Chinese Cooking
Mapo Dofu - Step 6

Measure Rice

The Mapo Dofu will be served on a bed of rice. Here Bernice measured out 2 cups of rice. We use long grain rice for our Chinese cooking. Two cups will be enough to serves 6-8 people. You always need to have some left over. Any Chinese family would lose face if the guests ate all of any dish. This would mean to them that the dish the guests liked so much as to eat all of it, that the hosts didn't have enough. We explain this to our non-Chinese guests but add we will be pleased if they eat it all without losing face. Losing face is an extremely bad thing to any Chinese.