suitable for a full lunch for my SO, or a meal plus snack for me (or, if I want, I can put a little bit of instant miso paste in one of the bowls, and add hot water while at school). There aren't any lids for the individual compartments, though, so I'll have to stick to non-sloshy food or use plastic wrap.

What I did not find were little squeezable sauce pouches or bento bands (the big bento does not have a tight-fitting lid; the little one snaps shut). The former will be remedied by me keeping a bottle of soy sauce in my locker, and using Glad Press-n-Seal to make pouches for other sauces. (The tiniest Gladware dishes will work in the big bentos, too.) For the latter, I picked up some of the big, cheap Goody hair elastics. Wrap them twice around the box and the lid stays put.

Whee!

[politicat]

1. I have about 30 of the reusable sauce bottles.

Shaped like ickle fishes. If you want some, PM me your mailing address and I'll shove a few in a padded envelope. I use a glass eyedropper to fill them. The only sauce that doesn't work well in them are really thick ones, like mayo.

My bentos do not do the dishwasher, so if you habitually use a dishwasher, remember to really keep an eye on them. Some of them don't do at all well in the high temps.