Somehow, I can't bring myself to eat other things.
I think I'm unnecessarily anal about this. Somehow, subconsciously, when I walk around the food court or hawker center, I will look at the other stalls and mentally deconstruct the ingredients for the stuff they sell.
So for example, when I look at the wanton mee stall, I will think, noodles, same as rice, means I only get a bit of charsiew meat and 3 small wantons. Price $3.50.
Might as well eat economic rice, rice + meat + side + vege, $3.20.
How about bachormee, hmmm... Same as wanton mee, some noodles, equivalent to rice, some minced meat, small bits of mushroom and other assorted stuff, total non-carb ingredients are almost half of what I get for economic rice.
Then there's nasi briyani, absolutely not worth it. Almost same ingredients as economic rice, but at $6
There's also those soup stalls, where they sell soup with a bowl of rice. Just as bad in value, the ingredients in the bowl of soup are so little... So I go back to my trusty old economic rice...
The list goes on...
Every once in a while, I might be lucky and there's a Pepper Lunch. Somehow Pepper Lunch strikes to me as a fair value. I can't get beef slices, beef patty or steak easily at food courts or restaurants at the prices offered by Pepper Lunch, so I tend to select that stall often if available.
But more often, I tend to just stick with economic rice.
Somehow, my brain works out this "value" which I have set for myself and rejects the other options available. My wife finds this annoying, although I don't really bother about what she orders, but rather she thinks it's annoying cos "it's only 5 bucks!!! Just order the food you feel like eating. Why are you thinking so much!"
I've been trying to overcome this weakness. I find it a weakness. Cos when I think about it more rationally, it's just nitpicking. It really is just a couple of bucks. If I keep doing this, I will be eating the same food day in day out. I don't mind, but I think that makes me have less of an a overall life experience. Cos I think life is about variety and new experiences along with having a good balance with regards to cost. So by me overanalyzing a simple food decision, it makes me have less food experiences, although the cost isn't exorbitantly high, so I believe that I should try to control my urge to overthink the value of these simple food decisions.
The thing about it is that usually these small decisions are indicative hints to how you live your life as a whole. So if I'm frivolous with the small things, there's a high chance that I could be also frivolous with the larger things and vice versa.
This bad habit of mine also appears when I'm overseas. And THIS affects my wife, cos it determines which place we go and eat at. So she may want to try some famous interesting place, and I might say, but it's only some meat with rice, "why are we paying so much of a premium for it? We can find that at XYZ."
Anyway I'm working on it. Although I am very curious if this kind of thinking is just me... I do wonder if it is a guy thing or a frugal thing or is it just a personal thing. Would girls also have such thinking? I tend to find that females tend to be more ok to spend a bit more on their food to get a range of different flavours.
Would very much appreciate if readers would comment about this below so I can find out if it is a ME problem or that I'm not alone and there are others who think like me.
Thank you very much!
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