New Thermal Bento Boxes!

I had been eyeing these bento boxes for a long time. Almost for as long as I've been making bento lunches. Somehow though, I couldn't justify the expense because they were quite a bit pricier than any of our other bento boxes.

Then I discovered Thai curries.

I haven't been able to get the image of having hot Thai curries for lunch on a cold winter's day for about three weeks now. And I know it's not exactly winter yet, but it's best to get prepared early, right?

So I finally bit the bullet and ordered these two gorgeous Zojirushi thermal bento sets from ebay (They're available on Amazon.com as well but they don't ship to Canada). They arrived today and I am thrilled with them.
The blue set is mine and the black set is for BF. Each set includes a thermal container with a removable plastic liner. To use it, pour boiling water straight into the metal outside container and let it sit for two minutes to heat up. Then pour out the water, insert the plastic liner, fill it with hot food. and put the lid on it.

There are also two smaller side dish containers, each of which have wonderfully snug fitting lids, a carrying case, as well as a set of plastic chopsticks in a case. The chopsticks have textured tips to help you get a better grip on your food.

Here's a front view so you can see the difference in size. The blue set holds 640ml and the black set holds 820ml which are the perfect size for BF and I. There is a green set in the series as well which is even smaller. The insides of the containers have clear guidelines to help you avoid overfilling them.

Here they are, packed in their bags. The bags are made from nylon and are not thermal. There's a little pocket in the strap for the chopstick case and a drawstring closure at the top. The containers fit into these bags perfectly, there is no room for anything extra.
One neat feature about these lunch sets is that when you've eaten your lunch and the containers are empty, you can compact them to about half of their size. The two small containers nest inside the larger containers with the lids on top. There is a drawstring that you pull on the side to make the bag smaller, and a second snap on the handle of the bag to lock everything in place. I think this will be useful for BF who often goes to play sports straight after work, so that it won't take up much room in his gym bag.

Overall, I'm extremely impressed with the quality of these lunch sets. I can't wait to start using them!