bento#19 Professor Layton

My boyfriend loves puzzle games. Simple one like Tetris, Picross, Meteos, Sudoku, etc… So there’s no surprise that he likes Professor Layton. I, on the other hand, am not that good at puzzle games. So I found out about Professor Layton (before the U.S. release) I just checked out the official Japanese site, and that was it. Even after it came out in the U.S., I wasn’t really going to buy it, because I’d rather play a puzzle game in Japanese than in English. But one day, my boyfriend lent me Professor Layton and I was hooked.

Bento#19: Professor Layton
Created and eaten on: 11/03/2008

"This reminds me of a puzzle..."

Professor Layton wasn’t like “Brain Age” as I imagined. The game was a lot more story driven and very unique. (With great illustrations and music!)
While I was google-image searching for inspirations, I saw the screenshot of a puzzle from Layton puzzle “Get the ball out!”, and I thought “I could make all those squares out of food!”
I drew a sketch for the puzzle part. There are four different color blocks in the puzzle. Yellow, green, purple, and blue. A bit off topic, but the color “blue” is kind of a taboo color in the kyaraben world. Since most kyaraben are for kids, moms try to make kyaraben using the least food coloring as possible. I knew my boyfriend wasn’t a huge fan of food coloring, so I had to come up with an idea to substitute it with something else.
I was going to do the puzzle, but that was only a half of a bento and I needed to fit rice in the bento.
I was going to make Professor Layton and Luke first. But Luke’s outfit is all blue… So he was out.
Then I started thinking of how I could put just Professor Layton in the bento, and not look too strange without Luke. Then I remembered that Professor Layton would sometimes appear by himself. I’d practiced cutting seaweed with an exacto knife on Shadow of the Colossus grilled cheese sandwich, so I decided to cut Professor Layton out of seaweed.
I had learnt that cutting any shape out of seaweed using an exacto knife takes a long time, so I traced the image of Professor Layton onto paper on the monitor of my PC, and cut Professor Layton out of seaweed the night before, and place it between sheets of paper, and put it in a ziploc. I also made tamagoyaki* for the yellow block, and hamburg for the brown blocks (outside the box) the night before.
The following morning, I cut carrot for the purple cubes, and made rectangle shapes layering lettuce, cheese, and lotus root for the blue blocks. I wrapped asparagus with ham for the green blocks. I could’ve used the lettuce for the green blocks but I put way too much asparagus on my previous Jiji bento, so I just made the block with 4 different colors, and didn’t worry too much about my food blocks matching the colors with the colors in the game.

After I made the blocks, I placed them in the left half of the bento box. Then I mixed rice with curry powder, and put it in the right half of the bento box.
I took my seaweed Professor Layton out of the ziploc and placed it on cheese, put a slice of carrot on his hat, and cut cheese around the seaweed.

I put the cheese* on the rice, placed some broccoli, and surrounded the puzzle part with sliced kamaboko. I put a cherry tomato for the “ball” and a seaweed circle for the “hole.”

I don’t really like making “human characters” for my bento, because I think it’s a bit creepy to eat it, but since the character design for Professor Layton is so cartoony yet stylish, I made it an exception. Each piece of the puzzle came out to be a bit bigger than I wanted, though.

This could’ve been a lot better, and I wasn’t too satisfied with it, but almost all people who had played Professor Layton recognized the puzzle! I saw a lot of people who commented say something like “I’d just eat the blocks to get the ball out!”, which made me giggle. One person actually solved it in his comment and that just made me really happy. =D

xcvmvcx at GoNintendo.com wrote… (he/she thought tamagoyaki was tofu, so replace tofu with tamagoyaki)

“lettuce up
carrot up
carrot left
carrot up
tofu right
lettuce down
lettuce right
ham wrap all the way down
tofu left
tomato all the way down
tofu right
ham wrap all the way up
lettuce left
tomato in bottom

Let’s eat!!!!!”

Professor Layton:
– seaweed on cheese, carrot on the hat

Puzzle:
– cherry tomato for the ball
– tamagoyaki for yellow block
– lettuce, cheese and lotus root for blue block
– carrot for purple block
– asparagus wrapped with ham for green block
– hamburg for outside the box

Other food:
– rice with curry powder
– broccoli
– kamaboko (fish cake)

Not necessary a tip, but things I realized while making this bento…
*Tamagoyaki is like a omelette shaped into a long cubic shape. Sliced tamagoyaki is often served with rice underneath as a sushi piece. Even though I rarely cooked when I lived in Japan, my dad was really good at making this, and I kind of learned how to make it from watching him. Tamagoyaki doesn’t look anything special but it’s “the ultimate test” for the sushi chef.

*If I put small piece of seaweed directory onto rice, the seaweed will shrink and lose its shape. So it’s better to put it on cheese and cut cheese around seaweed.

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.