Zojirushi SL-JBE14BZ Mr. Bento Stainless Lunch Jar 41 Oz Carbon Black

I ordered the Mr. Bento lunch jar because I was tired of eating out for lunch at work, or worse yet, hitting up the vending machines. My Bento jar arrived quickly, and in perfect condition. Unlike some previous purchasers, I did get an English translation of the instructions with my Bento jar, although it's a pretty foolproof product as long as you know not to microwave the lids or treat it too harshly. When I use my Mr. Bento jar, I pack and stack it the night before and then set it in my refrigerator for the whole thing to chill. It won't fit into the refrigerator at work (too tall) so it sits on my desk at the office until I am ready to eat. Because I have access to a microwave, I don't need to keep my food hot. However, I have found that my Mr. Bento does do an excellent job of keeping my food nice and cool, although not ice cold. Others have done an excellent job of reviewing how Mr. Bento keeps the food cold (i.e. while not being a full-on thermos, it's got plenty of insulation between the bowls, their lids, and the metal outer shell). The carrying bag is fashioned out of a nice stiff canvas with a zipper and a pull enclosure. I love the spork and spork cover that comes with the jar as well. As I eat my food during the workday, I wash out each bowl at the sink in our office kitchen and take it back to my desk. At the end of the day I go home, put it on the counter, and pack it and chill it before going to bed. My goal with this product was to eat healthier and more regularly during the day. My typical Bento jar has the following: - Top (smallest uninsulated) bowl: a handful of pretzels and a few lowfat animal crackers - Second (larger uninsulated) bowl: carrot sticks and hummus (hummus in a silicon cupcake cup) - Third (main, insulated) bowl: 1/2C of cooked rice with chicken or black beans or some other veggies/meat. - Fourth (bottom, insulated) soup bowl: A homemade soup, this week it's been corn chowder My intention was to eat regularly throughout the day, every couple of hours, to keep my blood sugar levels steady and hopefully lose weight, control cravings etc. That was my intention. The only problem? There's just too much food! I have to really work to eat my way through all of the food that fits into my Mr. Bento, and I rarely can. Usually either the soup or the main bowl ends up in the refrigerator at the office, while I take home the other 3 bowls and refill them for the next day. I'm a 5'6" woman, medium build, with a pretty good appetite, but it's just too much food for me. On the plus side, my husband loves my Mr. Bento. In fact, he's eyeing it jealously. So I have splurged yet again and bought the Ms. Bento (3 bowls) for myself. As soon as it arrives, my husband will inherit my Mr. Bento for his lunches. The beauty of the Bento jars, and "bento" in general, is that it's great for people like me who want more creative lunches, and who are sick of sandwiches and potato chips and what have you. The product is great, and while it's a little expensive, the money I save from not raiding the snack machine ($5 a week, at least) alone will pay for the Bento jar in just a couple of months. Highly recommended, but if you don't have a big appetite, you might want to consider a Ms. Bento instead of this jar.

I bought this for my daughter towards the end of her kindergarten days (2013) and it's still going strong. I have repeatedly recommended this lunch box to family, friends, colleagues, and strangers on the internet. My daughter likes some of the school lunches but not all of them, so sometimes I would make her lunch to take to school. At first this was disappointing; there are only so many brown bag sandwiches that she'll happily eat during the week and I didn't like her having cold lunches at school. She doesn't have access to a refrigerator or microwave oven at school so that limited our options. For awhile I improvised using small Thermos-type containers to give her hot foods but this limited the types of hot foods I was able to give her since all those Thermos-type containers are vertical cylinders, not exactly conducive to things like spaghetti or hot sandwiches. Plus, her lunch bag got bulky with a collection of different sized containers, and everything had to be hand-washed because things like GladWare containers shouldn't be put in the dishwasher. So I went looking for something better and I found this, and I can only say that I wish I found it earlier. The product description here on Amazon tells all of the gritty details so I won't waste time with that. Here's what you really want to know: YES, IT DEFINITELY KEEPS HOT FOODS HOT FOR HOURS AT A TIME! I make my daughter's lunch at 8am and she eats it at around 12:30pm and she has never once complained that her lunch wasn't hot enough. I learned that if I fill the main body (the "jar") with hot water while I prepare her lunch, it keeps her food hotter for a longer period of time. When all the food prep is complete and packaged I just empty the jar, dry it out, and load it up. Other things about this box that I adore... • Yes, the lid is INTENDED to be a serving bowl! If you don't like eating from the containers or if you have to mix something before eating it then by all means flip the lid over and use it as a bowl. • The carrying bag is sturdy and well constructed, and large enough to carry not only the lunch jar but a juice pack, juice box, or milk box fits nicely on top (along with a napkin or two). Slide the lariat closed and it stays