凹

What?

Think nigiri but with a small bite of a Chinese dish such as xihongshi chao jidan (tomatoes fried with eggs) or hongshao qiezi (braised eggplant) instead of raw fish and long grain white rice or jasmine rice instead of vinegared medium grain white rice, known as sushi rice. Maybe a better analogy for the size and shape would be a mini quiche with the Chinese dish instead of the filling and rice instead of the pastry crust. The steamed rice is formed into small bites that hold just a spoonful or chopstickful of any family-style Chinese dish that is traditionally eaten with rice. Is this a Chinese-Japanese fusion food, a new dim sum option, or just a deconstructed zongzi (glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves)?

This idea takes inspiration from zongzi, gua bao, nigiri, mini quiches, crackers and cheeses, and even chips and dips.

Why? 

It's impactful for cultural diffusion. Customers of Chinese restaurants often face the difficulty of picking which dishes to order (especially when eating with few people) as there are so many options to choose from. Most will resort to picking the same dishes over and over again. The availability of a bite-sized sampler, omakase style (chef's choice), will allow customers to taste a variety of foods and for a chef to introduce delicious dishes that one may not be brave enough to venture into without forcing on a commitment of an entire dish. Customers can then decide which dishes they would like to order. This can be done without individually making each bite of food, but rather just taking a piece of an already cooked dish and placing it in a bite of rice. This can even allow for traditionally family-style Chinese foods to be served as finger foods at dinner parties. 

It's unchanging in its tradition. The innovation or change is not in how the food is made or even how customer would consume it but in how it is served. Instead of the customer taking a spoonful or chopstickful of a dish and eating it with a bite of rice, it is simply served that way. This isn't some non-traditional play on food that takes the soup out of pho or ramen and sticks it in a burrito; it respects how the dishes were meant to be made and taste. 

BUT WHAT IF people didn't normally eat their dishes with rice? (Currently investigating). 

It's helpful in food waste reduction. Chinese restaurants will often have leftovers of popular dishes in the kitchen after completing the orders of customers. Rather than saving the food for eating later or throwing it out, it can be turned into a fresh dish of its own.

It's trendy and profitable. Food media is captive to the trends of foods deviating away from traditional sizes either being unusually large (a rather wasteful direction) or unusually small (being bite sized and shareable in the Western sense of food). It is also something that one can grab to-go. As there is well known occurrence of this in media, it is not unlikely that this is something that could be picked up and popularized with good marketing. The creation of a Chinese dish rice bite is incredibly cheap (possibly negligible considering that it consists of forming a rice bite and putting a bit of an already made dish into it) with potential for a high profit margin.

This should only be made at a restaurant that is already serving family style dishes and there should never be a food establishment thats sole purpose is to serve rice bites. The focus should be on the authenticity and quality of the dish inside the rice bites rather than the rice bite itself. Existing restaurants should adopt and investigate the concept of the Chinese dish rice bite to examine its popularity, profitability, and impact in waste reduction.

How it's made:

• Ingredients: Cooked traditional Family-Style Chinese Dishes and Steamed long grain white Rice or jasmine rice

• Cooking technique:

1. Take an appropriate amount of steamed rice (Or other kinds of rice such as guo ba) and shape it into a miniature bite with enough structural integrity (This can take any shape or form whether it be mini rice tacos, rice sliders, rice bread, etc)

2. Perhaps sear the base and sides in oil to provide more structural integrity and give it a crispy outer layer 

3. place a spoonful or chopstickful of a Chinese Dish into it

Dimensions of each bite 

How it's served:

• Temperature: The temperature of the dish should reflect its traditional serving temperature whether it be hot or cold and the temperature of the rice should reflect its temperature inside its normal serving bowl

• Plating: The rice bites can be plated nigiri style on a flat rectangular plate, in a dim Sum Steamer Basket or Round plate, or any shape/material for that matter

How it's eaten:

• Utensils: Pick it up with any utensil or just hand and eat it in one bite