Economy rice or economic rice () is a type of food or food stall serving many dishes accompanied by rice, commonly found in

hawker centre A hawker centre or cooked food centre is an open-air complex commonly found in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. They were built to provide a more sanitary alternative to mobile hawker carts and contain many stalls that sell different variet ...

street vendors A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with costermonger or peddler. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive goods, handicrafts, or food items. Whether statio ...

food courts A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. In Singapore, it is commonly known as cai png, from the

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

zh, s=菜饭, poj=chhài-pn̄g, p=cài fàn, labels=no. Economy rice stalls typically consist of a case containing anywhere from 10-15 troughs of cooked food, including meat, vegetables, eggs and

tofu Tofu (), also known as bean curd in English, is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness; it can be ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', ''extra firm'' or ''super f ...

dishes. Customers select any combination of these dishes, which are served accompanied by a portion of steamed white rice. In Singapore, it is more common to find the food on open troughs kept warm by hot water and an electric heater below.

Origins

Economy rice is thought of as a predominantly Chinese food; it is roughly analogous to the Malay or Indonesian concept of

nasi padang Nasi padang, sometimes referred to as Padang rice, is a Minangkabau dish of steamed rice served with various choices of pre-cooked dishes originating from West Sumatra, Indonesia. It is named after the city of Padang, capital of the West Sumat ...

or nasi campur ( mixed rice). It is what most Chinese Malaysians and Singaporeans think of when they refer to "home-cooked" food, as it is similar to what would be eaten at home, with rice forming the basis of the meal, accompanied by various cooked dishes. Thus, there is no specific origin for the dish; instead it blends dishes and ingredients from the region they are cooked in. Economy rice stalls thus evolved as a way for the general public to obtain a quick, and most importantly, cheap meal option outside of home. An economy rice meal is usually one of the cheapest options available for a meal at a hawker centre (hence its name), especially if one is judicious in choosing the less expensive dishes (generally vegetables and tofu).

Common dishes

Common dishes offered at an economy rice stall can include sweet and sour pork, braised tofu, braised cabbage, steamed egg custard, stir-fried Chinese vegetables, fried eggs, and an assortment of deep-fried items. True to its Chinese origins, most of the dishes on offer tend to have their roots in Chinese cuisine.

Other names

Economy rice is known by several other names, and in general conversation it is rare for anyone to refer to it as such, even though many stalls tend to proclaim "Economy rice" on their signboards. Other names for economy rice include jaahp faahn () in

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...

or tsa̍p-tshài-pn̄g () in

and, colloquially, "point-point rice", named for the method of ordering one's meal which involves simply asking for a plate of rice and then pointing at the various dishes desired. Due to most people not knowing the chinese names of the dishes

Similar cultures in other places

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

, there is a kind of similar dish known as "two dishes with rice" (), or may also be humorously translated as "this this rice" (referring to the action of pointing at the troughs with dishes when ordering), and its name may vary with the number of dishes included in a set. Due to its low price, "two dishes with rice" has gained increasing popularity, particularly among the grassroot citizens of Hong Kong in the economic recession due to

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. Before the pandemic, this kind of dish has also been already popular in university and staff canteens.

References

{{Malaysian cuisine Singaporean cuisine