nicely in place, safe and easily transportable with the rest of your lunch. • It comes with a stainless steel spork, which was really nice. Unfortunately my daughter accidentally threw hers away when she was younger, but I found a nice titanium spork to take its place and she loves using that. The spork fits in a little "pouch" that's sewn inside of the carrying bag. • It's pretty durable. My daughter's lunch box has a bunch of dents and such where she's tossed it around in her back pack, but the vacuum seal is still intact and it holds its temperature as good as it ever did. • The lid and latching mechanism is especially durable. Because it's plastic I expected the latches to be the first things to fail, but after five years they still latch as tightly and positively as ever. Never once has the latch accidentally released, even after being dropped. • It's dishwasher safe. Simply remove the soft seal and ventilation plug from the bottom-most container, and all of the pieces (containers, lids, jar lid, and spork) can go in the dishwasher. The container itself shouldn't be dishwashed lest the high temperature of the dishwasher disrupt the vacuum seal, but it's also easy enough to hand wash so it's not a big deal at all. The soft seals can be easily washed with a sponge and left to air dry, and they pop back into the lid with no effort. (And replacement seals are available, should yours get lost or damaged.) Even the carrying bag can go in the laundry! • The carrying bag can be slung over a shoulder, carried upright by a handle, or packed in a school backpack. • With four containers I can provide a nice assortment of the hot and cool foods my daughter loves. She often tells me that her friends are always offering to trade lunches with her because her lunches are so much nicer than the school lunches. :-) We've established a system where the top container always has a dessert (cookies, brownie bites, etc), one down has a fruit (apples, peaches, grapes, strawberries, etc) and a vegetable (string beans, peas, cucumbers, pickles, etc), and the remaining two have the main entree (protein) and starch (rice, pasta, potatoes). Her favorite lunch is broiled salmon (lower-most container) with rice pilaf (one up), snap peas and strawberries (one up), and chocolate cupcake (top-most container), with a Capri Sun to drink. Willing trade-offs and caveats... • It's heavier than a "traditional" lunch box owing to its stainless steel construction. My daughter willingly accepts the trade-off, however; she's more than happy to deal with the bit of extra weight in exchange for having a tasty hot lunch at school. • The containers can't be rearranged; they must go in a specific order. This creates certain logistical issues. If you wanted to (for example) use only the large container for something hot and have cool things everywhere else, you can't. Whatever is under the large container will also be hot (or warm) and you can't put the large container on the bottom of the jar because the lid won't fit. (Unless you also remove one of the other containers; that would work.) I would totally buy this again and again without hesitation. I love it, my daughter loves it, her teachers have bought them for themselves, and some of her friends and schoolmates have gotten them as well. This may be the perfect student lunch box.

I got this for my husband for work. I called Zojirushi before I ordered it because I liked the bag that came with the Ms. Bento but felt like he would appreciate the extra food space by Mr. Bento more. They were really helpful answering questions about the products. I had seen in reviews that the soup bowl isn’t leakproof, and I asked about that to make sure. She said they do not claim it is leakproof. Well, after I got it, it sure looked like it could be. So I put water in it and shook it sideways for about 2 minutes (part of that is the video I posted.) Not a drop. Then I put water in it and set it up sideways in a bowl overnight. Nothing leaked at all — no water whatsoever. So even though they won’t say it doesn’t leak, I’d have to say it looks pretty darn safe. Usually my husband makes his own lunch, but his schedule right now, he leaves at 3:45 am and doesn’t get home until about 6pm, six days a week. So I offered to start making his lunch. I put everything in the containers the night before and put them in the fridge. I put a pot with about 2 cups of water on the stove. In the morning he turns on the pot to boil and microwaves the hot containers. He puts the hot water in the container (advised in the manual to help keep things hot all day) for a few minutes. Then he empties it and puts all the food containers in the big container. He said his food has been warm every day, and the cold stuff doesn’t get hot. It’s been a great way to give him a good variety of food. One day it was roasted chicken in the soup container, roasted potatoes and broccoli in the big hit container, fruit in the big cold/room temp container, and banana cake in the little cold/room temp container. Other examples of things I’ve put in the hot containers (besides soup): chicken leg (had to cut off the end of the leg to fit), hot dog (bread and condiments in regular containers), enchiladas, Mexican rice. I also did street tacos once (from leftovers I made for dinner) with the pulled pork in the soup container, tortillas in the big container, cole slaw in the small cold container, and dessert in the big cold container. This is a big hit at our house. I love Zojirushi products, and this new one is now added to the list!

