Hello Asean Hive Community
More than two weeks ago, I wrote a post about having eggs for your lunch because of difficulty, especially the financial issue. Here my post about that:
https://inleo.io/@dewabrata/i-am-run-out-of-money-must-go-with-egg-ket
That post gave me a question about the dish... Should It be an egg as the main dish? Could we get other than egg?
I don't know how this go in your place, however I believe in South East Asia, regardless which country you are, Indonesia, Malaysia, Filipina, and others, in general we have same ancient concept of food. It has to have RICE, then one main dish, a mini dish or side dish, then a vegetable. That what we have to have in our plate.
So the cheapest one should be egg. But if the question is that only egg that passed this price limit? Absolutely not, but you must break that ancient concept first.
Today in this post I will share you again what I have got for my lunch. I often do $1 lunch saga. This is a habit I have when I have difficulty with my wallet content LoL however this is what I have got after a long years of grinding... being stingy, economical, and thrifty... I hate to say frugal because recently I overheard a gen Z dude bragging about being frugal in some cafetaria, as if it is a financial achievemnt.
So let me share you two of my lunch that could fit in the one dollar concept here. For your reference, a regular lunch usually cost me 1.5 USD to 2 USD. So I can say it is not that easy to eat at $1 for long days, usually people give up after a few days.
THE FREE CHICKEN HEAD
This is my first sharing, a chili sauce fish. The regular version for this dish should cost you more than two dollars. However it is not me if I do not cheat the price!!!
Oh ya before I forget, there is no cheap stuff with extra chili sauce, whether it is red chili sauce or green chili sauce. In this this, I do not make any mistake with the chili sauce, however there is a big mistake in this dish.
I have this kerupuk ikan, or a fish cracker. This food is very enjoyful, you feel happy when bitting this one, the sound and vibration from it cracking in your mouth gives you so much relief.
However this is a comfort food not a cheap one. This one rounded cracker costs me 2000 rupiah, or around 0.15 USD. This is a great mood booster but not a great food if we see the nutrient in it.
The reason I order this one because my last order doesn't sum up to a dollar, so I add this one as my reward LoL
This is the fish in red chili paste. I have to tell you about this, I haven't eaten any part of this fish, and as you might guess... The fish is sold in half.
Some place sell this kind of food, whether it is a fish or chicken, in balado style (thick chili paste) to cover up something. Mostlikely the food was an unsold one, not a leftover, but sometime they fried 4-5 fishes but only 2-3 fishes got sold, so they have to recook those unsold in different form or recipe.
This fish is sold cheaper because it is actually a half mackerel fish. Less than a half, because I see no bones and head LoL. Maybe they took the fish head, deep fried it, and ate if for themselves.
I order this soup, mix within the rice. This is actually a hack, or a cheat that only some bastard like me love to do it. The price for soup is different, if you order in different bowl, you will be charged but if you ask for ramesan, or it means you just ask it to be mix with your rice, it will be free of charge.
Then this chicken head, which is @deraaa favorite, is a free too, because it is part of the soup. But you have to be blunt, ask for it. Usually in a soup you will see a chicken head and chicken feet. They are not sold separately, they are part of the soup. Ask for it!!
They can not sell it separately, so either you get it for free or get rejected.
DOUBLE SIDE DISH
Ok now the second lunch I am sharing here. I use the method of ordering double side dish, and one of them have to be a vegetable.
The vegetable I order was a cap cay, a stir fried vegetable in chinese style. Please don't ask how it taste, because a rice hut won't make a good cap cay. They just mix all those veggie and put some seasoning so they become editable.
The real side dish I order is this, stir fried salted fish. They are small salted fishes that is sold as side dish with a cheap price. Actually normal person won't eat this as their main dish, they just can't... It is salty, really salty and people like @shanibeer who have problem with high blood presure, eating this salted fish is actually a valid suicidal move. You need no poison to kill yourself, just eat it.
When you order a side dish with a vegetable, the server usually can figure it out... This guy / girl have a monetary issue. So the next thing they will say usually
Mau nasinya ditambah?
or in english it means
Do you want extra portion of rice?
LoL, not only for the side dish, sometime they offer this if the meal price is hitting the bottom minimum order, which nowadays in Jakarta is around 12.000 Rupiah, or around 0.75 USD.
My order here is exactly on that price 0.75 USD
So this is what I get, a free fritter. They give it for free, even I do not ask it. If I order this meal with that fritter, I will be charged for $1. However I just pretend not knowing it, so I get a $0.25 free fritter, which is a tempeh... Soy cake.
So that's today post for a one dollar lunch saga. Maybe I will make it next month. I am not in top shape, so doing one dollar lunch saga for weeks is not a good move right now.
Ok that's all for today, feel free to drop some comments yo!
Thank you for coming and reading my post. I live in Jakarta, Ex-Capital City of Indonesia. I used to live by making money online, that's why I like being here, on HIVE, and in #PIMP - (Paper In My Pocket) community.
