Home Convenience

It started with our desire to be more frugal. After 6 months of eating out, we began to realise that a supposedly simple dinner at the coffeeshop wasn't as cheap as we had originally envisioned it to be. After doing our sums, we figured out that it was more economical to spend $8 (for 2 pax) on 3 dishes and 1 soup than have zhi char for dinner every other day. Courtesy of a friend who highly recommended Kim's Kitchen, we decided to attempt a 1 week trial of tingkat meals.

Before the week started, we were quite excited at the prospect of having almost homecooked, wholesome, hand delivered meals everyday. In preparation, we bought a spanking new steamer to heat up our food as well as a bag of rice. (Yes, we don't even have rice at home!)

A glimpse of our meals as follows:

Day 1 and 2: shrimp paste chicken, sayur lodeh, ginger sauce chicken, stir fried veggies and very forgettable soups. These were GOOD days for me. *beams*

Depending on who you ask, the verdict for this might differ. Ed is one happy camper while I am slightly less enthusiastic.

Admittedly, the food quality is decent, healthy and the dishes don't 'taste similar' unlike some other horror stories I have heard. However, there are a few hits and misses especially the soups which are really bland and not robust enough.

Have to qualify though, my expectations pertaining to food is quite high. Eating for me has NEVER been functional and I HATE feeling dissatisfied after meals. Moreover, I'm not a huge fan of economical rice (ER) offerings and it is definitely not my first choice of meals. Besides, we are spoilt by my mom's cooking especially the Cantonese-style soups which are not only nourishing but really flavourful. *wistful sighs*

However, we have decided to continue with this service (albeit 3 times a week versus everyday) as it remains a viable and fairly tasty option. And really, who am I to complain if I want some form of home cooking without me having to actually do the work.

P.S In case you were wondering, what I love about zhi char is that it's freshly cooked whereas for tingkat and ER, one can only hope the food remains tasty even after being left aside.