Okay, people. Seems like there has been a lot of folks giving this a low rating because they didn't know "exactly" what they were getting when they bought the Mr. Bento. Not the product's fault because someone misread or didn't read the description or even the instructions on how to use it properly. So maybe this can help clarify as to what the Mr. Bento can and cannot do before someone buys it. The bowls are all BPA free plastic. Only the outside of the jar is stainless steel. The description is a bit misleading. I don't believe any of the Zojirushi lunch jars have stainless steel lunch bowls. Wouldn't be microwavable if they were. The containers are NOT leakproof with the exception of the soup container and the lids cannot go into the microwave. These were the reasons why I only gave it a 4-star rating. It would be nice if Zoji could come up with a model that does have all leakproof bowls. We can work around the no lid in the microwave aspect. I've tested all 4 bowls and although the soup container is leakproof, wouldn't recommend letting it roll around loose or play catch with it (just to be on the safe side). Granted I wouldn't do that with any of my other leakproof containers either. This is either a hot or cold container. That means you can either keep a hot meal warm or a cold meal cold. Not both together. Some common sense here folks. Put a hot item next to a cold item in an insulated container will not keep each item hot or cold. The review that said it allows for two temperatures in the same container is technically true but he doesn't say that it will keep them the same temperature as when they went in. Sorry, there is just no way around the physics. So if you want a hot AND cold meal but no way of heating up the container(s), this will not work for you. There are other ways to do this, one suggestion I've added at the end of this review. My husband's lunches usually contain some part that needs to be heated up. So I use Mr. Bento mainly as a cold jar. Works great because I no longer have to put an ice pack in his lunch bag to keep his lunch cold. What I do is put together his lunch the night before. Put all the containers into the jar and everything goes into the fridge. In the morning, pull it out, into the bag and off he goes! Fruit salad and side salad stay cold and he just heats up the main dish and/or soup. Lunches vary. Small side container has some kind of small side, pickles, veggie salad stuff. This is a very small container, holds only 7 oz. That's just less than a cup. Large side container is not a whole lot bigger than the small side, just a bit more than a cup. Holds usually a fruit salad. Won't hold a lot of whole larger type of fruit, such as strawberries or large grapes. I just cut the larger pieces to fit more in. The main bowl (NOT LEAKPROOF!) contains some kind of protein, sometimes steamed white rice, depending on the meal. This is the largest container of the four and holds 15 oz, just shy of 2 cups. Don't expect this to hold a steak and be used with a steak knife and fork. Not how it was meant to be used. Nor is it meant to fit a whole sandwich in it. It's a Mr. Bento, not a Mr. Sandwich container. The soup bowl (leakproof) doesn't always get used but I've put rice porridge and an additional salad or more rice if I need to use the main bowl for the protein. This holds 9 oz, just a bit over a cup. Here are the capacities of the containers for reference listed in the order they come out of the jar (top-down): Small Side Bowl 7 oz Large Side Bowl 10 oz. Main Bowl 15 oz Soup Bowl 9 oz. Yes, this is not for anyone who need larger meals. Zorijushi does have bento jars with larger bowls. The Classic Bento has a main bowl that holds 20 oz, and a side bowl that holds 14 oz, with the same size soup bowl. If you need an even larger main bowl, the Classic Stainless Lunch Jar will hold up to 27 oz. almost 3.5 cups. For someone who want both hot and cold items together, one suggestion is using Zoji's single food jar for hot, which holds a good 25 oz. Then use one of the smaller bentos (like Ms. Bento) for the cold items. Yes, more containers to lug around but you might be able to fit both jars in a larger insulated bag. Check out Zojirushi's website for more details on all their lunch jars. You can even do a compare on the different models. That's what I did before buying this model.

