Hainanese Chicken rice

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If there is one dish that won the hearts of the locals here in Singapore, it has to be the Chicken Rice dish. I mentioned in previous post before that it's the kind of dish that can be found on every corner of this country and I meant it in a literal way.

Recently, I discovered this new food center near my area, and as expected, one of the stalls is offering a steamed version of Chicken rice.

Before I go to my food review, a quick intro about the Chicken rice dish. It's a whole slow-cooked chicken that has about three versions to my best knowledge, these are: Hainanese "steamed" chicken, Roasted chicken, and my recently discovered Soy Chicken. All of these types have their own distinct unique flavour and taste.

For this post, I'm doing the Hainanese version - for some it's called the "white" chicken, it was a simplified understanding that I also learned from the owner of the food stall.

By the way, the local term for food centers is either "Kopitiam" or Hawker's center", may not be the fanciest place to dine however, the food is good and affordable.

So this new place that I went to is well ventilated and well lit whether at night or day. It's still convenient to dine even without the comfort of an air conditioned environment.

Now, for my food experience, the Chicken rice set cost me about S$6.50, which is more expensive than the usual. The quantity of the chicken meat isn't really overwhelming, it's quite the standard serving amount.

The vegetable side dish is something that impressed me since it was cooked on the spot and it's substantial enough. It also taste fresh and the sauce plus the shallots went really well with the vegetable dish.

For the chicken meat, it's tender and flavoursome, even though I was given the lean part of the chicken, it's still juicy and it went great to the steamed rice. The steamed rice is flavoured using the chicken fat and pandan which smells appetizing. It helps a lot on my overall experience of the dish.

Among all the versions of this dish, I mostly go for the Hainanese chicken since I feel that among the three, it has the most subtle flavour and it's also the most aromatic in my opinion. So, if you happen to visit Singapore, one should try this dish at least once to complete their experience of the local food scene.

Cheers!
FT