Debut of the Laptop Lunch Box

Nick was the lucky one that got to experience the laptop lunch box for the first time. We went out to dinner last night and didn't have any leftovers, but Nick said he would be fine with having a sandwich again. Since he didn't get a new lunch entree, I gave him the chance to use the new lunch box!


He had a turkey/chicken/muenster sandwich again, this time with dijon mustard and mayo on whole wheat. To make it fit I sliced the sandwich into three pieces. He also got a mini cornbread muffin, some brown rice crackers, a string cheese, pound cake bites, a mini apple pastry, and an apple gummy. I also included some edamame with a small container of chili powder salt left over from St. Pat's day, and a small packet of fake KFC honey for the cornbread. After writing that list, I realize this lunch box can hold quite a lot!

It comes with a fork and spoon that fit perfectly inside and this morning I rearranged a few things to accommodate the spoon for the yogurt I decided to include in his lunch.


I just brought a frozen dinner (haven't had one of those for lunch in a while) with two bento containers for lunch. In one I put my leftover mini sandwiches and some sugar snap peas. In the other I had the edamame with a tiny container of chili salt, a mini cornbread muffin, mini apple pastry, pound cake bits, a matcha chocolate, and a laughing cow cheese. Since I didn't have much time for lunch because I was out in the field today I didn't finish that much of my lunch, which is very sad.

I hope we'll have better lunches tomorrow. Wait, Nick had a pretty good lunch...well I wish I have a better lunch tomorrow!

Korean and sandwich bentos

For Monday's lunch we both had leftover Korean BBQ that we made with our friends Winnie and Jerry over the weekend. We made spicy pork, bulgogi, soon dubu (spicy tofu stew), soybean namul, soy sauce-glazed potatoes, and green onion pancake. It was fun! And we got to eat the delicious results. However, for lunch we had smaller portions and no soon dubu.




I packed the banchan in our lock and lock boxes like last time. We had the soybean namul, potatoes, and pancake with dipping sauce. Our side bentos had olive oil crackers, garlic roasted pistachios, mini corn muffins, fudge from the Candy House of Davis, and a babybel cheese and mango jelly for Nick and a laughing cow cheese and matcha chocolate for me.



We both ended up not eating all of our side bentos because of the big portions of meat and rice in our main dishes. So, I ended up repacking some of it for today's lunch. Last night we had pan-fried chicken that yielded no leftovers. This made me decide to go with our second full sandwich bentos. We both had sliced turkey and chicken with muenster cheese on whole wheat with mayo.


We also each had side bentos. Nick's side bento had an apple-shaped peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich, roasted asparagus, and carrots and sugar snap peas with ranch. I repacked his fudge(!), crackers, and mango jelly. I changed his cheese to a laughing cow cheese to see if that would actually persuade him to eat it.


My side bento had three flower shaped mini sandwiches: two cucumber-cream cheese and one nutella. It also has sugar snap peas and carrots with ranch, and the rest of the roasted asparagus. I also included an apple gummy and chocolate cookie in the top part where the chopsticks go (not pictured).


I'm happy to report that Nick finished all of his bento today, so that means he found it enjoyable. Also, his coworker Karina thought it was beautiful. I do think the positive comments he gets there motivates me to make his lunches more aesthetically pleasing than mine. I always work on his bento first when I have the most creative energy. I do think he'll miss it when I won't be here in April (off to visit grad schools) to pack lunches for him. Maybe I will persuade him to post some of his lunches while I'm gone. We'll see!

Fins Market and Grill

We decided to try the new seafood place in town for dinner Sunday night. It's called Fins Market and Grill. The menu looked pretty basic with sandwiches, salads, and main dishes that are compose of grilled seafood, your choice of side, and coleslaw.

We got there at about 7:45pm and there was barely anybody else there. Our waitress said they were preparing to close up so we had about 6 minutes to order. Daviswiki had said they closed at 9pm, but I guess they close earlier on Sundays. We ordered promptly: grilled halibut for me with Maddie's patties, and grilled salmon for Nick with rice pilaf.

