Photo : Sailor Moon cosplay

Cosplay is a contraction of the words « costume » and « playing ». It is a japanese subculture. It consists in disguising theirselves, in a very rigorous way, in order to look like their favorite characters. Contrary to the japanese kawaii look, mens are also touch by this trend.

Those people do not buy their costume. Cosplayers make their costumes, wigs and make up by theirselves. They want to be as similar as possible to the character they are attending to reproduce.

 They don’t only reproduce the physical appearence of their heros. Cosplay also imitate their behaviours and gestures. They even sometimes do imaginary fights.

The nicest cosplay ever made isn’t Japanese. But it deserve to be seen. It is a cosplay of Iron Man. The demo is impressive :

Salmon is always nice : in salad, hot, cold, or with pasta. There’s many ways to cook it.

With pasta, it is easy to make a very good dish in a short time.

For this bento, you’ll need:

- a piece of salmon
- pasta (capelini’s cooking time is only 3 minutes)
- chives fresh or dry
- 2 Tbsp yogurt
- 2 Tbsp sour cream
- a carott
- 2 rond radishes
- cucumber
- green salad
- lemon
- pepper and salt

Start by heat some water for the pasta. At the same time, cut the salmon in slices.

Mix yogurt, cream, some chives, pepper and salt in a bowl.

Start cooking the salmon in a pan with a bit of olive oil.

Cook the pasta.

Add the cream and yogurt mix to the salmon before it is completely cooked.

Add a bit of oil to the pasta when they are cooked so that they’re not sticky.

Serve them with the salmon on top. Press a bit of lemon juice on top of it.

For the salad you only have to use a mandolin slicer. Cut very thin slices of cucumber, radishes and carrot.

The "red dot design award" label appeared a few weeks ago on our home page. But we never told you about what it represents. We won this award in 2012. Let’s have a few words about it.

Red dot is a jury of specialists. They award the best design innovations of the year. The "red dot design award" is made for businesses that want to distinguish themselves by the design of their product.

This award totally corresponds to our goals: designing bento boxes with an intuitive daily use. Its use also corresponds to today’s world needs and respects a modern esthetic.

Created in 1955, it is globally known in the world of design. The "red dot design award" garantees the quality and originality of  the product that won it. We are proud to associate it with monbento Original.

This week in Japan, it’s Golden Week!

It corresponds to a continuation of holidays during whom activities are slowed down. Grocery stores are open but a lot of businesses close during 7 to 10 days.

Golden Week group the following holidays together :

-       may the 3th : constitution day ;

-       may the 4th : nature day ;

-       may the 5th : kids day.

It is often grouped with the previous or next week-end in order to last 4 or 5 days. Bad luck ! This year may the 4th and may the 5th happen during a week-end, it will be shorter than usually.

Showa Day, the japanese national day (april the 29th) is often associated with Golden Week. It corresponds to the commemoration of the emperor Showa’s birthday. This day is also off.

A good advice would be to tell you not to visit Japan during those days. Public transportations are crowed, the hotels prices are increased, when they’re not full. Activities in cities are slowed down.

I first though about making a mixed salad for lunch.

But destiny made me do something else.

I cooked potatoes, green beans and eggs in the same pan. But I finally decided to make the following meal: green beans salad and mashed potatoes with sour cream and chives (this would have been the salad dressing).

For two persons :

-       2 big potatoes

-       2 eggs

-       2 handful of green beans

-       ¼ Granny Smith apple thinly sliced

-       1 handful of pine kernel

-       3 handful of Emmental cutted in cubes

-       1 small olive oil tuna

-       sour cream

-       chives

Peel and cut the potatoes in cubes. Cook them in boiling water until they are getting soft.

In another pan, put the eggs in fresh water. Boil the water and add the green beans for 10 minutes.

When the potatoes are ready, mash them. Add sour cream, chives, pepper and salt as you like it. Put it in a disposable box in your bento box.

In the other part of your bento box, put the green beans cutted in two. Cut the eggs, Emmental and the apple. Add all of this to the green beans with the pine kernel and tuna.

I made a simple balsamic + olive oil + mustard dressing.

Bon appetit!

