We did a post on the first electric lunchbox we bought some years ago which we loved using because it was so easy and convenient to make snacks and food that could be cooked using steam. As much and as frequently as we used our first electric lunchbox, though, we wished the inner material was completely made out of stainless steel. A safety issue we had with our first electric lunchbox was the small amount of water streaming down the sides of the electric lunchbox when cooking. The amount of food we could put into the container we used to cook in our first electric lunchbox was a bit small for us as well. This had us go in search of another electric lunchbox. We found this Bear 小熊 brand electric lunchbox.
With the exterior body made of PC plastic, a band of SUS304 stainless steel around the bottom of the lid, as well as the inner material completely comprising of the stainless steel, the look and feel of this electric lunchbox can be described as light and sturdy. It’s a joy to carry this electric lunchbox around with the PP plastic handles being so comfortable to hold.
Like our first electric lunchbox, this Bear 小熊 brand electric lunchbox works in the same way. It cooks food using steam. You place water in the electric lunchbox and the water boils away and produces steam. This steam then heats up the food and the steam cooks the food.
With this electric lunchbox’s interiors made of stainless steel, there’s the option to cook food in the main body. There’s no need to use a stainless steel container if you choose not to use one. Our preference, though, is to cook food in a stainless steel container instead of putting food directly in the electric lunchbox main body to cook. The reason for placing food in the stainless steel container instead of directly in the electric lunchbox is that cleaning is easier. If we cooked in the electric lunchbox without a stainless steel container it’d mean we’d have to be extra careful with not getting water near the electrical socket on the electric lunchbox. Otherwise, there are no issues placing food straight into the electric lunchbox and cooking it in there. It’s just a matter of being careful and taking time to clean without getting the electrical socket wet.
In our post for the first electric lunchbox we bought we had said we bought one for the possibility of being able to use it at work, but then we found it produced noise that was too loud to be used at work. With this electric lunchbox, cooking food using a stainless steel container is still too noisy to be able to use at work. We thought maybe cooking food without the stainless steel container and putting food directly into the electric lunchbox might allow for a quiet enough cooking time.
Out of curiosity, we downloaded a simple decibel meter app and did a quick one-minute test to measure what noise level came out of the electric lunchbox when it’s cooking away. We just heated up water in the electric lunchbox without using the stainless steel container. What the simple decibel meter app told us was that the noise level was an average of 66 decibels. The highest it went up to was 80 decibels. This was when we set the electric lunchbox at its maximum power output of 600 watt. We then set the power output to the lowest the electric lunchbox could go. This was at 100 watt. The noise level was an average of 58 decibels. It went up to 65 decibels at one point. We don’t know how accurate the decibel meter app that we downloaded was, but it gives an idea how loud it is. By ear, the noise level that comes from the electric lunchbox cooking away with or without a stainless steel container is not quiet enough to use in a quiet office environment. A large cafeteria maybe, but definitely the home is still where we’d choose to use the electric lunchbox.
On this second search for an electric lunchbox of ours, there were many electric lunchboxes that showed up. Quite a lot of them didn’t have the cooking time display, the ability to preset the cooking time, the ability to set the cooking time or the ability to turn on the warm mode manually if they had a warm mode. We like the freedom to do all these things. This electric lunchbox can do all these things.
One feature that this electric lunchbox appears to not have is an auto-shutdown feature when water is very low. We tested to see whether the electric lunchbox would shutdown with putting only a small pool of water in the electric lunchbox. The water had evaporated around the centre and only the perimeter had a bit of water left. Even at this point, the electric lunchbox hadn’t shut itself off. We went and poured a bit of warm water in to see how hot the surface was and there was a good sizzling going on. We didn’t go any further than this on our test to see if the electric lunchbox would shut itself off when water was low. We didn’t want to risk a fire! From this brief test, though, we can see it’s important to make sure there was enough water to last the duration of the cooking time if we choose to leave the electric lunchbox to cook unattended. Either that or we must check it once in a while to make sure things are okay.
So far, we’ve cooked only a few types of food in it. We’ve cooked instant noodles in it; rice; and a hotpot consisting of vegetables, dumplings, tofu and meat. We had no trouble with getting any of these foods cooked. The electric lunchbox claims to cook rice in 20 minutes. We made rice that cooked to half a container’s amount and it came out how we expected it to come out in 20 minutes—cooked. We cooked porridge using the porridge cooking function. Porridge came out. All the food we’ve cooked in this electric lunchbox comes out piping hot—too piping hot, actually! We often find ourselves impatiently waiting for it to cool down to a temperature that won’t burn our tongues. We love when noodle soups are cooked to piping hot, though. Noodle soups are so much tastier when they’re piping hot especially in winter and this electric lunchbox does that. For such a simple cooking appliance that uses steam to cook food, it cooks so well. We’re super pleased this electric lunchbox is able to cook food so well and so piping hot!
We haven’t found any issues with this electric lunchbox. No leaking droplets like our first electric lunchbox. The surface gets hot but it’s not at a temperature that we find as too hot to touch. The band of stainless steel around the bottom of the lid, however, is hot, but it is expected. There is a warning to be cautious around it. There’s also a warning to be cautious around the vent at the top of the lid where steam comes out, too. With our first electric lunchbox, a complaint we had was the capacity of the container being a bit small. This electric lunchbox is much better with how much food you can cook in it. The stainless steel container is about 1L in capacity. We find it allows for a good sized portion of food to be cooked. Cooking directly in the electric lunchbox allows for a bit more to be cooked.
