Jook and Taiyaki Thermal Bento

Jook Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

Today's bento showcases a couple new things I got during New Year festivities, both in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We spent the past 4 day weekend roadtripping to L.A. to visit with family for New Year's and Valentines celebrations, and managed to slip in a bit of shopping too ^_^ !

First, notice the cute froggie thermal bento! I finally got one, since I've seen a few other bloggers use it, and it turned out to be perfect for this jook bento. I put jook (congee/rice porridge) in the thermal part with chopped scallions, and mixed stir-fried veggies in the upper smaller container. This little container has a lid of its own. You set it in the thermal and it sits on top; there's a larger screwtop handled lid which goes on top of it all.

Second, you'll notice his fruit box contains a new item: taiyaki! Along with mandarin, grapes and strawberry there lies a fish pancake, traditionally filled with red bean paste. I got a new taiyaki pan at Marukai in L.A.'s Little Tokyo last weekend, and couldn't wait to try it out! I used a whole wheat multigrain waffle batter and cooked it stovetop on my gas flame. It was pretty easy! I didn't expect it to go that well, so wasn't even prepared with fillings. But I did try chocolate, and that was gooood. I wasn't sure how much I could use without it exploding, but it turns out that the batter doesn't expand that much so I could have used a lot more fillings. I'll try that next time for sure. Oh, I almost forgot, can taiyaki count as pancake for Shrove Tuesday / Pancake Day?

Back to the bento routine after a long, fun weekend off!