Our Mini Rice Cooker Made Our Lunch Much More Pleasant

I don’t like eating cold dishes. It feels uncomfortable filling my empty stomach with cold food. That’s why I hate lunch. My family brings food to work, and when it’s time to eat, my appetite is gone with just the first bite. I tend to eat less during lunch. Most of the time, we’ll just buy our lunch outside. But it hurts our pockets and the food gets cold before the clock strikes 12 anyway.

My mom had been thinking of buying a small microwave or a stove for the office. The problem is, we don’t have much space in the office. As a result, our lunch had always been unpleasant. It’s like our food had been taken out right from the fridge.

During one of our trips to Hong Kong, my dad decided to buy a mini rice cooker. We have a habit of buying frozen dimsum at the nearby supermarket and eat it for breakfast/snack at the hotel. My dad would place the dimsum in a container and pour hot water over it to cook it. The outcome isn’t great, but still edible nonetheless. According to Dad, with the mini rice cooker, it would make our “cooking” a lot easier. The three of us (mom, my sister and myself) were hesitant to buy it. Okay, that’s my dad. He has a bad reputation at home. He tends to buy things that he ends up not needing. We went to Fortress anyway and searched for the cheapest mini rice cooker. We headed back to our hotel with the brand called Novel, which costs HK$159 (approximately Php890).

our mini rice cooker

some of the cheap xiao long bao that we bought from Hong Kong

Dad was happy with his new rice cooker. However, when we got back to Manila, he left his prized rice cooker in the corner of the living room. I had a feeling that he would forget all about it in a few months.

It’s been more than a year since we’ve bought that mini rice cooker. December is coming and the temperature is starting to drop (meaning much colder lunch). Dad suddenly remembered about his treasure. Why haven’t we thought about using that to heat our food? So we brought it to the office yesterday and everyone was so happy. For the first time in years, I could see steam coming out from my lunch. It was a pleasant feeling and everyone had a smile on his face. Except for my sister, who didn’t like our lunch that day.