Bento Boxes and New Foods

So last night I stumbled across (and become completely enamored with) anotherlunch.com  The detail she puts into her kid's lunches and snacks is amazing.  As someone who loves tiny things and cute things I died and spent all night on the site and was convinced I needed a bento box and some of those cute accessories.  To me making food cuter and more fun might make eating smaller amount seem less blah and more yay.

So in betweenclasses I headed to an Asian market convinced they would have bento boxes or accessories.  Alas they did not have anything.  What they did have however was samples!

I didnt try everything (I do not like fish or seafood which were some of the samples) but I decided to be adventurous and try some new things.

The first were these Korean Rice Crackers.  I was hesitant since I didn't know the ingredients or flavors.  My mom tried a pink one.  It didn't taste like much.  There was a funny older lady who yelled "they good!" at me but I didn't actually think it tasted like anything.  So I decided to get my own and tried a green one.  Mistake, it was seaweed!

So to try and cleanse my palate of the awful seaweed flavor I tried these crackers.  The plain were good but apparently I am NOT a fan of wasabi.  These werent really out of my comfort zone since my grandpa eats an asian snack mix like this sometimes.

Then I tried some chestnuts! I've always wondered what a chestnut tasted like so I got excited when I saw it...then I got hesitant because they looked funny (I can be judgemental with the looks of food).  I ended up trying them though and they weren't bad.  Kind of like a nutty bean.  I wouldn't eat them on purpose again, but not bad.

I also tried pickled garlic which was STRONG.  I saw two women pop several pieces quickly and prcoeed to tell me how good it was but I could barely nibble off the end and I love garlic.  I thought I took a picture but apparently it didnt save and considereding the women doing samples seemed to find it strange I was taking pictures of the food I decided not to go back.

All in all it was a fun experience...and I'm still determined to learn more about these bento boxes.