'Chinese Restaurant' Rice.
We eat Japanese rice at home for obvious reasons.
And I’ve even mastered cooking Japanese rice on the claypot.
Yet, whenever we go to Dainty, Pacific House or any semi-decent restaurant, that Jasmine rice mixed with the leftover sauce of steamed fish, chilli oil from 蒜泥白肉 (grated garlic and chilli sliced pork belly), the residue marks of fried eggplants … it’s like slipping into a pair of new sneakers that you’ve been wearing since young.
Of course, I’ve tried cooking Jasmine rice, but I never got it right.
I made an excuse - restaurants have giant rice cookers, that’s why.
And that’s it.
My sister-in-law’s parents were so kind, that they wanted to share a meal with us. That’s three degrees of separation.
I don’t know if I will care about my daughter’s partner’s brother in the future.
Anyway, we started talking about Japanese rice for obvious reasons, and the mother mentioned that restaurants mix their rice.
Yea, I mean, Michelin sushi restaurants do that too, I know.
Their own secret combination of Koshihikari, Akitacomachi, Sasanishiki, Hitomebore etc.
Old rice and new rice, etc.
But, Vietnamese rice and Thai rice?
Oh wow.
I’ve never thought of that.
So I went online that night.
Granted, it is a recipe for claypot rice, and he never mentioned ‘Chinese restaurant’, but you know it makes sense.
And given my household’s tastebud, I may not get to experiment myself.
The point is Chinese restaurants also experiment, develop and improve for the best taste over the years.
It’s like being around for thousands of years gives you random things like wisdom or experience or something.
All the cookbooks, online recipes, TV cooking shows, Instagram stories, and reels, are not as informative as a dinner with my brother’s wife’s parents.
A real human interaction.