Ume Somen Salad Bento

Ume Somen Salad Bento, originally uploaded by sherimiya ♥.

It's still mighty hot here, but gradually getting cooler. Today's high was only 87F, so pretty nice actually. I had boiled some ume somen yesterday so it was nice and cold today for lunch. It's a pretty pink color and I've never had it before so I was interested to see how it tastes. Straight out of the package it smells sweet to me, kind of like strawberry. Maybe that's just psychological due to the color; I don't know. After cooking, it still had a sweet taste to me -- not salty or sour at all. Anyone else have this experience? Anyway, it does retain its nice pink color after cooking, so that's cool! I lay some inside a lettuce leaf, then added shiitake, julienned cucumbers and carrots, green onions, and sesame seeds. I added some ocean salad in the corner, and in the other corner I slipped in a strawberry bottle filled with somen tsuyu. I finished with a maple cut radish for red color. The top tier contains the rest of the bright color: dapple dandy pluot, red grapes, purple cauliflower and yellow carrot stars. I think I got all the rainbow colors in this one! I hope it serves its purpose and cools down my boy at school tomorrow.