It was our weekly date night on Thursday and I hastily finished up my last email and sent it out. On Thursdays my husband and I usually try to finish work earlier so that we had more time for our dinner date followed by grocery shopping before we collected our kids from their grandparents.
Even so it was now 5.45pm and I was running late, I shut off my laptop, packed up my items and brisk walked through the office, over the bridge and to the other block in our company where we had parked our car.
Once on the road came the usual question we have every Thursday.
Where do we eat? What to eat?
As it was a weekly date night we tend to try to go places that we usually can’t take the kids, and if one of us were craving a specific food this was the time we would go for it.
My husband suggested ramen and I agreed. I like ramen, the broth, the chewy noodles, but that night I was not feeling much for it.
I was actually thinking about a subway sandwich, a beef burger namely Burger King’s whopper, and I was also of a Japanese style fried mackerel with rice and miso soup. Since my husband wanted ramen, I thought he should get it since he usually gave in to what I wanted.
We drove through traffic and got to the popular ramen restaurant before its peak hour, the restaurant was called Daruma Syokudo Melaka.
We hopped in and got a table, the waitress politely gave us a menu each and I stareted browsing.
The main pages were of course displaying their specialty which were ramens with pork belly with their jammy yolk soft-boiled eggs and you get to select our broth flavors, which my husband went with black garlic. I’ve had their ramen before and it was good, usually I would go for the yuzu fish flavour just to have a different option from my husband.
But I continued browsing that night and nearing the back I saw bento sets and the a rice set Japanese braised pork belly called pork kakuni set with miso soup, ajitama egg and salad, and my craving set in.
“I want to order this” i said to my husband and he wa surprised.
He had assumed I wanted ramen as well, being that I hadn’t said anything earlier.
“Are you sure? I didnt know you wantead rice instead”
I confirmed my decision and we proceeded to order.
My husband swapped his ramen to me mid way of our meal for me to try his and though I agree it tasted very good, I still preferred my bento rice set instead. I had enjoyed my dinner though I wasn’t eating the restaurants main best sellers.
What does this mean for us?
Many a times when we bring a family or friend out for a meal, or make a cake for them or even gifting presents for birthdays or Christmases, the most expensive or popular choices may not be what they enjoy the most.
Because people have individual tastes and have their own own specific preferences, and they will crave for these types of food.
Of course they won’t deny the food tastes good, but sometimes we just want to have our comfort meal or the type of food we grew up enjoying.
Sometimes I want a streetside dessert here in Malaysia called the humble putu piring which is a steamed rice cake filled with melted palm sugar instead of creme brule or haagen dazs ice cream, which I do not deny both are really good as well.
So with this in mind we may know how to manage expectations when gifting or taking someone you love out for a meal, instead of getting offended when they prefer something simpler or totally different, despite the cost of the meal.
We ended the night going shopping and then dropped by a Korean convenience store for ice cream, for which I got my regular vanilla flavored cone ice-cream from Walls.
And we went to my in-laws after to get the kids, who all have their own personalities and preferences as well despite growing up in the same family.