10/7/2009-Soba noodle stirfry- with Japanese bean treat

I was up in Northern Virginia last weekend (otherwise known as the Land of International Grocery Stores). Anyways, I picked up some stuff I'd wanted, but was unable to find umeboshi (to be honest, I didn't really search). But I did get some interesting things, which I will be taking for bento lunches and eating in general.

Contents of bento: plum, mini-pepper stuffed with garlic and herb La Vache Qui Rit, frozen sour cherries. Carrot sticks; soba noodle stirfry; plain, reheated rice topped with broccoli; and a Japanese bean pastry thing. Also:

A "suit case" full of furikake. This kind is pretty simple: sesame, seaweed, salt. But it still tastes a little weird to me. I wish I had included something to show the scale of the "suit case." It's actually a little pill case, about 1" x 2" x 1/4". Sometimes I can fit it inside the bento, even, but I didn't want the furikake to get soggy.

Everything was tasty except for the reheated rice. Bleh. Man, I really need to quit putting old rice in a bento. It's already hard and dry and even though I reconstituted this stuff in the microwave the night before (with a little water) it was still dry and horrible when I ate it. Oh well, live and learn. It might also be the grain. I haven't tried it with the shorter-grained Japanese rice. Needless to say, the furikake did not improve the taste of the terrible, dry rice. Oh well.

The Japanese bean pastry thing was a little strange. I guess I was expecting more like a mochi bean cake, but the outsides of this thing are like styrofoam (actually, EXACTLY like those little ice cream cones? You know, the "cake" ones?). The insides are not red bean, but fruit-flavored bean goo. I'm not doing a great job "selling" them, but they are actually pretty tasty.