What did you cook or eat today (May 2025)?

Last night, we went out on the spur of the moment and ended up at a new “family restaurant” (I included “dreaded” in another post) - you know the places…hard concrete floors, exposed ducts in the mile-high ceilings, 27 televisions all around, metal chairs (because nothing is quite as soothing as metal chair legs scraping against concrete floors in a space designed to be an echo chamber), and plastic menus with pics of food.

Had we not already found our usual place packed to the rafters with a 90-minute wait, we’d have never set foot in this place.

I ordered a chef’s salad (which means different things in different places), MrsT ordered a cheese-topped grilled chicken breast atop some buttered rice, broccoli on the side, and we finished with blackberry cobbler and ice cream.

I have to say…everything was excellent. The salad was very fresh - salads in places like that are usually made well ahead of time (and frequently from bagged components that were prepped two weeks ago), and stored wrapped in a refrigerated case, so the lettuce will be tinged in brown, and everything will be ice cold.

Not this one, it was perfect, and nothing f was skimped - loads of ham and turkey, loads of Swiss and American cheeses, several slices of raw onion and a boatload of cherry tomatoes, and two (as in four halves) hard-boiled eggs, and not overcooked with that nasty green around the yolk one usually finds in these places.

MrsT said her rice was among the best she’s ever had, and the chicken was very moist and tender.

On top of that, I reported that neither of us liked our beers. MrsT managed about 1/4 of hers, I had half, and partway through the meal, she asked our server to just take them away, we weren’t going to drink them.

The server asked if we wanted anything else in their place, and we said no, we’d do with our waters, and that was enough.

Well…not only did she take the beers off the tab (that’s unusual, because it wasn’t that anything was wrong with them, they just weren’t to our taste…and I’d had half of mine), she comped us the dessert as well.

That left us quite surprised, to say the least. Service and food quality was far and away above the norm for that sort of place.

…still won’t go back, though - too freaking noisy! 😆
 
Simple Roast Chicken:


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badjak said:
There are many different ways.
It's essentially a left over dish.

Just a couple things:
Make sure your rice is cold and pref a bit dried out
Don't use "soft" veges like tomatoes.
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What kind of rice? I've got regular long grain white, basmati, jasmine, sushi, brown, black, and red.
 
badjak said:
Long grain.
Basmati works, regular will work.
Unpolished rice works (brown, whole grain?)
I normally use jasmine (pandan) rice.

Red rice - yes, no experience with
Sushi - no
Sticky rice - no
Black rice - no idea
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Thank you. I haven't fixed any jasmine lately so I'll go for that.
 
A bit of a catch up as my son came home to celebrate the end of his first week in his new job and it was hectic so sorry theres no pics.
Amongst other things - Smoked char Sui pork and noodle mango salad, Sweetcorn, coconut and chilli soup with black sesame chicken, Lobster Thermidor (eventually got that together) with some very crispy chips (bit pleased with myself on that one) and finally a King Prawn Korma, rice and my favourite bhindi bhaji (much easier to do now I’ve discovered Morrisons sells it frozen and chopped.
 
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