We felt bad about coming in as they were closing, but they were pretty nice to us about it. We felt better when a group of 6 people came in after us and they served them as well. Our coleslaw came out first and I was surprised. They presented it to us like a first course salad...except it was sliced green and purple cabbage with an almost-clear dressing. It was interesting to taste the cabbage so clearly with the slight tang of the dressing. It was not like any coleslaw I had had before.


My only complaint is that the salad was served on a medium sized plate, which barely fit on the small two-person table with our entrees and basket of bread. I know that you are supposed to finish your coleslaw first, but I like a bit of vegetable with my entree so I stubbornly kept it balanced on the table with my entree.

Our entrees came out after a bit of a wait, and the first thing we noticed was that they had switched our sides. We decided not to say anything because it wasn't a big deal, just a small disappointment. After snapping photos we just transferred the fish fillets across plates and were happy.

Nick's salmon with my Maddie's patties (I'm guessing they're smashed potatoes with cheese and paprika):


My halibut with Nick's rice pilaf:


The potatoes were good but a bit salty. There was a hint of creaminess but it could have used more. The pilaf was kind of bland, but what can you expect? Maybe they will be more on point if we go earlier in the dinner hour. Both of our fish fillets were cooked perfectly, with some delicious grill marks and seasoning and tender flesh. The sauce they gave us was way better than your average tartar sauce. They could do more presentation on the plate, but this is a seafood joint so as long as that's good, I'm happy.

We'll be back to try other things on the menu. It wasn't a smash out of the park, but it wasn't a complete miss either. I'm keeping my mind open due to the nice service despite the hour and the fact that they just opened two months ago.


Fins Market and Grill
2171 Cowell Blvd #F (next to Common Grounds)
Davis, CA 95616
(530) 750-5000
website

Daily 11am-9pm, Fridays 11am-10pm
Sundays they must be closed at 8pm

New bento equipment

After much debating, I decided to purchase a laptop lunch box. I figure it will be good for bigger lunches when I'm at school, and will fit in the new orange lunch tote I got at Pottery Barn over the weekend. I swear the reusable lunch movement has reached everywhere in the commercial store world. It's now profitable to be green. PB advertised their lunch tote along with resuable drinkware and glass snapware boxes like the Glasslock box that Nick has. I applaud the idea, but I think three glass containers in my lunch tote is awfully heavy.

I found out that the laptop lunchbox not only comes in primary colors like I've seen on blogs and on flickr, but also in all pink, and one with periwinkle inserts. There is even a "whimsical" color scheme. I decided on the periwinkle after much thought. I purchased it from the Conscious Cookery shop on ebay that had it cheaper than the Reusable Bags site and the Obentec site (the maker of the Laptop Lunchbox).

I was happy to receive it in the mail today! This is what it looks like:


I'm excited to use it! The book it comes with has a lot of nutritional information, tips on how to make your lunch healthy for your kids, and recipes for what to put in the box. I hope to post a lunch in it soon...

Bentos FTW! (For the week)

Since I haven't been updating this week, I'll have to recap the whole week in one post. For St. Patrick's Day we were invited to Nick's coworker James's house for corned beef and cabbage. I'd never had corned beef before, so I didn't know what to expect. Nick and I decided to bring edamame. It's not Irish, but it's green and it's a good beer snack. We ended up making spiced edamame with chili powder, salt, and oregano off of the Food Network site, and it turned out pretty well.




I got to meet some people I had heard about, and found out it's a really small world here in Davis. The corned beef and cabbage was delicious with potatoes, and everyone liked the edamame. There was lots of beer consumed (not by me) so I think it was a great way to spend the holiday.

For Tuesday's lunch I had Nick slice up leftover steak from the weekend. I assembled do-it-yourself wraps with mild red chile tortillas, ranch/BBQ sauce, lettuce, sauteed onions, and the sliced beef. Cucumbers and grapes on the side. Nick's also has a babybel cheese.

Mine was in my never-been-used garden bento that I love, but never had the perfect thing to put in it. The top tier has its own cover which was perfect for the beef and onions.


For Wednesday's lunch I went out to eat with coworkers, so I just gave myself a small snack bento with grapes, an apple gummy, and a mango jelly. Nick had leftover teriyaki pork chops and bok choy, and his side bento included cheese-its, grapes, salmon furikake, and a ferrero rocher chocolate. He decided that my putifresh yellow bento was not too girly, so I packed his in htat for some variety from his usual blue bentos.


