Oh, bento!

1. My Bento Diet: #125 New Camera from My Bento Diet
2. Bento 30 from Maky's Kitchen
3. Roasted pepper and tomato soup bento lunch for preschooler from Biggie*
4. Bento #73 - Ole' faithful Nutella! from kookyculinary

There is no other way to put it. I shall simply blurt it out: I Dislike cooking.
Yes, that's a capital D ;). I like baking though :). I love sweet things, can't you tell? :D

I am however, a fan of bento. A Big Fan :D.
Admittedly, I have bentos only in Japanese restaurants, but homemade bentos are even more awesome :).

So what is bento? Bento is essentially a take-out box for one. While we can draw the origins of bento from the Japanese, it has transformed into something so multi-cultural now. Take the Nutella and dim sum bentos as examples. If I were to prepare a bento right now, it would have butter chicken, roti and stir-fried cabbage as the mains; and blueberry muffin for dessert. All arranged in a cute way of course :D.

If you're planning a bento meal, there is plenty of inspiration to draw from the web. Check out Bento and HAPPY and FRESH bento.

For cute meals, Kawaii Bento is the place to be, because there are cuties like these:

1. A Dog Bento
2. Winnie the Pooh and Friends Spaghetti Bentos_1

both made by the (awesome) shoppingmum

For bento accessories, I love those in the local brick-and-mortar Daiso store. I'm not quite sure of online stores, but someone else has been so wonderful to put together links for bento lovers :).