All posts by Small Tokyo Kitchen

A Japanese Tokyoite loving food, design, culture and writing

Kindergarten bento – Onigiri!! (11/Jul/17)

12/07/2017

Last night my daughter came up to me while I was washing her bento box in the kitchen, and asked me why I only cook rice or pasta for her bento box and never any onigiri (rice balls). She sounded quite desperate on the verge of bursting into tears. She said one of her best friends’ mummy always pack onigiri for her daghter, but I never do it for her, and she’s very sad, bah bah bah…

I felt a bit trapped with her teary request because I don’t make onigiri always for a good reason; it takes an extra step to make onigiri in the busy morning. I’d rather just pack freshly cooked rice, and get an extra 3-minute-sleep. Wouldn’t anyone?

Nevertheless, I gave in and made onigiri for my daughter out of mother’s love this morning. 

Menu: Onigiri riceballs with nori seaweed, Niku-jaga stewed potatoes & meat, Cherry tomato omelet, Boiled green beans

Banana & Apple for dessert

Kindergarten bento – How to cool a bento in summer (10/Jul/17)

11/07/2017

The annual heat wave has arrived in Tokyo, with the humidity of what it feels like 120%. Under this condition without any fridge at my daughter’s school, I must take ‘cooling’ her bento into consideration. I usually put the bento box in a plastic bag, along with two ice patches from the freezer. You get these ice patches from any grocery stores in Japan, since the heat is just overbearing for fresh ingredients.Some kids have a more effective thermos bento box or a bento bag with ice patch embedded. My solution is rather primitive, but it seems to be working just fine so far.

Menu: Chicken meatballs, Shredded vegetable salad, Boiled green beans, Rice with goma-shio sprinkles

Apple mousse & mashed sweet potato combo with raisins for dessert

Kindergarten bento – Tanabata festival (7/Jul/17)

07/07/2017

Menu: Grilled salmon mixed in rice, Boiled egg, Boiled asparagus, Corns & cucumber salad

Grapes & banana for dessert


Today, 7th July is the day to celebrate Tanabata festival, where traditionally we put up our wish on a piece of rectangle paper and hang it on bamboo branches along with other colourful decorations made with Origami papers. It is the festival to celebrate a once-a-year rendezvous of this married couple, Princess Orihime & Prince Hikoboshi, who were derived from the stars (Vega and Altair) and separated by the Milky Way.

At our daughter’s school, they celebrated it by singing a Tanabata song and eating watermelon, one of the seasonal fruits in summer and very typical for summer festival, after their bento lunch. I totally forgot about it and packed grapes & banana for dessert… Oh well, lucky her to have extra dessert today!

Click here for more details about Tanabata, from Wikipedia.

Here is my daughter’s wish. It reads: I WISH TO BE A PRINCESS AND TRAVEL TO SPACE

Kindergarten bento – Browned egg (6/Jul/17)

06/07/2017

Menu: Chicken soboro & egg crumble donburi, Baba hamu kyuri, Okra mixed with sesame, “katsuobushi” bonito flakes & dashi soy sauce, Cherry tomato 

Red grapes & banana for dessert


This morning, I seemed to have heated up the frying pan too much before pouring beaten egg in it. As soon as the egg landed on the pan, it started to give brownish colour in the bright yellow, and as I mixed the egg with my cooking chopsticks, it crumbled and looked as if I had added some other ingredient in the egg mixture. 


No worries, it tastes the same. Another good reminder to not overheat the pan.

Kindergarten bento – No need (5/Jul/17)

05/07/2017

Not being a morning person, like any other morning I forced myself to wake up this morning by turning my iPhone on and checking the weather. Whether it is good or bad, this always works for me.

Anyway, I prepared my daughter’s bento as usual, even diligently following her wish to enclose a pack of furikake as she saw one of her school friends did the same. 

Menu: Grilled Japanese “mutsu” fish in saikyo miso marinade, Boiled egg, Cucumber/tomato/corn salad, Steamed broccoli and Rice, Banana & Apple mousse for dessert
Furikake on the side
5 minutes before our daily “Ittekimasu (I’m off, bye!)” ritual, I was also packing up my own bag to leave with her, because I had to attend a PTA related meeting followed by some volunteer work at her school. Going over today’s schedule in my head as I packed (of course in a super rush), I thought, ok, after the volunteer work I’ll just pick her up downstairs, because there is no afternoon class today… yep we have a play date arranged at the Midtown park afterwards, so I’ll also need to pack picnic mat… I can buy lunch at a supermarket there… oh, lunch… oh? lunch? Ah, didn’t I just make bento! Oh, all the effort was not called for… it was totally unnecessary! I could’ve slept longer this morning… What an idiot…🤣

Another great start of the day, and a good reminder to always pack the night before.

Kindergarten bento – Happy returns (29/Jun/17) 

29/06/2017

After two weeks of early summer holiday in Holland visiting my husband’s family, we came back to Tokyo a couple of days ago and have been suffering with inevitable jet lag. This morning our daughter went back to school, but still not totally recovered from the fatigue caused by our long journey and time difference. Since she woke up at 5:30am this morning, she continued to be grumpy at every little thing she could possibly find. Also exhausted with sleep deprivation, I had a hard time dealing with her tantrums. Great start of a school morning.

When I was preparing her bento this morning, she peaked over the kitchen counter and said,


“I don’t want salmon rice, I want omame (edamame beans) rice! I don’t like the mashed pumpkin like that, I want it with egg! I don’t like my bento today!”

This complaint never happened before. She was always very happy with whatever I cooked for her. Her comment stung my little heart. I want to blame it for her jet lag, and sincerely hope this behavior will not last going forward. I hadn’t expected it from our 4-year-old, I’m just not prepared for it….    Well, at least until she becomes a teenager. 

For this school term, bento making will continue until her school closes for the summer in mid July. Can’t wait🤣

Kindergarten bento – Busy but inevitable (8/Jun/17)

08/06/2017

The bento preparation needs to be done everyday when the school is open, no matter how busy I am with work. I’ve been working on this subtitling work for a UFO documentary (not my field at all!), and hence very tied up. But it doesn’t really matter as far as my daughter is concerned with her kindergarten program. I just have to somehow work around it. That involves a lot of multi-tasking followed by inevitable sleep deprivation (for me). 

In an auto-pilot mode, I managed to get myself out of bed this morning after a short night of sleep, prepared a bento for my daughter in my pjs, while thinking about the extra-terrestrial activities. Oh I love my life!

Menu: Edamame rice, Tofu omelet, Grilled snapper in Moromi marinade, Stir-fried spinach & potato, Cherry tomato

Apple for dessert