Sumatran Tiger

A-chan and I love the zoo.  We could both sit around and watch the animals for hours.  A lot of our favorites are the big cats.  Sometimes we watch them with fascination and compare their actions to those of our house cats whose antics are an endless source of entertainment.  The Sumatran Tigers are high on my list of personal favorites and when I decided to challenge myself to a complicated bento, it was with the tigers in mind.

This is my first attempt at an 'art' bento and although there are several flaws, I'm very happy with the results! At two hours, this is the most time consuming bento I've made.  And I learned a lot doing it - things that will make it faster next time and a huge amount about the tigers themselves.  Despite my admiration for the big cuties, I couldn't say that I appreciated their stripes and facial designs the way I do now.

In the bento:  Rice, egg sheets, radish sprouts, a halved strawberry, steamed edamame, fried tofu, baby corn and black plum slices.

The tiger's face was made with layers of orange egg sheet, white egg sheet, soy bologna and nori.  His eyes are one layer of white egg sheet, a second layer of nori, a layer of bologna, a green iris cut from edamame, nori pupils and white egg sheet highlights.  I stuck short pieces of uncooked somen noodles into the egg sheets for the whiskers.  Originally I had planned to put lovely green grass around and behind the tiger but I got lazy and stuck a few radish sprout tops on instead.

We were staying home today with no need for a bento.  After it was finished came the inevitable question, "Who gets to eat that bento, mommy?"  Before we came to blows over it, I bribed her with a pbj and claimed the bento for myself.  I promised to make her one with whichever animal she chooses after our next visit to Zoo Atlanta.