Chinese lunch boxes for
chinese soups on the move

Homemade Chinese Soups Homepage / Chinese lunch boxes Ever thought of packing chinese soup to the office for lunch? I have. The lunch "box" must be leakproof and easy to carry around. It should also keep the soup hot. Conventional lunchboxes are not suitable. Fortunately, I am not the first person to think about packing soups. Chinese "lunch boxes" also have a very long history. In Southeast Asia, we have the tingkat. This is a multi-tiered cylindrical container that can pack several food items including soups. Each container can have 3 to 4 stackable trays which can be stacked on top of one another. Each tray can be used as a serving bowl when it is time to eat. The top cover has a handle and a pair of clips to hold the trays tightly together. Most tingkats are made of stainless steel or enamel. This mean that the packed food will lose its heat fairly quickly. A modern variation was developed when the thermal pot was invented. This is commonly known as a vacuum pot in Singapore. This is essentially a thermal pot which can fit 2 to 3 trays inside. When the cover is screwed on, it keep the food in the trays hot. I used to pack soups in one tray and white rice in the other tray. Sometimes the vacuum lunch box is too big because I only wanted to pack the soup. In this case, coffee lovers gave me a great solution – the thermal flask. Thermal flasks come in various sizes. 0.5 liter, 0.75 liter, 1 liter and so on. They are just nice to pack a big bowl of soup. Chunkier ingredients can be cut into smaller pieces to fit into the flasks. Selecting a good quality thermal flask is important. Nothing irks more than leaky flasks and lukewarm soups. A good thermal flask should be able to keep your soup hot for at least 5 hours. The ones from Japan are really good. Afterall, they invented it. They are esthetically pleasing and functional. Many come with nice carrier bags. Haa, I am describing the flask I am using now which is also the one being shown here.