For Thursday we both had leftovers from Jade Garden (peking spare ribs and string beans). I decided to pack Nick's side bento in the onigiri box to see what his coworkers would say. From what I hear they were fascinated by it, so that's good. Always good to give them some new eye candy! I put in leftover chicken salad, hummus, a babybel cheese, an apple gummy, and these new sturdy cocktail olive oil-flavored cocktail crackers.


I didn't even get around to eating my snack bento the day before, so I packed another tiny one with a cow's head cheese, crackers, and a small matcha chocolate. The cheese was super good with the crackers. It was a pretty good bento week, I'd say.

Chicken salad sandwiches and pound cake

I made up a chicken salad yesterday with the roasted chicken, mayo, creme fraiche, red and green onions, celery, walnuts, and curry powder. We had it on ciabatta for lunch today along with a side bento containing a slice of dauphinoise potatoes, broccoli, green grapes, and pound cake. I was very excited to use my sandwich bento. The bread was not soggy at all, but next time I think I will use sandwich ingredients that aren't quite so wet.


A few weeks back when we got the frozen poundcake, my mind was already excitedly turning out the things I could do with it for bentos. The first thought was cutting them with my mini cutters into cute shapes, so that's what I did. It might seem wasteful, but seeing as Nick and I ate up the remaining edges (and enjoyed them), I don't think it was very wasteful at all. It was fun to pop the pound cake bites in my mouth during lunch.


I decided to put them in my silicone cups for a splash of color and then nested them in the sub container with the grapes. That way Nick and I could remove the sub container before microwaving the potatoes and broccoli. Ingenious if I do say so myself.


If any of you have noticed that I changed the tagline under the title of the blog, I decided to do so because the focus of the blog has changed. While it still will feature restaurants that Nick and I eat at, with the bento lunches it has shifted generally to our experience with food. I would appreciate if any constructive comments were made concerning the change and the new color scheme. Thank you for reading and enabling my bento habit!

Indyna Bistro and Sunday cooking

We've been eating out for dinner the last few meals, and one of the highlights was discovering Indyna Bistro on E street last night. I was craving Indian food from All India Cafe back home in Pasadena, and wondering if Kathmandu Kitchen would hit the spot. See, KK has a lunch buffet that Nick and I love, and which makes it wholly not worthwhile to eat there for dinner. Plus ambiance is nonexistent.

Fortunately, the night before we ate at Zen Toro and spied Indyna Bistro on the second level of the same center. BTW, Zen Toro was as good as ever, even though we had to wait on a busy Friday night. Nick suggested Indyna when I told him about my craving and we checked out the reviews on Daviswiki. They were mainly positive with most of the negative comments about decor or service. Since Nick and I care mainly about the food, we decided to give it a shot.

Stepping inside the modern space I immediately catalogued it in the "nice casual" category of Davis restaurants. Casual enough to wear jeans to, but with an environment much nicer than your average fast food/sandwich place. Thai Bistro falls into this category as well. I liked it. The service was pretty nice, with the host asking us if the table he selected for us was all right.

The menu was pretty standard, except for the curry selection. You first picked what meat you wanted, be it chicken, lamb, or shrimp, and then what sauce or curry you wanted. Nick and I decided to go for the chicken thighs and legs with the tikka masala sauce. My favorite Indian dish has got to be aloo gobi, which is a cauliflower dish. We ordered this as well. Each entree there comes with salad, and your choice of naan, brown rice, or basmati rice. It can also be made into a dinner set, with soup, naan, rice, and a side dish. Nick and I also opted for the garlic basil naan.

I wish I had brought along the camera to show you the dishes we got. The presentation was simple but nice. The portions were small but turned out to be just right with the amount of basmati rice they gave us and the naan. The chicken in the tikka masala were tender, with just a bit of charred flavor, and the cauliflower was nicely spiced and served with peas and potatoes. However, I couldn't really tell the difference between their chicken tikka masala and Kathmandu's chicken makhani. Maybe the sauces are similar?

