The Wonderful Misadventures of an Almost-Hinomaru Bento

I was looking forward to eating this bento lunch today, but I was disappointed with the results. But before I go into that, a brief overview of what was in each tier:

Lower Tier

 Our family had some left over Filipino rice cakes (called puto), so I had the vision of going hinomaru style and making the bottom tier look like the Japanese flag (hinomaru is the name of the Japanese flag). Unfortunately, there were no red putos, so I chose to use purple. Out of blue, yellow, and white, purple was the closest colour to red. I was debating whether or not to add soy sauce to the rice, but I figured naw. I didn't want the soy sauce getting on the puto by accident because that would make it taste...well, gross. It's supposed to be sweet and delicious, not...soy-saucy ew. I don't have any of those mini sauce bottles a lot of bento users seemed to have so yeah, soy sauce was definitely out of the question. 

When I opened my lunch, my friend told me that the purple rice cake looked like a scoop of ice cream in the middle of the rice. I kind of have to agree, to be honest. I don't think it looks very appetizing in the picture, and in real life, I don't think purple-dyed foods look very appetizing in general. But puto is absolutely DELICIOUS! Man, I haven't had these babies since the last time I was in the Philippines back in 2009. In fact, I had completely forgotten all about them until a family friend came over and delivered a bunch. Bless her.

Upper Tier

There are four components in the top tier: One strawberry (maaan I so thought I'd be able to fit more!), a couple grapes inside a green silicone baking cup (not a total fan of the shade, I forget why I chose green, to be honest), hotdog eggrolls (which are freaking delicious. The reason I added the strawberry is because the colours red and yellow...well, they look so good together), and some unknown thing. My sister calls it a stove-topper. ...I asked her why she calls it that, and she said she doesn't know why. Go figure. All I know is that it comes from the oriental party pack from M&M and is freaking GREAT. Like, I wish I had packed more--but we only had one left. Cries. Also, I was running out of space. Anyway, that's why if you read the tags at the bottom of this post, you may notice ??? among the other list of foods from this particular bento lunch. Well, the question marks are supposed to represent the mysterious "stove-topper." 

General Thoughts 

Okay. So as I already mentioned, this meal was not on-par. The fruits were great. The "stove-topper" was awesome. The hotdog eggrolls were on-point. So pretty much everything in the top tier was wonderful. The problem was with the bottom tier. 

The first problem was that the puto got squished. I hadn't dug a deep enough hole in the middle of the rice, so it was sticking out a lot when I put the top tier over it. Fine. Whatever. I can deal with squished rice cake. The problem begins when you try to dig the rice cake out at school and you end up getting bits of purple puto everywhere! Okay, well...not everywhere. The shredded bits were kind of confined to one portion of the box. But more on that in a sec.

I always eat steamed rice with soy sauce. Except, the thing is, I never realized that before. I assumed that I would enjoy plain white rice simply because...well, rice is rice. Rice is life. I've grown up eating it with soy sauce peppered here and there, and I guess I never realized how much of an impact soy sauce has really had on my life. So in short, today I learned that I HATE plain white rice. 

My friend noticed (different friend than the one previously mentioned) my discomfort and she stated that she also hates white rice by itself and made the lovely suggestion that I should mix my hotdog eggrolls in with the rice. I was kind of looking forward to eating the rolls by themselves, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. Anyway, once I combined the two foods, it tasted GREAT. 

But just when I thought that I was safe...my taste buds were greeted by something horrid. Okay, so picture this: Chewing rice, hotdogs wrapped in egg and cheese, everything's going fine. You know the general flavour in your mouth, right? Okay. Good. Now add SWEET RICEY CAKE FLAVOUR. NO. THAT FLAVOUR SHOULD NOT BE THERE. THAT NEEDS TO STAY THE FUCK OUT. YOU CANNOT MIX DESSERT WITH MEAL. NO. 

Okay, I know it might seem like I'm over-reacting but like...I don't know...

 Food is quite essential to my happiness (and overall health and bodily functions). 

Will I be making this bento again? The top tier for sure. But the bottom tier? Not. A. Chance. It would have to be modified. First, I would dig a deeper hole so the rice cake doesn't get squished as much. Then I would buy a little bottle for sauces (and fill it with soy sauce) and pack it with my bento lunch. And finally, if I were to pack this with puto again, I would confine the rice cake to a silicon baking cup so that it will be easier to remove from the rice SO THAT LITTLE PURPLE BITS DON'T GO AROUND IMPREGNATING THE RICE WITH THEIR FLAVOUR, AS IF THEY'RE ATTEMPTING TO BUILD NEW COLONIES OR SOMETHING. Oh, and if circumstances were really ideal, I would use a red rice cake instead of a purple one ^.^