Before buying Mr. Bento, I've searched all the other lunch boxes offered by Amazon and analyzed how I would use it (being an engineer, these things interest me). I chose Mr. Bento over the Thermos model since I really liked the idea of having hot and room temperature food all in the same container (from reviews of the Thermos brand, it keeps all the containers warmer than Mr. Bento). I liked it so much after a week of use that I bought a second one so that I can pre-pack dry food for multiple days. Thermal capacity is really good, when I pre-heat the sleeve and bottom two containers with boiling water. With bottom container full of near-boiling liquid/soup, it is still very hot five hours later and keeps the main container warm enough. Without hot soup there, bottom two containers are warm, but not as hot as I would like it to be. When I'm not packing soup, I would fill the soup bowl with boiling water, which keeps the main container nice and hot. The top two smaller pop-top containers are meant for room-temperature food, though the bottom of the two gets a bit warm. I found that using a micro-fiber towel cut to fit to separate between the hot and cool containers, help the upper containers stay closer to room temperature. Without the towel separation, my tomatoes and cherries packed in the bottom of the two pop-top containers out of the refrigerator gets a bit warm. I have not yet used it to pack cold food in all the containers, but would expect to be perform better than hot food application due to lesser temperature difference. I did find that soup bowl gets a bit hard to turn when tightened hard and when the container is wet, but found that pulling on the top as opening helps. Upper two pop-top type containers are better sealing than the reviews indicate. Carry bag is definitely very cool and functional, though it makes me swing it around as I'm carrying it (containers don't leak if used per Manufacturer's directions). It allows me to pack some health bars and napkins, as well as put a fruit packet or one additional pop-top containers on top and close it up (making it almost five container Mr. Bento for long days in the office). It can be used to carry real spoon, if you are not happy with the spork IMHO not as nice as using a real spoon. Spork is very nice stainless steel, made in Japan, and great back-up when I forget to pack utensils. After using for over a month, would agree with other reviewers that this is really a great item and would last quite a long time. With Mr. Bento, Nissan Thermos full of home-roasted Americano style coffee, I'm ready to hit the work hard at the office and don't have to worry about keeping my stomach happy. To those home packing to lose weight, trying to eat healthier meals, or just sick of cafeteria food or fast food......Mr. Bento will be a great investment.

I think I was attracted to the idea of the Mr Bento mainly because of its neat look. I really hate shlepping a shopping bag of mismatched tupperware and reused cool whip tubs. The size is comparable to a 2 liter of soda, possibly shorter. As previous reviews have mentioned, the carrying bag must be utilized as there are no handles. The containers are an unappetizing grey which quickly turn orange in the presence of ketchup. I now use either fast food packets of the stuff, or a reusable cupcake liner for acidic condiments. The soup containers retain heat relatively well. The entree container, not so much, even when you follow the manufacturer's instructions and preheat containers in hot water. Other reviewers claim that this is ideal for the traditional Japanese lunch, which may be true. I tend to eat a great deal of Indian and Middle Eastern food, which i do not recommend in the Mr Bento, as it will absorb some of the flavors, and you can no longer use a container that once held a curry dish to hold cottage cheese down the road. Unless you like a curried cottage cheese. On the bright side, someone in the forum contacted customer service, there are no BPAs in the plastic, so at least it is non toxic! I do believe that it could be useful for exactly what it was intended for - a traditional Japanese meal, but it is not versatile enough to meet my needs.

