One of the most famous dish in south east Asia is Hainan chicken rice. Hainan is a province in China. If you have never tried it before, you really must do. Let me introduce you to one called Nasi Ayam Hoe Kee in Malaka in Malaysia.
Chicken rice is exactly what it say on the tin. The chicken is cooked in a broth till it is just cooked, still nice and moist. And then the broth is used to cook the rice so the rice has a rich chicken fragrant. Every restaurant has it's own secret recipe for a slightly spicy sauce to dip the chicken in. This is what Hoe Kee's look like. There is a bowl on every table.
I love a good Hainan chicken rice and this restaurant was recommended to me by the taxi driver when I went to Malaka. He dropped me off at the end of the street and gave me directions, but also said you can't miss it as there will be a long queue outside. And sure there was. We quickly joined the queue and waited for about 20 minutes till we got a table.
As we were waiting, I peeped inside to the open kitchen and saw them prepare the meals. Malaka serves the chicken rice in a slightly different way than other places. They roll them into small balls about the size of ping pong balls. You can see them at the back of the photo. The dishes at the front are spicy braised fish another very popular dish.
We were gradually getting near to the restaurant entrance and it was time to think about what we wanted to order. Everyone orders the chicken and rice. They have a menu by the door stating the price depending on how many people's portion you want to order, and how many rice ball that includes. Nice and simple.
Finally we got into the restaurant. The decor inside is a traditional chinese style house, fan on the wooden ceiling and many chinese writing on the wall. The whole restaurant was packed as in was a Sunday and there were many locals as well as tourists. You can see customers still waiting by the doorway.
Our table was in the next section of the restaurant. There's an upstairs section but I don't think that's part of the restaurant area, perhaps it's private.
We ordered our food and waited patiently for it to arrive while we watched the buzz around us. The vibe was really good and it was very interesting to watch the waiters carry the massive trays of food around. Finally our meal arrived!
We ordered the chicken but were told they ran out of rice balls so we only got 5 balls. They gave us a plate of rice to make up the other 5 balls. This actually turned out to be nicer than the rice balls, maybe because the balls were pre made and not as fresh. I also ordered a plate of the spicy fish as I like spicy food.
Within 20 minutes we had gobbled everything down. The whole meal was very very good and that wasn't because we were starving. I'm very glad that our taxi driver recommended this great place. Good job.
Restaurant Information
Nasi Ayam Hoe Kee
468, Jalan Hang Jebat, 75200 Melaka, Malaysia
Hainese chicken rice - a great find
This post participated in the Tasteem contest The Palatable Beauty of Chinese Cuisine