Hello Hivians
In general, other than Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, I don't think Asean Country are rich and advance. Those two are advance in term of having high GDP per capita, having modern infrastructure in their cities and a stable government.
However the rest... let say Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and the rest are still developing countries. It is not like I want to underestimate ourselves or have low self esteem, let's be frank here... Income Inequality, corruption, rural poverty and many other developing country's problems exist everywhere.
I do not like politics, so I prefer to share this from different point of view, let say food. I love to eat good food, dine in or take away, fancy fine dining or just a streetfood hawkers... All are good for me.
CHEAP VS EXPENSIVE GADO GADO
I like gado gado a lot. It is a traditional Indonesian Salad dish. Basically it is a mix boiled vegetables, with some peanut dressing. There are some condiments and side dish that come with, and each outlet, vendor, or cooks have their own recipe. Let say they have their own trademark there LoL
A few weeks ago I had a great gado gado in a famous restaurant. It is not a luxurious restaurant, so I can not say this is a fine dining at all. Just an ordinary food in some restaurant.
You can see my order above, it was a set of gado gado with a nice warm tea. The presentation was nice, except the table was a bit disarray regarding it was during a meeting with several people.
I like the taste and I like the restaurant ambience, however their menu is a bit pricey. My order costed me around 4 USD, which was actually not very expensive but definitely not cheap at all.
I recall I had a Gado Gado for 6-7 USD before, in some four stars or five stars hotel. It was a fine dining, and I came there as part of company representation.
Now let's compare with the normal Gado Gado I used to have. This foto is taken from the closest and most frequently bought Gado Gado by me. I think I have posted it before in my weekly Taco-Tuesdays post when FreeCompliment was still around on HIVE.
This one costed me less than 1.3 USD, almost a third of the previous gado gado. Of course the dish came with a lot more simple than the restaurant one, they used common boiled egg with was easy to serve, not sunny side up. Both of them gave crackers, of course the taste better on the restaurant. And many more difference.
For me, both are ok, whether I go with the more pricey one or the cheap one. I am a picky eater but not that picky. Maybe due to being stingy, I can tolerate the cheaper version lol.
The reason I pick this point of view is because in the past I had some colleagues from Europe and they did not realize the price gap or the living cost could be very vary here in Asean country. With the same amount of money, let say monthly budget, you can live as a low paid expat here, or you can try to live like a king in a local community.
That's for today, I hope you who haven't tried Gado-gado, will give a shot soon. It tastes great!!! have a good day and God Bless You All!
Thank you for coming and reading my post. I live in Jakarta, Ex-Capital City of Indonesia. Currently I am running a small business with 5 people. I used to live by making money online, that's why I like being here, on HIVE, and in #PIMP - (Paper In My Pocket) community.
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