It's Not What You Cook; It's How You Cook It.

We never 'clean' anything, we simply transfer dirt from one place to another; one form to another.

Even your therapists engage their own therapists to vent and dump society's deepest, darkest filth.

Pain, never really goes away.

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One of the best reviews I've heard of Matsu is from my personal trainer Robyn that we are not only tasting Han's cooking, but also his youth, the missed weekends, the loneliness of his partner and dog, the anxiety of ROI, the weight he’s lost, his pound of flesh.

All that, is in his kaiseki menu, and suddenly, the $210 price tag seems a little too low.

Compared to some venture capitalists who paid for stock shots and advertising and multi-million dollar fit-out, rocking a European car and minimum wage employees in uniforms, only to declare bankruptcy, or an Indonesian tycoon running a cafe in his supercar garage as a tax write-off, we prefer to see the chef's children sitting in the counter doing homework, partner with a baby on her back.

For some twisted reason, we think the restaurant's food will be more authentic, handmade, flavourful if we could taste the suffering, the sacrifice, the dream for a greener green.

The sixth taste, after umami, is Schadenfreude.

Show us the effort, and it better be blood, sweat and tears.

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I don't need a wooden mask or a bamboo tissue paper box.
My souvenir from Jakarta, is the will to make nasi goreng.

The difference between nasi goreng and normal fried rice is the rempah (spice) and kecap manis (sweet soy). The spice makes it foreign, the sweet soy gives that sticky texture we can’t find in Chinese fried rice.

If you search online, all the recipes will say it's easy. Go to the supermarket¹, buy sambal oelek and ABC kecap manis. And if you've made any of those recipes, you'd know something is always missing.

It's not the same nasi goreng you had in Bali, or Langkawi, or Jakarta.

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The wife walked out to me crying in the kitchen.

There's renovation happening from next door. The neighbours had moved out, and I was being sentimental that the landlord was making arrangements for the next tenants.

Nay, the pounding was from a pestle and mortar, and my tears are from the fumes of shallots, bird's eye chili, garlic, palm sugar and belachan.

Which would you order from a menu - nasi goreng made with factory made sambal or nasi goreng with hand-pounded rempah?

Sure I can blitz it in the food processor, but we all know a blatant insult in the face works differently from years of passive-aggressive ‘ when will you stop disappointing our family’ jabs.

The constant grind against the stone, mixed with the air, the bluntness of it, combined with my tears, is the missing piece of this homemade nasi goreng.

Even my wife was intrigued by my ‘traditional’ rempah.

Thirty minutes and a sore wrist later, and all I have is a small jar of sambal terasi.

Cook the rempah / sambal until fragrant, add protein, vegetables, cooked rice, season with soy sauce and kecap manis.

Maggi seasoning sauce, fish sauce, MSG … all good.

To make it a nasi goreng istimewa (special) is the addition of sunny side up, prawn crackers, satay and a piece of fried chicken. The crackers are stand-in for texture, to replace pork crackling for the muslims.

If you did not cup and eat the fried rice in the cracker like a sang choy bao, did you even nasi goreng?

Once again, additional effort, sacrifice and pain.

Like the handwriting of my primary school crush, whenever I add an upward tail to the lowercase 'a', or pound my own rempah, I will think of happier times.

1. Anyone else noticed that 80% of recipetineats ingredients have an ‘all available from Woolworths!’ call to action? Is this a corporate-run food blog, or just my own jealousy talking?