Hinamatusri Bento

Hinamatusri Bento

Hinamatusri Bento
A story about this bento

The idea of (Bento) is something new to Saudi Arabia. I have my own business selling Japanese food and making bento is one of the things I wanted to add to my line of business as a graphic designer and as a fan of beautifully detailed Japanese food. I wanted to introduce this beautiful art to the Saudi society as I'm the only one who started making bentos in Saudi Arabia. That time, I had the chance to have two of my bento works featured in the most popular design Magazines, and I did not know what to make. By chance It was the time of Hinamatsuri, So I made this bento specially to introduce the idea of Bento and Himatsuri and my skills as graphic designer in the same time. My bento article was published under the title of ( Graphic Design You Can eat! ). I wanted to focus on showing the craftiness of Japanese people as this was the first bento I've ever created and wanted to make it in the same Japanese style by using ingredients available in my country, Jeddah. It was not an easy job for me but whenever I make one, I feel so happy as I can share the same feelings as Japanese people have when making bentos for their lovely ones.

Your personal recipe or ingredient tweaks

To make the Hinamatsuri themed bento, I made 2 small tuna onigiri for the girl. Everyone loves the combination of Japanese mayonnaise with tuna. For the hair, I used nori paper and the red part of crab sticks to be used as a hair tie. For the body, I colored the rice pink as the color of sakura. For her cloths, I used two different shades of mortadella to make it look like yukata. I imagined if this beautiful girl going out in the morning under the sun light having Mt Fuji behind her and the bee is happily flying from one flower to another. I used cherry tomatoes cut in halves for the sun and used the skin of crab sticks as sun rays. For Mt Fuji, I colored the rice into light blue and on top I placed cheese cut into peak shape and then I cut nori paper into thin lines to highlight the borders of the Mt Fuji to make it stand out and give it a 3D look. For the bee, I used cheese, nori, and mortadella. As this was supposed to be in the morning, I added the greeting ( Ohayo ). To make the letter, I used hiragana cutter and pasted them on nori paper and cut around them to make the letters stand out from the white rice. As I believe that every bento should contain green leaves to make it alive, I had to search for the same lettuce the Japanese people use. Finally, I decorated it with food picks ( panda, hair bow ).