Rice

What better way to start an Asiatrip food blog than the one dish everyone knows us by? Then again, the truth is, I’ve always been ambiguous about rice, especially the fried variety. It’s amazing when made well, but it’s so forgiving. A little greasier is fine, a little dry makes an excellent texture. The hearty little grains expand in water to fill your empty belly to the brim. Fried to a crisp or served plain and steamed, and captivating company to any curry, rice covers any imaginable range of flavors and lends itself to any imaginable use.

Fried rice is evasively elusive and utterly puzzling in its indefinability. The androgynous of Asia, and I don’t mean the lady-boys, every country makes its own version. The Thais add basil and sometimes fruit, the Indonesians add brown sugar, the Chinese add whatever they can find, and the Americans add peas and drown it in a murky river of soy sauce.

I must warn you in advance, my spread of rice is less than impressive, but it is only day 3 of a month-long excursion, and I’m only getting warmed up. I’m bound to update different sections as I go, and rather than bore you with tales of various rices that you can easily type into Wikipedia, I will focus my energy on the more interesting foods I indulge in as I go. The fruit is far more interesting, the noodle dishes are endless, and the seafood in China will be a brave new world. So stay tuned with patience, grasshopper (which I have no intention of eating), my food adventure will unravel if you stay tuned.

Here in Thailand, my first meal was, (surprise!), fried rice. Two completely different kinds, two tastes, both a tasty tidbit to mark the start of my time in Thailand, both much better than you’d dare to expect from a restaurant called Tasty Beer located on Khao San Road, the heart of the backpacker central.

What’s not to love about the over-the-top Pineapple Fried Rice served inside a hollow pineapple? Sweet with a hint of savory soy and brown sugar, this is a delightful standard dish, and the fresh pineapple adds that extra touch of refreshment in this sweltering heat.

Here we have the Green Curry Fried Rice, clearly something new - I’ve yet to see this one in the US. This glowing gem is a bite that bites back with a burn of deep curry-green.

One rice that is like not like the others is sticky rice. These long latex grains stick to each other but never to you. The rice is hard yet moldable and rolls neatly into a flattened ball at your fingertips. Hard but chewy, with inter-riced divots to soak up soups and sauces, sticky rice is the ultimate alternative to crackers or pita bread. So next time you make a hummus, dip some sticky rice – you won’t regret the prep time, I promise.

Another amazing use for sticky rice is the simple Thai dessert of Mango with Sticky Rice. The thick coconut cream travels upstream in the clump of rice, and considering my salmon obsession, who can object to anything that swims upstream? This deep purple rice is absolute heaven when mixed with a yellow vine-ripened mango.

Rice is vague, and the name tells you nothing except that it is first steamed. Rice’s love-hate relationship with me stems from how it defines me. Rice is one of many traits that makes me a terrible Asian. Because somehow, I never learned to make it except to turn on a rice cooker. But I enjoy being undefinable, I revel in not fitting into a neat little box. My inability to make non-homicidal rice is one just part of my defiance of Asian stereotypes that taught me not to judge people by a term, by a name, or by any one feature I consider defining. So next time you order this nondescript dish, look into it. B. cereus, (and pray that oil or heat killed everything cereus), probe the dish and really taste it. Think about what substance it really holds. How spicy? How much soy sauce? Which veggies? Plain or fried? Maybe when you finally piece together what you’re looking for, you may find your perfect rice and maybe even find yourself.