bento box

unmatched excellence in wilmington. just got back from our second time visiting chef lee at bento box tonight for a celebratory post-wedding weekend dinner with mom. we were once again treated as personal guests. you won't find bento box in any taste of wilmington or top chef competitions...since chef lee has already been there, done that. you can tell they take pride in the freshness, presentation and above all - flavor! of everything on the menu. we are new in town and have been slowly looking for a sushi place to call home, looks like we found it. our first visit was nice experience on a saturday night, sitting front row center and talking to lee about everything from his time in palm beach as a celeb chef to how the fish is flown in fresh from around the world. we started with excellent seaweed salads and a regular salad with amazing ginger dressing. my fiance loved the low carb cucumber & tunarollsand i could have eaten 2 full pain rolls, extra painful. then we just had them throw together a sashimi platter of their liking and everything just melts in your mouth (like good sushi is supposed to). fresh horseradish, superb ponzu sauce....all in all very much worth the $$. and to top it off, you have to try the chocolate potstickers...rich belgium chocolate pastry wraps with caramel...absolutely a must (hence the capital letters).

our second visit was pretty much an all star recap of our first night, but add the dim sum. there is a backstory on how he gets his dim sum, and it tops anything else we've had in town (like everything else on the menu)......we will be back for third and fourth and fiftieth visits if i have anything to do about it.....

my friend and i wanted to have dinner at genki sushi but when i asked about reservations, i was told there was availability but that none of the staff wore masks. that was a big turn off for me.

i called the bento box and was told their staff does wear masks.

great menu but i was disappointed not to see any sushi or sashimi platters on the menu. there were a lot of specialrollsto choose from, to include vegetarian rolls. i did see they have bento boxes for lunch only.

i started with the octopus salad ($9) with cucumbers, sesame seeds, masago with a kimchee sauce. it was a little on the salty side for my taste and only a few pieces of octopus. next i had the godzilla signature roll, which was panko shrimp, crab salad, cream cheese with eel, avocado, masago, sesame seeds and an eel sauce. it was a large portion, filling, and rich in taste with the eel sauce.

my friend had the sunomono salad and the delicious signature roll.

for dessert, we were served a complimentary chocolate pot sticker. we had the choice of cashew, thai chili or peanut butter. we both chose the thai chili. wow, that was amazing!! however, it was not spicy at all. we could barely taste the thai chili.

a very good meal indeed.

new items. ate at the bento box this past week and decided to try a couple of their specials. my boyfriend and i started off with the crispy rice lettucerollsand they were delicious. i had previously tried their lettuce wraps (which were not my favorite) so i was pleasantly surprised at how amazing these new wraps were. for my entree i ordered the braised short ribs. served with wasabi infused mashed potatoes, they had a hint of asian flavor but not overwhelming. a classic comfort food done the right way!


-----06 sep, 2013-----

curry dish. i usually go to the bento box for their sushi but recently discovered their kitchen dishes. so far, the curry with chicken has become one of my favorite meals and i find myself craving it all the time! next time i plan on trying the pad thai.

wow. my friends and i come to bento box at least once a month. we usually order a number ofrollsand share them off the mini surfboards which makes the dining experience fun and unique. the delicious salmon roll,godzilla, pain, and alaskan are definitely my favorites! on rainy days, the tom ka soup is definitely the way to go. to anyone craving fresh delicious food, i would highly recommend this restaurant.

foodies and fish lovers - this one's for you. i have been waiting to write this review for a long time, my friends.

now that i no longer work at the bento box, i can finally let loose and tell the world precisely how i feel about this restaurant....

i know, i know, you were hoping for a massive bashing, but what better review can there be than from a former employee who will happily continue to be a customer for years to come?

i'm a sushi fiend, and i'm also picky about my sushi, and after more than three years of trying out sushi restaurants in this town, i can definitively say that the bento box has the best sushi in wilmington.

that said, let me give you the insider scoop on a few things. for starters, unless you know you're the type of person who enjoys heavy, saucy, broiled seafood, *do not order* the palm beach, port city or lobster roll. no one on the staff thinks theserollsare incredible sushi. if it were up to the them, they'd be cut from the menu. but there's a portion of the population who can't get enough of these rolls, and for those people, they stay on the menu.

here's the thing - chef lee goes to great lengths to bring in fresh, sustainable, and, when he can, local seafood. this man cares about fish, and he thinks you should, too. if you catch him at the sushi bar during a rare quiet moment, he will talk your ear off about some fish. do yourselves a favor and try somerollsthat really highlight his efforts.

for starters, some of my current favs: the delicious (good training wheels for anyone attempting raw fish for the first time), miami vice and sesame shrimp (for those ready to graduate from plain old shrimp tempura rolls), pain (for those who like it hot - ask for it "painful" if you really want to light a fire!), counselor and ny (when i really just want to taste my fish), and one tree hill and rainbow kc (for days when i need to chill on the carbs).

and don't forget that these guys have a full kitchen in the back ready to rock out an ecclectic asian menu. try the lemongrass chicken (*so* worth the wait) or red curry - of which i'm finishing leftovers as i type.