The only thing that was sort of a miss was the garlic basil naan. The basil was of the dried kind and very sparsely spread on the naan. It also came out to use somewhat cold. Well, not cold really, maybe room temperature...but I like my naan warm. Next time we'll try the aloo paratha and some other sauce for our meat.

Price was around $30 for the two entrees with rice and salad, the naan, and a mango lassi for Nick. The service was great. Everyone there was super nice, and they even apologized for letting my glass of water sit empty for maybe 5 minutes. It wasn't too full in there, and I hope that they last here in the cutthroat world of Davis restaurants.

In other food news, Nick decided to bring out the cookbooks and make steaks in a parsley-mustard sauce and dauphinoise potatoes. I decided to make a chicken salad for lunch tomorrow from the Barefoot Contessa to use our sandwich bento boxes, which involves roasting my own chicken breasts. And since I got the chicken breasts anyway, I threw in a recipe for parmesan-stuffed chicken breasts from our Great Food Fast cookbook to be cooked and frozen for another day when we don't feel like cooking. You'll get to see the chicken salad in tomorrow's bentos.

Here are some photos:

Dinner

Closeup of dauphinoise potatoes

Parmesan-stuffed chicken breasts

Friday Bento

We went out for our biweekly dinner with Winnie and Jerry and had the fabulous spanakotiropizza at Symposium along with their peasant salad, some dolmas, and an eggplant dip and zatsiki.


Since we had some leftovers, I just made small bentos for us to take to work. Plus I admit I was wracking my brain for fillers. I ended up putting some gio and sugar snap peas in for both of us. Nick got some cold roasted purple potatoes and pistachios, while I got cheese-its and a babybel cheese.

In the top part, where the chopsticks usually go, I put a thin flat cookie that I found at Nijiya Market on Sawtelle. I have no idea what couque d'asses is, but they're pretty yummy. I've made a rule for myself, that whenever I find a treat at a Japanese market, I have to buy two packages because who knows when I will see it again. I hope I find these again after I run out because they are addictive. They're way better than the similar Milano cookies from Pepperidge Farms, at least taste-wise. Since I can't read the language on the box I'll just let myself think they are healthier, too.

New bento box

I just realized that I deleted the pictures of the bentos we had yesterday, oops! They weren't too exciting anyway. We just had sugar snap peas, with cheese and crackers for me and four bean salad and apple gummy for Nick.

Anyway, I have been dying to try out my new onigiri bento box that I got at Ichiban Kan, but didn't have the opportunity until today. My coworkers laughed at its shape during lunch, but I think the winking monkey is super cute.


Inside, we have cold roasted purple potatoes (with a ginger-scallion oil) and pistachios. In the top onigiri part, I put a small container of hummus and mini chips. In the lock and lock box for Nick I packed the roasted potatoes, a mini pecan tart, a bigger container of hummus, the mini chips, and an apple gummy.


Oh, and Nick has now been made the official blog photographer. He can somehow make his pictures of the same exact things brighter than mine, and attributes this to camera settings and other things I could care less about. Hopefully we'll be trying out new backgrounds and lighting so that the pictures will look even better.

Bento obsession

So I have been slowly converting people into bento lovers, which is great. I persuaded my sister, some friends, and even some of Nick's coworkers (and their significant others) that bento is cool. I came across this baby blues comic (which I don't really read that often because seriously, I can't relate) and I thought it was cute.

Inarizushi bento

For dinner yesterday I decided to make fried rice with gio, shrimp, carrots, broccoli, peas, red onion, and green onion. It was delicious, but there wasn't nearly enough leftover for both of us for lunch today. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to break out the inarizushi kit that we had picked up at Kukje over the weekend. I got my inspiration from this post at Lunch in a Box. I made rice at night and left it in the cooker so that it was ready to go when I assembled the inari this morning.


For your viewing pleasure we have two pictures. The top tier held the inarizushi (four for me and five for Nick) and four pieces of gio, with some frisee for garnish.

The bottom tier held some sugar snap peas, carrot flowers and sticks, and edamame. I tried threading some edamame on little picks, but it didn't work that well so I stopped after four and just filled a small silicone cup instead. The little skewers, though labor-intensive, were fun to eat. Not pictured is a small container of ranch.


