Bento&co | The Bento Shop - Bento&Co contest : the top 20 finalists
Bento&Co contest : the top 20 finalists
The top 20 finalists of the Bento&Co contest are finally here !
It was really hard to choose only 20 out of 220 entries. We know that some of you will be very disappointed but this selection is supposed to be the most representative and best bento we have received from differents countries.
Two ways to vote :
You can vote via Facebook, you first need to “Like” the Bento&Co page and then go to the “Vote ! Bento&Co Contest 2011” section on the left side.
If you are not on Facebook, you can send your vote by email at contest2011@bentoandco.com.
You have 5 days to vote, until Friday July 15, 6pm (Kyoto’s time).
To read the contest rules, click here.
Checkout the 20 best entries :
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This bento is for the man I love =) He currently works in Paris, it doesn’t really have time to cook so when he comes home... a bento prepared with love is waiting for him in the fridge ! As for starter : Japanese omelette sushi (egg, soy sauce, mirin, sake) with nori and chive. Main dish : “Lap”, a traditional laotian meal (beef, lemon, nuoc mam, root, coriander, onion, rice and mint) with rice and sesame. Desert : melon and watermelon with grenada, porto and lime.
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21 - Ritsuko - France
My bento is dedicated to my husband for his lunch at work. I cook for him everyday so he can be healthy and happy each time he opens the box ! I usually cook something that can be eaten either hot or cold and that reminds me what my mother used to cook when I was in high school. The ingredients are : rice with white sesame, minced sour plum for the first tier. The second box consists in : beef, beans and carrot rolls, spinach omelette, veal with hot sauce and onion, eggplant sauteed, and summer vegetables.
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This “maya” bento is some colors for your heart. Even if you’re far from me, I cooked this bento for you, my little sister Sonia, who love mexican food. Maya bento is “Pollo Chipotle (chiken with mexican smoked chilli), rice, red beans, guacamole and ricotta.
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188 - Marie - France
This bento is for my good japanese friend Mizuki. She’s the one who made me discovered Japan and this represents her wedding which took place in Kyoto, in Fushimi Inari, last april.
Just one month before, the big quake, tsunami and the Fukushima disaster really affect her and her family. I was supposed to be there because I had to stay one month in Japan for my work, but this trip had been canceled. I made this bento to be “transported” to Kyoto, and to think about all Japanese people who had been hit by this disaster.
Also, my friend Mizuki is half japanese half Chilean so I wanted to use products from South America. This bento consists in red quinoa with tomato, grilled red pepper for the Torii, and I tried to cook a typical chilean dish : the Charquican, which is a beef stew with vegetables (red pepper, potato, onion and corn). The two characters are decorated with nori and egg-white for the bride. You can also see wakame and radish for the sakura cherry tree.
This bento is for the man I love, who is also my favorite bear. Today, he’s visiting his new school where he will have to take care of cute little bear (2 to 3 years old) next year. To cheer him on, this bento consists in a cute flock of polenta bears, red pepper hearts, carrot flowers, fresh goat cheese balls with chive or black sesame or poppy seed. The desert simply consists in peach dice and raspberry from the garden.
This bento is dedicated to my girlfriend. After 5 years of common life full of happiness and complicity, I wanted to propose her in an original way (she hates conformism). Your contest was a great opportunity !
This bento is composed with fresh and organic food. Flowers consist in rice and beetroot, concumber and carrot. The second box consists in prawns quenelle, pickle, tofu snack and radish. For desert : strawberry and peach-apricot jelly and water and watermelon salad.
I’m not quite a good cooker but I definitely put some love in that bento.
Well, of course, my girlfriend answered yes !
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138 - Siti - Indonésie
This bento was created for my son’s 3rd birthday, Garis ‘Degar’ Marvel Ernesta. Its contents consist of rice, egg sheet, sushi, tempeh, cheese, fried shrimp, sweet and sour chicken, broccoli, and stramberry.
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182 - Eleonore - France
He’s here for me and doesn’t wait for recognition... my father and his legendary bangs ! I’m pleased to dedicate my bento to my father, and here is a picture of him... As every Laotian, he cannot have lunch without rice, meat or fresh chilli which he loves to crunch like little pickles. I imagine him, during his long golf game, eating his bento. It includes a thin omelettes sliced thinly, steamed broccoli, mozarella tempura, rice ball decorated with golf club, carrot and caramelized beef slices. You can also see in the back dragon fruit with kiwi mango dices and lime.
This bento is dedicated to my boyfriend who always has a big appetite when he come home after work. As for starter, veggie maki with red and white cabbage, carrote and cucumber. The main dish consists in chicken/bacon dices in a white Monbazillac sauce, with a broccoli and potato purée and rice. Strawberry and melon for desert !
This bento is dedicated to my husband who works on wednesday evening. Sometimes, due to traffic jam, he doesn’t have time to have dinner. In that case, I prepare a nice bento so he can bring it at work. This bento consists in : rice, minced beef, satay chicken, chicken balls and pork omelette. As for vegetables : green peas, flat beans, carrot, red pepper, tomato and cucomber) with sesame leaves. And cherry and green tea macaron for desert.