yes. i went back to my former place of employ just two days after my last day of work in order to get the curry. because even after working there for nearly a year, i'm still head over heals for the bento box.

and *that* should say it all.

the bento box. i saw this place from reviews and decided to try it. a lot of great reviews with only a few bad, so obviously the bad reviews had to be wrong...right? nope. i was wrong for going there.

i went in early for lunch to grab tworollsfor a quick lunch. walk in and notice the 5 tvs on the wall, 3 with sports 2 with the sushi chef preparing rolls. while i think the idea of watching the chef make yourrollsis cool, and i love sports, i don't know if i like the idea of a sports/sushi bar. i sit at the bar and order my rolls, the waitress was very friendly and quick with my drink/refill.

so i ordered the katsu and the delicious roll.rollscame out rather quick so that pleased me, and that's about all the pleased me. the katsu roll tasted like deep fried cream cheese. i don't mind cream cheese in my roll but i couldn't taste fish or anything else. it was awful. delicious roll i had higher hopes for so i quickly finished the katsu and moved on. this one wasn't much better. the first few bites i thought were decent, but after those first few my mind changed. it says on the menu you get spicy fish plus signature hot sauce. i did not find this roll spicy at all, even after wiping the sauce covered plate with the pieces before i ate them. the fish tasted fresh but even with avacado and mild "hot" sauce the flavors were still meh. i have found better sushi in wilmington so i will be going there instead.

sushi was off the hook! we got take out so i can't speak for the staff or atmosphere but the sushi was amazing. we got the godzilla, miami vice & deliciousrollsand all 3 were unique & excellent.

by far and away the best sushi in wilmington. therollsmake sense. not a bunch of crappy fried items in them, while having a solid foundation and use of flavor profiles. there isn't a better sushi bar within 300 miles. and the person claiming to be a "chef" and is slamming this place is an idiot.

best sushi in wilm.. this place has great sushi and other dishes. the have a very large/unique selection of veggi rolls. the tempura sweet potatorollsis fantastic. the presentation is the best i have seen. "the pain" roll is nice and spicy. also, try the summer rolls, yum!

excellent. i lived in hawaii for 4 years and currently live in chicago. i've been to all the best sushi restaraunts in chicago. bento box is far better than anything you will find in chicago. it's also about half the price. i'm a huge sushi snob because i have not found anthing close to what you can get in the aloha state in the us. most places try to give you lots of rice/avocado or whatever non-fish thing they can throw in there. i was lucky to go with a friend of the owner/sushi chef, lee, and he just asked lee to make us some good stuff. although i was a little skeptical of the "americanized menu" with a lot of tempura and not so much fish in each of the rolls. but lee hooked us up with a bunch ofrollswith a good sushi to non-sushi ratio if you know what i mean.

therollswith the thinly sliced cucumber instead of seaweed wrappers are great. the fish that lee brings in is top-notch. again, it bests any chicago sushi restaurant in quality. just look at the color of the tuna..its a deep maroon. perfect.

the only complaint is that they only have low-sodium soy sauce. can't understand that.

perfect sushi. four of us sat at the sushi bar on a not-too-busy monday night, and chief sushi chef and owner, lee, started us out with his selection of choice slices of sashimi: big-eye tuna, escolar, yellowfin, and salmon. all were excellent. the signaturerollswere unusual and delicious, and the service was top notch. customized orders were easily accommodated, and the suggestions lee and nick (another sushi chef) offered were wonderful. this was our first time there (for 3 of us), and we will definitely be back whenever we are in the area again. i think the quality, taste, and presentation at bento box compares with the finest sushi restaurants in los angeles, hawaii, and new zealand that i have visited. 5 of 5 stars for the food, and 4.5 stars for atmosphere and decor. a very satisfying experience. highly recommended!

superb. i recently revisited bento box, my first time since they moved to their larger location, and was completed blown away (again). not only are their prices pretty much the same as nikki's sushi (one of my other favorites in town) their specialrollsseemed larger (with a sweet picture menu to boot!). the sushi was simply incredible, even my side salad & desert was much tastier than i expected. if you are a sushi fan & are happen to be around wilmington do not miss this gem.

perfect sushi. this place is all about quality you can taste and feel. the selection ofrollsand other entrees will keep you going back over the menu to make sure you didnt miss out on anything more special than the last. out of the the 8rollsi've tasted, i still cant decide which is better.

no. 1 grade sushi. to the absurdly obnoxious (and pretentious) reviewer below, "escoffier chef," you clearly are misguided and don't know much about top-notch high-quality fish.

i've been eating at bento box regularly for the last 3 years and keep coming back solely for what is the freshest, highest-quality fish available. i've lived in nyc and l.a. and eaten at all of the famous amazing sushi places in each city. the fish chef lee uses is equal to or better than those places.

i've attached 2 photos to the bento box page for people to see the definition of top-notch #1 grade fish.

in other news: therollsare very creative and consistently superb. wilmington is very lucky to have such a high-quality restaurant.

the best. chef lee without a doubt, makes the best sushi in wilmington. the bento box has a very laid back, yet sophisticated atmosphere. the sushi, whether traditionalrollsor chef lee's creations, is so fresh and flavorable.