Healthy Living Books Books

Rating: - The real deal!
This is a completely authentic Japanese bento recipe book. It is full of beautifully illustrated and simple recipes for all the classics that make a bento lunch. What a find! Now we can all make bento lunches -- hooray!!!

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Rating: - Fun to read
This book is fun to read and the pictures are delightful. However, for me at least it is far from practical. I don't even know what many of the ingredients are and while I heed the advice of other reviewers to get myself down to an oriental store or shop online, it is not so simple. Take the recipe for octopus tempura on page 54. The ingredients are listed as "half boiled octopus leg, 1 tbs pastry flour, 1 tsp beaten egg, aonori (green seaweed sprinkles) and oil for deep frying". Never mind the anonori. How easily does one get hold of half a boiled octopus leg? Or half an octopus leg to boil? On the rare occasions when I have seen fresh octopus for sale, it has been a whole octopus. What would I do with the other seven and a half legs?

Unless you are already a dedicated oriental cook, used to searching for obscure ingredients and prepared to invest in quite a few new ones, I think you should be aware that this book will have only a few menus you can make with an average store-cupboard.

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Rating: - Useful not just for bento but for as a quick guide to preparing Japanese meals in general
A lovely slim volume that is a refreshing change from the huge hardback tomes that one usually gets from Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay or Rick Stein. Recipes are simple and instructions are brief and to the point. The recipes could easily double up or increase in portions to cook for more. And because the recipes are planned for bento (Japanese packed lunches) which is traditionally done in the morning, it means they are really quick to prepare. Most of the ingredients can be found at a Chinese/Asian supermarket or groceries store, or even your local Waitrose or Sainsbury's. I have tried a number of the recipes and they all taste great. A real gem of a book.

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Rating: - Exactly What it Says
This is probably my fourth Japanese cook book. I was specifically looking for a book on bento lunches, and behold, look what I found! Many of the recipes are similar to ones in my other books, but I have found some are simplified (though JUST as tasty!) and the proportion is perfect for a lunch serving!

I don't agree with marking a book down for a lack of local ingredients. After all, it's not local cooking. You can make your own judgements about certain substitutions (like types of mushrooms) but otherwise, get yourself to a Japanese market (or use an online retailer) to get the harder to find items!

This book has really inspired me to finally get my Japanese cooking into gear. There are useful inset 'instruction' photos at various points and every dish is shown in a good color photograph. Best of all, the lunches have been fantastic!! For the amazing low price and what you get inside, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

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Rating: - Filled to the lid with ideas!
If you've ever even considered doing a proper bento box, you also know how hard it can be to come up with something that looks and tastes proper japanese. And not that there's anything wrong with a bento made with whatever was left over from the day before, but it's always nice to get new ideas and recipes.

One thing that is absoultely BRILLIANT in this book is that it operates with bento-serving-sized dishes. You can multiply the recipes if you ant them for dinner but that's not what thery're meant for.

The reason I don't give it the full 5 stars is that I would have loved a list of possible substitutes for the more exotic things - something that would allow you to keep the general feel of a dish if something simply isn't obtainable in your corner of the world. If you do have access to all the ingredients, this certainly is worthy of 5 stars!