Endoh’s Dungeon

While waiting for my client earlier on, I decided to grab a cup of coffee to cure my caffeine fix. I know fast-food coffee are utterly hopeless, therefore I decided to hit the food court to get myself a better one.

I deserve at least a cup of good coffee for travelling all the way from Woodlands to Singapore Expo specially, isn’t it? And so, I did.

I was checking out the price of coffee and it read Kopi-O $0.90 and Kopi (with milk) $1.00. I ordered my usual dosage of kopi and the auntie gave me a cup within a few minutes. Looking at it, I asked is this kopi or kopi-o? The auntie asked back, “You ordered kopi right?” Of course I said yes. The auntie pointed to the left and said, “The creamer and sugar are all there… help yourself.”

As I walked to an empty table, the more it didn’t make sense to me. If what was served to me ain’t what I want, why am I paying an extra ten cents for it? Moreover, I can take as many sachets of creamer as I like, so does it matter if coffee is charged at a flat price like fast-food restaurants? What’s with that extra ten cents? It’s only ten cents I know.

On a happier note, I am sure some of you come across adults or children who hate rice to the core. My younger niece is one of them. She would rather take instant noodles than rice, because she finds rice bland. Yet, rice is one of the best source of energy and protein. So what can I do for her?

Well, be creative with the rice.

All I needed was some minced prawns, garlic and eggs. My cousin often complains about my niece not taking enough rice, or perhaps in a way too picky about food. It can’t be helped, rice is indeed bland by itself. So one way I “seduce” my niece into eating rice is by adding little ingredients to it, but not too much until it becomes fried rice literally.

Some friends asked, how do I coat the rice with eggs evenly? Well the trick is pretty simple actually. Keep stirring the rice as you pour in the egg. Also, you don’t pour all the eggs at one go. As you stir the rice in your wok, drip in a spoonful bit by bit. That will allow the egg to cook and wrap your rice grains. The end result is a very even “golden rice” which is different from the whitish Yangzhou Fried Rice.

The prawns are the last to go into the wok, because prawns are cooked rather fast. When prawns are cooked for too long, the flesh gets too tough and that certainly don’t taste good in our mouths. If you have a separate dish consisting of prawns, you might also consider using other forms of meat like seafood sticks, or minced luncheon meat.

This was what I made for my niece this afternoon for lunch. She loves it… so a simple thing like this solves her hatred for plain white rice. I might want to try out some cloves next time I do this again. I may experiment with a few other ingredients too.

Remember, if you want a healthy meal out of it, use vegetable oil. I used Olive oil.