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174 - Chikako - France
This bento is for my picky French husband who needs meet, loves fruits and has a weakness for sweets. So the bento address all that and I take advantage to sneak in some vegetables, which is not his favorite, for his diet. He brings this kind of bento to the office for lunch from time to time, so now his colleagues are jealous and also request bentos…
menu: Tonkatsu, sausage & piment sauté, bacon wrapped French beans & sweet potato, boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes & snow peas / rice ball with Kitty shaped seaweed / fruits salad / chocolate cookies
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195 - Sheri - USA
I created this bento for my 8 year old son to take with him to his summer program. He has a full day of enrichment lessons and sports activities with his friends, so I like to make sure he has a fresh and nutritious bento to tide him through the day. Since it has been quite warm this summer, I thought it would be refreshing and appropriate to make a somen salad bento. I placed cold somen noodles inside a green lettuce lining, and topped with julienned egg, ham, orange and purple carrots, lettuce, fresh summer corn straight off the cob, and a heart-shaped red radish in the center to remind him I love him. The top tier holds the container with somen dressing, as well as some of the best fruit of summer: strawberries, cherries, lychee, blackberries and sliced peaches. It’s a balanced bento with lots of color appeal; I think he’ll love it!
5 - Jenny - Sweden
My bento is for my mother so she got something to cheer her up at her else pretty boring factory job. It is soya/garlic marinated chicken on iceberg lettuce with tomatoes and a namasu inspirated sallad. Lower section is rice cooked with onions decorated with « gras » made of cucumber skin, raidish tulips and mushrooms along with small carrot flowers.
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49 - Bernard - France
This is the first bento I cooked and it was with my daughter’s box ! She’s usually the one who cook bento, but this contest was the opportunity to switch plays ! In the upper tier, you can see fried rice (with a small heart made with nori), mushrooms and shoyu, carrot and lamb’s lettuce. You can read ‘Wo Ai Ni” which mean ‘I Love You’ in chinese (my daughter is learning Chinese).
In the lower tier : a slice of bread with a heart of strawberry jam heart. A chocolate fondant and apricot, peach and “fromage blanc”. My daugther loved it !
I love making 3 bentos every morning for my husband, my daughter and myself. This bento I am presenting today is for my daughter. She will be going to College from August and she probably will miss my bento and I will also miss making her bento… but we are enjoying our company and bento everyday until she is packing and leaving home for her new life at college. She is going to a University to study industrial robots and the school has an exchange program with Kyoto University and she is dreaming of Kyoto. So I have to WIN to check out Kyoto for her! I used all the ingredients she likes, specially Ebi Tempura and Makisushi. Thank you!
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60 - Carine - France
This contest’s them was the ideal occasion to ask him to marry me. I proposed him during today’s picnic. This picture has been taken just before. It consists in :
- a tomato-mozzarella salad (with herbs from our balcony and olive oil)
- sushi (tuna, salmon and omelette), and special trouts egg maki.
- Eggplant and zucchini tempura
- rice with sesame
- Melon and watermelon with two green tea cookies.
As a matter of interest, I was supposed to write ‘do you want to marry me’ with a chocolate pen on a bigger piece of shortcrust pastry, but my beloved husband-to-be had eaten it for breakfast... I had to cope, and find an other solution... Not to mention that he strove to read my little message ! But he did say yes !
This bento is for my boyfriend. He loves my Japanese cooking, so when he comes home late, he can enjoy a great and healthy bento. It consists in salmon maki, Gyoza (porc, leaks and cabbage), grilled mushrooms, californian maki, salmon egg maki with a flower of marinated ginger and wasabi.
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129 - Kyung - USA
This 2-tiered bento is for my 4-year-old son for his preschool lunch. The bottom tier contains three smiley faces of vegetable omelet rice (vegetable fried rice inside) and mini fish cutlets on the bed of corn and carrot. The upper tier is for dessert: home-made dango w/ natural food colors on the left, and golden kiwi and jello on the right.
This bento is dedicated to my beloved little sister, Melanie. She’s almost 27 and she’s pregnant. She is the most important people in my life. She loves cats (she has two), kawaii stuff, pink of course, but she doesn’t like fish or vegetables ! I tried to cook something she could like and play with the cat and her favorite color. So this bento consists in :
- chicken filet stuffed with italian ham and mozzarella, flat beans, hard-boiled egg, rice and black sesame. Cats are made of goat cheese and smoked bacon.
- “Fromage blanc” with rose sugar crystals, ice strawberry yogourt heart, gooseberry, grasberry, nectarine and citrus fruit brioche. There also are pine nut and chocolate balls.
I dedicate my bento to my brother. Although we live far awat from each other, I’m sure he would enjoy this summer bento. It will taste as if we spent holidays together. In this bento, you can find teriyaki salmon, young salad leaves with a citrus fruit sauce (lemon, yuzu and sudachi), grilled zucchini and eggplant with Provence herbs, kinbira, gobo and chahan tai rice (curry flavour, coconut milk and coriander).
