A few updates today on online bento shopping, bento gear in Europe, conferences I’ll be attending, and something that annoyed me this week.

* Ichiban Kan: Online poll and delay in restocking bento gear

The Ichiban Kan blog is running an online poll to help them decide whether to stock thermal bento sets like this one that I use regularly. The poll closes at 3:00 pm Pacific Time today (Wednesday, April 30, 2008), so click over there if you’d like to weigh in, or leave a comment at their blog post about the thermal bento sets if you’re too late for the poll. (Sorry about the late notice!) Ichiban Kan is a Japanese-style discount store with branches in the SF Bay Area and a new online store with cheap bento gear. See my full review of their online store, or get info on their local stores in my San Francisco Bay Area shopping guide for bento gear.

Speaking of Ichiban Kan, they’re evidently experiencing a delay in restocking their bento inventory as their big shipping container from Japan has been delayed by U.S. Customs. The delay may last for another three weeks or so; stay up to date via their blog or online store. Their blog now offers the ability to receive e-mail updates via Feedburner; fill out the info in the upper right corner of their blog to get their latest in your e-mail box. (You can do the same here, by the way — click to get Feedburner e-mails with the latest Lunch in a Box posts.) (Read on for European bento shopping update, conferences I’ll be attending at, and something that irritated me.)

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