If you're hell bent on bento, Lunch In a Box: Building a Better Bento presents the ultimate guide to the boxed lunched tradition popularly associated in Japanese cuisine. The site is penned by “Biggie,” a one-time Japanese expat now living in San Francisco where she is raising her son and as one might expect is as well-packed and fastidiously organized as a bento lunch. But, you ask, what exactly is bento? As Biggie explains:

"A bento lunch is a compact, balanced, visually appealing meal packed in a box. Historically, it’s a Japanese box lunch, similar in concept to the Indian tiffin, the Korean dosirak, or the Filipino baon lunch. In Japanese, 'bento' or 'obento' refers to the packed meal, and 'bento-bako' refers to the bento box itself."

Lunch In a Box not only provides recipes and menu suggestions, nutrition guides and the occasional philosophical assertion, it also has an extremely handy Bento Store Locator function and a bento box size guide that breaks down how many calories one might expect when packing to help prevent packing on pounds. All in all, Lunch In a Box is a tremendous resource for the bento beginner to the bodhisattva, not afraid to think inside the box.