Nick finished all of his lunch and I ate all but one of my inarizushi. Not a bad size for lunch, but I was a little worried when I packed it that it was too small. Nick said he wasn't starving after, but not super full, either.

Monday Korean bentos

Today we actually had bento entrees, side dishes, and desserts. It's what happens when you have free time on your hands Sunday night. This past weekend I did a bit more bento shopping around the bay area. Nick was the chauffeur and partaker of excellent eats that we had while we were there. We ate at Katana-ya Ramen in El Cerrito, and 168 restaurant in the Pacific East Center in Richmond.

I warn you, there will be a lot of pics to follow. Our entrees include medium grain rice, bulgogi, dry sauteed string beans, and crispy duck. The bulgogi we got at Kukje market in Daly City (4.99 a lb) that we cooked ourselves. We also picked up some banchan at the self-service by-weight deli there. The string beans and crispy duck were from 168, which serves Shanghainese and Taiwanese food. The duck was super salty.

Nick's lunch was packed in his Asvel box.


My lunch was packed in my Sanrio box. Same contents as Nick's, but much smaller portion size. I added nori flowers because I thought the rice was too plain-looking.


Our banchan was packed in my new Lock and Lock box that has four sub-containers. I was very excited because these seemed to fit the job perfectly. I got the box at Koreana Plaza Market in Rancho Cordova. Inside we have spinach and bean sprout namul, cucumber kim chi, some marinated seaweed, and shiitake mushroom salad (or something).


At Kukje I also found side dish containers that match our collapsible sandwich bento boxes. So I packed a dessert of sorts in them. Nick's has a mango jelly, a chocolate chip cookie, an apple gummy, and two ferrero rocher chocolates. Mine has the mango jelly, a cookie, and some pistachios.
















Nick finished all of his lunch while I managed to eat most of mine. Success! Also I am trying out a darker background to help save some energy whenever people look at this page. I also tried a different, brighter picture background. What do you think?

Now this is art

A change from my amateur bentos:

Small bentos and Oto's Marketplace bentos

For today's bentos I just gave us one tier each because Nick and I have been having a hard time finishing everything. In our lunches we have spaghetti frittata, sausage patties (sadly we used them all up so you won't see them in bento anytime soon), and broiled veg medley (red and yellow bell peppers, red onion, asparagus, and zucchini). I just took a picture so you can see what it looks like:

I made a small chicken salad with leftover breast meat, red onion, green onion, roasted red bell pepper, and mayo. We both have that and some mini chips to eat with. I have a pecan tart and a matcha chocolate as gap fillers, and Nick has some pistachios and a babybel cheese as his gap fillers.


Since I only have one bento picture to entertain you with, I'll include the bentos we bought at Oto's Marketplace for our trip down to southern CA. I wanted to try these before but they don't sell them on the weekends. My bento had teriyaki chicken, rice, pickled vegetables, and a small container of coleslaw (no mayo). Nick's had the same thing except he got the aji katsu instead of chicken teriyaki. Pardon my sloppy picture. I was trying to take it while in the moving car. Of course, Nick had to show me up with his awesome closeup of his bento. Maybe that just means I'm the smoother driver. =P

Chicken Teriyaki bento

Aji katsu bento

Back from home and getting back into the bento groove

I hadn't done a bento in a while, and it was good because I was starting to feel burned out. After my trip home, I came back with new inspiration and bento gear! I decided to use two of the new boxes for tomorrow's bento. For lunch we both have leftover rotisserie chicken breast meat, rice, and golden-crusted brussel sprouts.

Nick's bento is in a new collapsible sandwich bento. The holes are meant to keep your bread from getting soggy an slightly mushy. I didn't make a sandwich today because we had leftovers, but I used it for the height. This bento has some hummus, pita chips, a babybel cheese, a small container of parmesan for the brussel sprouts, some ginger-scallion sauce for the chicken, a pecan tart from Phoenix desserts from home, and an apple gummy. His snack bento is kind of small because he has a bigger entree and he's recovering from being sick.


My bento is in my new sanrio bento box. I thought it was so cute that I had to have it! It contains the hummus, pita chips, ginger-scallion sauce, a pecan tart, a babybel cheese, an apple gummy, and some pistachios.


Here they are all closed up. Mine has a little compartment for a small fork and spoon!