What Do You Eat When There's Nobody Cooking For You?

It has been almost a week since my wife and kid left for Malaysia. I am home alone again for 2 weeks here in Palembang before joining them. We have been living without a maid for more than 1 month and my wife has been cooking all my meals before she left for Malaysia.

After my wife's departure, I have been buying "nasi bungkus" (packaged rice). The people who do not bring their own food to work normally order these nasi bungkus. The rice normally comes with nangka fruit (as vegetables), curry and either fish, beef or chicken. They are being delivered via motorbikes to the work place. Each pack costs about Rp8,000 (RM2.80). Not very nutritious but it still fills up a person because of the abundance of the rice.

The photos of these nasi ayam (chicken rice, left) and nasi daging (beef) do not look very appealing because they all look brown and dirty.

After a few days of nasi bungkus, I decided to try a local caterer recommended from a friend. The following photos show the dishes that they served. I had to pay Rp33,000 (RM11.50) per day for 3 dishes (actually 2 dishes with 1 soup). I normally eat half of it for lunch and keep half of it for dinner.

So far, I had chicken+veg with black fungus+corn soup and beef+eggs+chicken soup. The food is definitely better compared to nasi bungkus. The downside to catering is you don't get to choose the type of food you get but the mystery of guessing what is for lunch creates excitement at noon.

Lunch and dinner is pretty much settled for me everyday but breakfast is still pretty boring. We have been having oats for breakfast almost everyday in Palembang. For me, I have had oats since I was young and I hated it. My wife also hated it but it is still the most nutritious food for breakfast in Palembang. We have been trying many ways to make eating oats more pleasant. When we came back from Malaysia during Chinese New Year in Jan'09, we brought back some pork floss to eat with our oats. Our friends also gave us some and it lasted only until Mar'09. After that we have been trying oats with egg & maggi seasoning (see picture below).

I tried to cook something different for breakfast. Found some eggs, tomatos and ladies fingers (left overs), therefore I cooked them up and it looked like this....





It did not taste that good, so I guess tomorrow I will have to buy some nasi uduk (nasi lemak or coconut rice) for breakfast!