On our search for an electric lunchbox and finding this Bear 小熊 brand electric lunchbox, we looked to see what other colours this electric lunchbox came in other than the pastel baby blue colour you see in this post. We found only one storefront sold another colour other than the pastel baby blue colour that every other storefront sold. It was pastel lemon yellow. We actually like the pastel lemon yellow better, but this storefront that had this colour had it at a price that was over a third more than the pastel baby blue colour we found. So, we went with the pastel baby blue version.
Sometimes we just don’t want to get out a pot to cook on the stove, stand there and attend to the cooking then wash the pot and dishes. We want something that can cook away near where we’re working. It can cook by itself and wash up is a singular container and eating utensil. This is why we love using the electric lunchbox to cook up meals and snacks. It’s quick and convenient, allows you to multitask and wash up is easy!
Showcasing the Bear 小熊 Electric Lunchbox
Specifications
- Outer Body Material: PC Plastic and SUS304 Stainless Steel
- Inner Body Material: SUS304 Stainless Steel
- Cooking/Heating Method: Steam
- Capacity: 2.0L
- Power: 600W
- Voltage: 220V~ (Works in New Zealand that have specifications of 230V 50Hz)
- Frequency: 50Hz
- External Diameter: h: 239mm, w:180mm x 164mm
- Weight: ~900grams
Accessories
- Main Lunchbox Container – SUS304 Stainless Steel Height: 88mm, Diameter: 148mm 1L capacity
- Small Container – SUS304 Stainless Steel, Height: 38mm, Diameter: 11mm
- Vegetable Dish – SUS304 Stainless Steel, Height: 48mm, Diameter: 148mm
- Egg Tray – SUS304 Stainless Steel
- Measuring Cup – PP Plastic 80ml
- Container Lid x 2
- Container Lid Vacuum Pump
- Power Cord: AU plug Length: ~800mm
- Bear 小熊 Bag
Features
- Preset feature. Up to 9.5 hours
- Ability to manually turn on warm mode
- Time remaining display
- Programmed cooking times: 20 mins, 1 hour 30mins, 2 hours
- Manually set cooking time with adjusting one of the programmed cooking functions
Programmed Cooking Functions
蒸饭 Cook Rice – 20 minutes
- Press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button once.
- Press Set Time ‘定时’ button to increase cooking time 10 minutes at a time. Goes up to 20 minutes then returns to 20 minutes cooking time. Cooking begins.
- To cancel everything and go to OFF state, wait until the red indicator under Cook Rice ‘蒸饭’ cooking function stops blinking then press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button once.
煮粥 Cook Porridge – 1 hour 30 minutes
- Press Function|Cancel button ‘功能|取消’ two times.
- Press Set Time ‘定时’ button to increase cooking time 10 minutes at a time. Goes up to 2 hours then returns to 50 minutes cooking time. Cooking begins.
- To cancel everything and go to OFF state, wait until the red indicator under Cook Porridge ‘煮粥’ cooking function stops blinking then press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button once.
热饭 Heat Food – 20 minutes
- Press Function|Cancel button ‘功能|取消’ three times.
- Press Set Time ‘定时’ button to increase cooking time 10 minute at a time. Goes up to 20 minutes then returns to 20 minutes cooking time. Cooking begins.
- To cancel everything and go to OFF state, wait until the red indicator under Heat Food ‘热饭’ cooking function stops blinking then press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button once.
火锅 Hotpot – 2 hours
- Press Function|Cancel button ‘功能|取消’ four times.
- Press Set Time ‘定时’ button to increase cooking time 10 minutes at a time. Goes up to 4 hours then returns to 1 hour cooking time. Press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button to confirm cooking time.
- To cancel everything and go to OFF state, wait until the red indicator under Hotpot ‘火锅’ cooking function stops blinking then press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button once.
保温 Warm Mode
- Press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button 5 times to start warm mode.
- To cancel everything and go to OFF state, wait until the red indicator under Warm ‘保温’ mode stops blinking then press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button.
预约 Preset Timer
- Press Function ‘功能|取消’ button once. This will turn the electric lunchbox onto the Cook Rice ‘蒸饭’ function.
- Get the electric lunchbox to OFF state. You can do this in two ways: 1. Press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button once AFTER the red indicator has stopped blinking under the Cook Rice ‘蒸饭’ cooking function to bring the electric lunchbox to OFF state. OR 2. Press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button five times to bring the electric lunchbox to the OFF state.
- Press Preset Timer ‘预约’ once.
- Press Set Time ‘定时’ button to increase timer 30 minutes at a time. Minimum preset time is 30 minutes. Goes up to 9 hours 30 minutes.
- Press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button to select cooking function.
- The electric lunchbox will begin counting down to when it begins cooking.
- To cancel everything and go to OFF state, wait until the red indicator under the cooking function you have selected stops blinking then Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button once.
功率 Power
Pressing Power ‘功率’ button allows you to change the power strength to use to cook. Minimum power is 100 watt. Maximum is 600 watt.
- Press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button to select cooking function.
- Press Power ‘功率’ button to select power strength.
- Press Function|Cancel ‘功能|取消’ button to cancel everything to get electric lunchbox to OFF state.
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