Home Made vs Dine Out: Indonesian Fried Rice

HOME MADE

- Fully customizable (such as: everything from your sauce rack- 1 dash each, vegetarianize/meat-loverize it, eat it with potato chips, doritos or cheese, or watever you fancy)
- Cost effective (materials & utilities = HK$48 serves 4 = HK$12 per meal)
- Flexible dress code (with face mask on (wrinkle hazard = your own risk), all dolled up, in evening dress/tux, in your undies, all naked, up to you ^_^)
- Carefree table manner (with elbows/feet on the table, using your bare hands, LOL with your mouth full, etc, as long as your current/future in-laws weren't there ^_*)
- Tailor-made Entertainment (play strip mahjong/poker/bridge as you eat, watch TLC/hard core (food) porn shows, watch your better half juggling oranges naked (just don't tell me about this), etc)
- Therapeutic (enjoyment of the cooking/preparation process, devouring the result, seeing your partner enjoying/totally hating the food LOL!)

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DINE OUT @1968 - CAUSEWAY BAY

This particular example is from 1968 (a posh Indonesian restaurant in Causeway Bay district, Hong Kong)
- Non-customizable (the set came with a "warning" that I should not expect anything like fried rice back home in Indonesia, and there's nothing I could do about it)
- Wallet unfriendly (the set costs me more than HK$100, which is more expensive than fried rice sets served in Indonesian 5 star hotels ^_^)
- Dress to impress (in such as posh restaurant, at a trendy district, you're expected to look nothing less than FABULOUS, which by Hong Kong standard means: fully made up, hair done in latest trend, choose an outfit theme , carry not only a monogrammed branded bag-but-preferably the latest hard to get "it" bag. If you got it, this is a good opportunity to flaunt it! ^_*)
- Excellent table manner required (NO, picking your teeth with the sate bamboo skewer stick is NOT ACCEPTABLE! Tracing your dinner date's legs with your toes under the table cloth? That's optional ^_*)
- Surprise Entertainment (eavesdrop your way through the evening, if you're lucky, you might get some investment tips , and yes! it is entertaining to see people cursing at the flavorless fried rice, or pretending to like it, and it'd even more amazing to see people really loving the flavorless fried rice - which I didn't see that night)
- Risk of Emotional Damages (caused by seeing the total amount on the bill, recurring nightmares of flavorless fried rice, haunted by repeated appearances of shrimp crackers in every dish throughout the meal, the disappointment of Indonesian food representation, etc)

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My Home Made Fried Rice
Recipe

The Cucumber Pickles
- 2 small cucumbers/1 big one, cut into 5mm slices
- 1 small red chilli, thinly sliced
- 1 small clove of shallot, thinly sliced
- vinegar
- sugar
- salt
- some water
mix everything in a bowl, adjust taste to suit your palate, let it rest in the fridge, preferably overnight, serve cold...very very refreshing for summer

Skewerless Sate Ayam Kecap Manis (Skewerless Chicken Sate with Sweet Soy Sauce)
(recipe in my next post)

My Version of Fried Rice
- 2 cups of rice, rested overnight in the fridge
- 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 6 cloves of shallot, finely chopped
- 3 small red chilli, remove seeds and core, thinly sliced
- half pound shrimps, deveined, marinate in lime juice, salt and pepper
- salt, sugar, pepper, kecap manis, ketchup, soy sauce, dark soy sauce
- olive oil/butter
- 1 or 2 egg/s
Saute shrimps until pink and curled, set aside, saute garlic, shallot and chilli, add rice, crack eggs on the side, mix about, add sauces, add shrimps, serve with fried shallots, emping crackers, chicken sate on the side

I had to eat a lot of this to repair my emotional damages