Many will struggle without mixed rice. Yes, that's right.
Let me introduce to you what mixed rice is. Mixed rice is a selection of many chinese style dishes usually laid out on rectangular long tables for one to choose and consumed with a plate of white rice. Although it is getting harder to find nowadays in Malaysia but it still exists. You can find it in specific restaurants that offer mixed rice as one of the stalls or a restaurant that only sells mixed rice. It can be for dining-in or take away.
Mixed rice is almost like a comtemporary buffet you can find today. With so many dishes, you can choose as many dishes as you wish just like a buffet dining. The difference is a buffet usually charge a fixed price and you can eat as much as you can but mixed rice will be charged according to the amount and type of dishes you put on your plate of white rice.
In the photos you can see many dishes like tomato sardine, curry pork, vegetable with garlic, spinach, fried chicken, salted vegetables and others. Different restaurants offer different dishes. This business has evolved so much to the extend that mixed rice business owners will no longer have to cook the dishes themselves. There are some central kitchens that cook the dishes and sell it to these restaurants. The restaurants owner just need to sell it to diners.
How much roughly is a plate of mixed rice? As mentioned, it all depends on the amount and type of dishes you choose. Vegetables is cheaper. Meat is more expensive. The price of white rice is fixed at roughly USD0.10 to USD0.25 per plate. All in, it ranges typically from USD1.00 to USD2.50 per plate of mixed rice, assuming you take 3 dishes. Now you can roughly guess why mixed rice is important to the economy.
Usually mixed rice is served during lunch. Dinner as well but hardly served as breakfast. Mixed rice is hardly treated as breakfast. It is served at lunch to cater for the working class. Why? It is cheap and fast. For an usual 1 hour lunch break, mixed rice is definitely a good choice. You just need to queeu up a while to scoop the dishes you want onto your plate of white rice. Then, show to the restaurant owner and a price will be told for you to take out cash for payment. Mixed rice is also attractive as you don't have to eat the same dishes everyday. You can go to the same shop every working days and choose different dishes without getting bored of it. Many mixed rice restaurants also offer free chinese tea or plain water along with unlimited simple chinese soup to attract more customers.
Due to its cheaper price, many have benefited from mixed rice. From students to blue collar or even white collar workers will find mixed rice an attractive choice for lunch or even for dinner. A typical lunch in bigger cities will easily cost you USD2.00 to USD5.00. It is also a good choice for those that lazy to cook or eating alone. It is definitely more expensive to cook if you are eating alone, economies of scale. It is harder to cook many dishes also if you are eating alone. For those who are lazy to cook for the family, they will buy only dishes from the mixed rice restaurants as take away, cook their own rice and dinner is complete.
I was introduced to mixed rice at a very young age. I think I was 10 when I first tried mixed rice. My dad used his 1 hour break time to pick me up from school and had quick mixed rice as lunch before heading home. All in one hour. When I was a teenager, I had mixed rice everyday as lunch after finishing morning tuition before going for afternoon school session. Even in some schools and universities, mixed rice is being served. When I was a college student, mixed rice was also my usual choice for lunch. As an adult, my family used to order 3 dishes daily from a mixed rice caterer during weekdays for dinner as we were too busy to cook. Therefore, to say that many will struggle without mixed rice is definitely not an overstatement. During economy slowdown, you will be able to see more mixed rice restaurants pop up. You can even see it in shopping malls. Mixed rice is cheap and hence its another name, the Economy Rice.
Let us bring you to try out mixed rice with our stories.