How to jazz up rice

A story about China and rice.

I was working in Shanghai in 1998/9. The Project Manager for the client was always complaining about the rice being served after the rest of the meal. My wife was with me at one point and I suggested we take him out for a Thai meal and my wife (whom he knew) would ensure that the rice would be served together with the rest of the meal (the staff were Thai). She dutifully explained this to the staff but guess what?
 
Yorky said:
The next time that I order a khow pad whatever, I'll try to remember to take a picture.
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The Fat Lady is closed for a few days so I got my finger out and made my own. Khow pad khung (prawn fried rice). I forewent the fried egg (actually I forgot!).

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I had this khow pad kai (plain egg fried rice) from the Fat Lady a couple of weeks ago and forgot to post it here.

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My own fried egg.
 
If I am having an Indian curry and wish to have rice with it I cook Madhur's "Aromatic Yellow Rice". Whether this could be considered "jazzing up" I don't know but it's a nice colour.

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I tend to go with adding either black bean or red beans to rice and seasoned with garlic and pepper and everglades seasoning.

Let me tell you about the most boringest rice dish i ever had. So the company i worked at rented a posh venue at a prestigious waterfront hotel for our Christmas party. We were to have dinner catered by this hotel. There were two vegetarians in the group and the hotel was informed of this at the booking. So dinner came and every meat eater was serve a lovely chicken cordon bleu or steak that i was told was very good. And us two vegetarians were served a molded disk of rice(looked like molded in a tuna can) sitting on leaf of lettuce...thats it no seasoning, no sides, no sauces just rather dry white rice in the shape of a tuna can with a leaf of lettuce. My fellow vegetarian looked at me and mouth silently, "what the....?" And i shugged my shoulders. So as any disappointed dinner would do i requested ketchup hoping it would insult the chef.

Two table spoons of a seasoned black bean drizzle would have punched up that rice 10 fold.
 
Green rice, coarsely chop onions, green pepper and/or green chili or 2, even a hot one if you want, a good bit of cilantro, place in a blender with half of the liquid for your rice and process until everything is fine chopped. Pour the liquid into your saucepan and use remaining liquid to rinse out the blender, continue cooking rice as usual. We do this with Latin and Mexican dishes.

Make rice pilaf. I usually chop up onions, celery and mushrooms, saute in a bit of butter, then continue cooking rice as usual, though I generally use chicken broth for at least half of the liquid. You can make pilaf with all kinds of things, nuts, raisins or currants, green/spring onions, colored bell peppers to make confetti rice, etc.

We've made https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/jeweled-rice a couple of times to go with Persian, Moroccan type dishes. I subbed currants for the barberries and the raisins, since I'm not fond of dried cranberries or raisins and couldn't find the barberries locally.
 
oddduck said:
And us two vegetarians were served a molded disk of rice(looked like molded in a tuna can) sitting on leaf of lettuce...thats it no seasoning, no sides, no sauces just rather dry white rice in the shape of a tuna can with a leaf of lettuce.
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I've heard some stories in my time about the dreadful food vegetarians have been served in restaurants but this is the worst I ever heard!
 
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