Customer Reviews

Easy Japanese Cooking: Bento Love

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Japanese cuisine, while not as ubiquitous as Chinese restaurant fare, is nonetheless highly prized by those with a gourmet taste for Asian dishes. What is especially appreciated with Kentaro Kobayashi's "Easy Japanese Cooking: Bento Love" is that this collection of elegant entrees take as its inspiration traditional Japanese box lunches called 'bento', and includes the author's childhood favorites such as Salt-Grilled Chicken Steak Bento; Spicy Sweet Beef and Shiitake Stir-fry Bento; and Crispy Dumpling Bento. But this gourmet quality Japanese alternative to ordinary American hamburgers and hot dogs does not stop there, but includes such selections as Fish and Chips Bento; Cheeseburger Bento; and Veggie-Filled Meatballs Bento. Profusely and beautifully illustrated in full color throughout, "Easy Japanese Cooking: Bento Love" is a unique and highly recommended addition to personal, professional, family, and community library Ethnic Cookbook collections.

Really like this book! Recipes tried so far are good both hot (for dinner) and cold (for bento boxes). Only down-side is amounts seem for single serving, which is good for a bachelor, but not for a family. Fortunately, multiplying recipes isn't too hard.

Kentaro Kobayashi is a well known TV cooking personality in Japan, and has published many cookbooks there. This is a translation of one of his books. His speciality is easy home cooking that even a guy can tackle, and this book reflects that. Portions are generous, and the bentos are practical - attractive sure, but not pretty. Never mind though, the recipes I have tried so far are really good! A great book for Japanese cooking enthusiasts and bento lovers.

I came home from Japan with this book waiting for me. I have tried several recipes, both as dinners for my family of 6 (ages 7-93) and for lunches for the school kids and working adults. Every dish has been easy and turned out like the picture! 5 stars from every member of the family. I hope the next cook books by this Author are as good. We are hooked on these fresh, well balanced meals. I have purchased two books as gifts for friends.

I had originally borrowed a copy of this book from the local library, but then enjoyed it so much that I decided to locate and purchase a copy for my very own. The author provides many tasty recipes, along with accompanying photos of the arrangement & presentation of the food in a bento box. The recipes are appealing to both adults & kids, and as such, these meals are wonderful to take to work or to school. The writing style is intelligent, fun & relaxed. Explanations of useful techniques and suggested combinations of foods to prepare a bento box meal are included. This is a beautiful, enjoyable and useful little cookbook!

This book was a good purchase; it is clearly organized, contains good advice, easy for Americans to learn about Japanese cooking, bento and how to prepare small amounts of food for a lunch. Many are designed for a those who love large portions of meat, as many Americans do - which is great for my husband who I make bento for everyday. Also the side dishes are super easy and useful, I think I use that section the most. I use 4 bento books, most are in English (one Japanese) and I reference them all in creating fun bento for my family. This is definitely a jewel to add to any bento recipe collection.
Highly recommend! =)

This is not a book for how to cook the well known Japanese dishes but how to cook the material you have or can be found easily in the way Japanese people do. You get to learn how to use soy sauce, miso, mirin etc. After that, it leaves the room for your creativity. Everything in this book is for bento, so the type of food is limited to such purpose, that means no soup, no ramen.
Any of the food in the book can be cooked for the dinner and keep it in the fridge for the bento the next day, so it can be a time saver.
This may not be the first choice if you are looking for how to fix dishes use cheese, tomato, chicken broth, meat based western dishes but if you already know all that, this makes a nice change.

[...]
So far I've tried two of the recipes in this book to make bento for my husband and he's reported back that both were very tasty. These two recipes were very simple and easy to make, so I'm quite happy with the book so far. My only criticism is that the book doesn't appear to be marketed the right way. Kentaro Kobayashi has recipes and portions in here that more fit a man's appetite than a woman or a child. I feel it could probably have done a lot better with a different title and a marketing strategy aimed at men looking to save money on lunch while not breaking their backs in the kitchen.

The book has very useful step by step photos of how to cook the food, another thing that I think would help out a single guy looking to make his own meals. The back of the book has a section with a lot of different side dishes that all seem easy to make. I'd recommend this to anyone looking to get started into bento to see if this is something they want to try.

The recipes in this book has been good for a person starting out making their personalised bento lunches. The portion sizes in the recipes I've found to be good for 2 people and that makes it easy for me to prepare for me and my partner.
The only thing I didn't like was that there weren't many vegetable side dishes, but the author DOES mention that he'd designed the book around the foods HE likes, which is fine if you're carnivorous and like the token vegetable in your lunchbox.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and it's an easy read too.

Really great pictures! Really tasty recipes. The author gives great ideas to someone like me who is new to the Bento lunch concept. My lunches became the envy of the office.