Sushi robot ? Maki robot ? The purpose is to use a robot to make sushi and maki!

I was having a look on several cooking and bento blogs when I saw articles about this new japanese invention!

There’s two different kinds of robots : one for sushi and one for maki.

The sushi robot make 1000 sticky rice balls per hour. Slices of fish has to be put on them by hand.

The maki robot needs the human hand to put the nori sea weed on it, the sticky rice and the fish. It only rolls the maki. Then it has to be cut by hand. This robot needs 5 secondes to roll a maki.

No worries about those machines, they have been created for industrial sushi and maki. They’re going to take the place of sushi masters in restaurant!

Source : Bento Blog

Some people think Friday the 13th is a day of bad luck. Others prefer thinking the opposite.

Even if the tittle of this article is kind of attractive, the following recipe won’t protect you from bad luck.

I putted in monbento: a wild rice, wheat and lentils mix, carrots and garden peas and a mix of goat cheese, fresh mint and 2 slices of parma ham.

I found the wild rice, wheat and lentils mix in an organic grocery store. I guess it is not hard to do it by yourself. Coral lentils, rice and wheat need the same cooking time. This mix is tasty and healthy.

For the carrots and garden peas, you can use frozen garden peas. They don’t need a long cooking time and have a nice green color. If you cut the carrots in slices, you can cook both at the same time.

The last dish is easy to make: a piece of goat cheese, 3 mint leaves and 2 slices of parma ham. You just need to cut thin strips of each ingredient. This mix is fresh and nice.

I personally think that Friday the 13th is a day of luck. It is better for beeing in good spirits.

photo : http://francepixel.fr

These days, flowers are celebrated in Japan. During spring, Japanese people celebrate the blossoming trees.

Apricot, peach and cherry trees blossom in spring. The cherry tree, also called Sakura is a tree full of meaning for Japanese people.

Sakura have always been considered as a symbol of short-lived beauty. It is also associated with samourais, it reflects the idea that life is beautiful and short just like cherry blossoms.

The Sakura blooming used to announce the rice-planting season. Japanese people believed that gods lived in the cherry trees and where leaving offering on their bottoms. People used to share those offering while driking some Sake.

The beauté of a blooming cherry tree is celebrated during Hanami. It is happening during theses days. During this holiday, Japanese people meet up under cherry trees between families or friends. They spend some time together, share a pic-nic to enjoy the short-lived beauty of cherry blossoms.

When talking about Easter, it is hard not to say it originally  was a catholic holiday that marks the end of the Lent and the resurrection of Christ. You’re problably not discovering anything with this.

A lot of countries celebrate Easter with eating chocolate eggs. But where does this tradition comes from?

Those eggs have not always been made of chocolate. The tradition of offering eggs exists since the ancient times. Romans used to offer eggs to divinities as hapiness and gratitude vows. Egyptians used to wrote vows in colors on it.

During the 6th century, the Church prohibited to eat eggs during the Lent. All of the eggs were kept, decorated and eaten for Easter. The tradition remains today with chocolate eggs !

« Fukkatsu-sai! »

If you don’t know how to fold fine pastrysheets, here is a simple tutorial.

Start by preparing the filling:

Samosas need to be cooked approximately 1 minute. It is necessary, when you want to use fruits, to cook them before folding the samosa. It needs to have the consistency you want it to have in your finished samosa.

You can cook the apple in a pan on baking paper. Cut the apples in small pieces. Put the pieces in a pan on baking paper with some honey. Cover it to keep the steam and cook the apples. They are ready when they are getting soft.

For the bananas, just choose mature ones. Slice them and had chocolate shavings.

The samosa folding:

Cut your fine pastrysheets in 4 strips of the same width.

1. Put ½ Tsp. Of garnishing at the end of the fine pastrysheet.

2. Fold one of the lower corners to the opposite side.

3. Fold the lower corner to the opposite side.

4. Repeat again until the end of the fine pastrysheet. Let the end of the strip under the samosa, it is the side you’re going to cook in first.

It is also super easy to cook :

30 secondes on each side with of butter or oil. Just made sure that they are slightly brown.

It’s your turn!