A shady start leads to glittering glory at SoraKitchen.
Our Japanese language reporter Come on Hattori has received dozens of text messages from fraudsters every day and he has a problem. However, these are two separate aspects of his life.
See, messing with online scammers and trying to outsmart them is one of Go’s favorite hobbies, so he really doesn’t mind spamming. What’s been bothering him lately, though, is this he just can’t make a good batch of fried rice.
So when Go out of the blue gets a text message from someone calling herself Mizuho Ishikawa and with a picture of an attractive, elegantly dressed young lady as her profile picturehe thought this might be his lucky day (The texts below were originally in Japanese, but we have translated them into English)
Mizuho’s grammar was a bit odd, making Go wonder if she was contacting him outside of Japan, or if she could even be an AI bot. Always polite though, he replied heartily, and Mizuho got straight to the point.
This was clearly some sort of deception and Go had no intention of falling for it. But he decided to continue the conversation with the scammer until he got what he wanted.
And to Go’s surprise, Mizuho seemed ready to help!
However, maybe Go expected too much from Mizuho because her next messages were:
Ok, so naturally the scammer was trying to target Go back to the scam. However, at the risk of boasting about his vast financial resources, Guo is actually rich enough to be able to afford to buy fried rice at the restaurant. What he was looking for in this conversation was knowledge, not money and he quickly steered the discussion back to his desired direction.
It wouldn’t be a shock if Mizuho broke things off right there. Instead, just one minute later she replied with a full fried rice recipe!
Good luck! Of course, the grammar was a bit rough, but Go felt he could follow the gist, so he put down his phone, grabbed his apron and started cooking.
● Ingredients
Cooked rice (1 large bowl)
ham (3 slices)
An egg (1)
Cucumber (1/3)
Green peas (20 grams [0.7 ounces])
Green onion (5 grams [0.2 ounces])
Shrimp (2 large)
Salt (1 teaspoon)
Ajinomoto MSG (about 1/2 teaspoon)
Oil
Stage 1: Cut the cucumber, shrimp and ham into small pieces.
Step 2: Pour a generous amount of cooking oil into a wok/pan and heat the pan. Add the egg and cook until almost soft.
Step 3: Wash the pan (if you don’t have a spare), then add oil again and heat the pan again. Add the peas, shrimp and ham and stir-fry.
Step 4: As soon as you notice the green peas starting to brown, add the rice. Press the rice lightly into the pan as it begins to cook.
Step 5: Once the rice is heated, add the egg, green onion, cucumber and salt and MSG, then fry everything together,
Step 6: Shake the pan periodically to release the steam and prevent everything from getting too wet.
Step 7: Once the contents look like the picture below, they are ready to eat!
Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?
But how did it taste?
amazing! The combination of flavors and textures from these ingredients in this dish was absolutely outstanding. At first, Go thought it was odd to cut the shrimp instead of leaving them whole, but this allows you to enjoy their flavor throughout the meal instead of too short moments of delicious shrimp.
Honestly, this is the most delicious plate of fried rice that Go has made in his entire life. Lest you think he’s a neophyte when it comes to this particular dish or cooking in general, Go spent several months in China eating fried rice whenever he got the chance, and is also a licensed chef who previously worked in a restaurant joining the SoraNews24 team. So he knows what he’s talking about when he says Mizuho’s fried rice recipe is seriously good.
After he finished eating, he sent a picture of the fried rice he had cooked to Mizuho and thanked her again for helping him.
But then…
Mizuho had changed tactics. Instead of pointing out the incentive that Go could earn enough money with her organization to go out and eat fried rice at the restaurant, she was now tempting Go with promises of additional fried rice secrets if he joined the group.
After that, it wasn’t long before Mizuho started sending Go links to suspicious-looking apps that she wanted him to install so he could get started in the nebulous business opportunity she was pitching. But Go honestly can’t imagine ever making or needing to make fried rice that’s even tastier than the recipe Mizuho has already given him, so he doesn’t care about the “work” as much as let her pray. After all, he now has what he wants: a great fried rice recipe and another victory in the ongoing battle against online scammers.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]