Do you find it increasingly difficult to find a nearby Chinese restaurant using "real" rice (rather than the abomination of parboiled rice)?

Asked by Buttonstc (27605) January 21st, 2016 from iPhone

Uncle Ben is the chief example of parboiled rice and I guess a lot of people prefer it or don’t really care which type of rice is used.

My problem with it is that no matter how you cook or reheat it or how much liquid you use, it will NEVER fluff up and be as tender as real rice. You’re just left chewing hard little pellets.

I suppose a case could be made for parboiled rice in certain dishes such as Gumbo where the rice has to hold it’s own against lots of stirring and other ingredients. Mushy rice really gums it up but parboiled stays firm.

But in Asian cooking, the rice is the star as much as any of the other ingredients. So, a tender fluffy consistency is important.

But I’m increasingly finding supposedly “authentic” Chines places using the parboiled rice and it just ruins it for me.

Fried rice, by definition, is already reheated rice and therefore firmer. But when it’s parboiled rice, no matter how much liquid you use to reheat it, NOTHING works to turn those hard little pellets tender.

So why are Chinese restaurants using real rice becoming harder to find. Does everybody else prefer parboiled rice and I’m the only picky one bucking the trend?

Does it matter to you which type of rice is used? What do you normally use in your cooking?