This Mr. Bento Stainless Lunch Jar is PHE-NOM-INAL. Seriously. I researched lunchbox options for a long time, and finally settled on this one. I have listed the needs I wanted met in a lunch jar/box and why this item is wonderful! 1. SIZE MATTERS...and SHAPE ;) : I needed something that would hold enough food for my husband, who eats like a horse. He is an active 25 yr old, and we own a business that involves manual labor. So he is always moving, ALWAYS hungry. I was a bit skeptical that this item would hold enough food, but I have never once had him tell me his meal wasn't enough (and I ask every day). The containers don't necessarily look impressively large, but I am always amazed at how much they hold, when I start putting stuff in them. The containers are round, so yes, certain things won't fit. Don't bother trying to fit bone-in chicken. And hot sandwiches take some imagination (I cut them into triangles, they fit best that way... but my hubs doesn't care if his sandwich is precut, just if its hot and delicious). But really most things fit well, and the few that don't just take a little imagination. (enchiladas go in great, cut in half & stacked. I can fit 2, full size, hearty enchiladas in the tall bowl). 2. SOME LIKE IT HOT: WE like it hot. We hate cold sandwiches and the snacky chips that go along with bag lunches. I was desperate for something that would keep food HOT all day, not luke warm. And would allow me to send off left overs (meats, fish, pasta, soups, stews, salads...those aren't hot, curries, rice, NORMAL meal stuff). The Zojirushi is perfect for that. the bottom bowels will hold runnier or more liquid items. Though I usually find a small amount (teaspoon) has leaked, the exterior canister contains it well, so no-harm done. The bottom two containers usually stay super hot. The lunch jar gets left in the car all day, so our excessive winter has proven to lower the food temps a bit, but they remain more than warm, as long as I put them in SUPER HOT. Outside of deep winter, the bowels usually keep the food so hot you have to open them and let it cool for a minute or two. The two upper bowels are less insulated, so they are perfect for salads, edamame, cooler sides, or treats. If you want to pack chocolate or cookies, only put those in the top container. The bottom two are sometimes so warm, they transfer heat to the container directly above. 3. MONEY TALKS: I know, your wondering if this is worth the price. Simple answer, YES. Well worth the cost. You won't have to buy lunch out just to get a hot meal. And all those yummy left overs can easily go with you to work now. 4. WHAT DO I PUT IN IT? : Even though we cook full and elaborate meals most evenings, I was still a bit intimidated by the idea of sending off hot lunches. I used a great cook book designed for bento boxes, that helped me get creative and figure out how to turn left overs into interesting and hearty lunches (see my review on it). Not everything from the night before can just be reheated. Sometimes you have to fix it up a bit. Or what about taking that smaller-than-portion-size amount left and doing something useful with it. A great way to start is pastas, soups or salads. You really can put anything in this, it just takes some getting used to if you've never done hot lunches before. 5. Dishwasher safe? I honestly don't know if this thing is labeled as dishwasher safe, but we use it every day, and every night it goes in the dishwasher (only exterior jar is washed by hand). No problems. Stains from pastas and curries come out easily. The plastic is sturdy and stain resistant. What more could you want? This item comes with a carry case, which is super helpful. And it has a spoon in a case - this is a little extra genius. The spoon doesn't get anything else dirty since it has its own case. If you aren't convince by now, you never will be. This is one of the best purchases I have made in a long time.

We had purchased the Ms. Bento for our toddler's day care lunch--which is a perfect size for a tot, not a "Ms", unless you're on a diet. So we thought of getting this one for my husband to take food to work. People complain it is bulky, and it is--but what can you expect if you want to bring rice, soup, an "entree" and some dessert? The top-to-bottom hot-to-cold design notion is very good if you want a varied lunch, rather than just a sandwich or salad. However, it is so cheaply made, that on week one the "thermal" lid that covers the "rice" container (where we usually put the actual entree) popped. By "popped" I do not mean it came off the container. The lid itself is a brittle plastic shell holding a disk of plain styrofoam (this is your insulation), and the top of the plastic cylinder came right off during washing (it didn't even take a hit), letting the styrofoam out. We have been unable to fit it back with glue or any other means. So now, the biggest container in this set is absolutely useless. Furthermore, as some other reviewers said, the plastic it's made of is very hard to clean and retains odor. While this is true of many plastic containers, whatever plastic they are using here seems to hold on to oil even more than usual. It takes so many rounds of soap and hot water to clean the containers well that it makes me feel guilty to use them. At this point, this whole bulky set is gathering dust in a corner of our pantry. We have substituted the nissan stainless steel 10 oz containers for our warm stuff (they cannot go in the microwave, but you if you preheat with hot water for five-six minutes before putting your food in, the food will be hot until lunch) and fit+ fresh plastic containers of different sizes (which include icepacks fitting the lids) for our yogurt/desser/other cold stuff that might need refrigeration. This makes a flexible set, and combined with an insulated lunch bag, it has proven easier to fit in our bag (the zojirushi is great in volume, but I think the cylindrical shape is what makes it truly impossible to fit in your bag) and we have more options to pack our lunch. By the way, the fit and fresh stuff cleans more easily... if that is a plus for you. I am still happy with the Ms Bento for my toddler, although we are trying to move away from it because it is also hard to clean.