Customer Reviews

Hawaii's Bento Box Cookbook: Fun Lunches for Kids

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

 

 

This is a beautifully produced book with step-by-step pictures and really cute lunches. The only complaint I have is that most of the critters and characters in the lunches are made of bologna, cheese, hot dog, spam, or kamaboko (a type of fish paste) and are ornamented with seaweed and/or cake decorations. I was hoping these cute figures would be more healthy and/or edible. There are other recipes for Japanese foods but they had more salt and processed foods than I was expecting. I wanted a more American-ized take on bento boxes with fresh food and ingredients that are available in the average American grocery store. If you are looking for Japanese-style food for kids, though, you will love this! I am tempted to keep it as a reference for Play-Doh creations.

If you are looking for easy and fun ideas to decorate the lunch boxes / bento for your kids, this is not a bad book. But if you are really concern about putting artifical stuff in your children's tummy, I'm not sure if you would want to follow the instruction of this book. For instance, you will find something call "color mist" (food color spray) in a lot of the recipes ( which would turn food into color like blue, pink, purple..). I don't know about you, but I certainly won't put these coloring in my girls' tummy. It is so hard to avoid these articial coloring stuff in everyday / off the rack supermarket products already, I am not going to give my daughters an extra dose of these myself.....

Actually I have read in other bento blogs that teach people how to give our food some color using really natural ingredient ( eg like using egg york, beetroot etc), yes it would mean a little less convenivent than "spraying" whatever color you want on your children's food, but I think it is worth the trouble. Afterall, in my opinion, if you are not concern about setting up a healthy eating habit for your kids, you won't even be bothered to make them bento / lunch box anyway, won't you?

I love all things kawaii and the food here certainly falls into that category. I am vegetarian so much of what is in this cookbook would have to be modified for me but you could actually easily use Tofurky cold-cuts to make many of the adorable characters for the bento boxes. This would actually be much healthier too!

I would love to see the author do another book - perhaps one with more vegetarian options?

I think the design of the book is excellent too - more Americans should get into bento!

This cookbook is a fun and creative way to spend quality time with your children or anyone making food that taste great and fun to eat.

Cute recipes and designs. Gave me ideas to use cookie cutters for other foods to make shapes and come up with other ideas. Good looking food too!

This is a great little book - I use it all the time. I especially like the fast and simple recipes in the back. I am in Japan right now, (husband is in the Air Force) so it's very easy for me to get the ingredients and supplies. I think all of the recipes and ideas can be adapted anywhere though... especially if you have an Asian market nearby...and hey; there's always the internet! I'm sure I'll use this book when I get back to the states...enjoy! I hope Susan Yuen writes another one soon...

This cookbook is a great instructional cookbook filled with fun pictures and easy to make recipes that kids will love!