Collins road

When pictures start getting blurry, and your camera takes 10 seconds to focus, you know something's not right. Alas, I guess that's what happen when you drop your phone too many times. Well, at least you can still make out the pictures.

Mmm mm! Hawker food today! I'm always in the mood for hawker food aye? Just around the corner of Collins Road at Willeton, a small restaurant always buzzing with people having their meals.. Big meals, that is. The portions here at Taurus is so large, that you can actually ta pao for dinner as well. Check this out, the plates (some of them) are more than 30cm across! And not half empty, if that's what you're thinking, they really stuff you well.



Apparently what was recommended here was the yee mien, which came in an astonishingly huge portion and it was fairly good as well. Stringy noodles snapping in your mouth accompanied with a light yet sufficiently savoury egg sauce, with a good amount of chicken pieces and other condiments. I'd say it's a darn good deal for $8.



I had the mixed meat rice, an entire serving of chicken thigh and BBQ pork, for $8. That's a good deal! At least here in Australia. You know how people complain like how Australia food is expensive? I seriously don't think so, because you pay 8-10AUD on average, but two people can share the amount of food. Alas, the BBQ pork was thin and overly dry, the chicken was not too bad though.

Oh well, hop across to the next stall called Asian food or something and you'll find a smaller shop selling things like Bak kut teh, mee siam, satay, prata and claypot rice; very Singaporean, or Malaysian, considering how similar those two both are.




Here, I ate the best claypot rice in Perth, considering it's the only claypot rice I've ever had in Perth. Nah, it's alright; not fantastic or whatever, but tasty enough (I'm actually hard pressed to find a satisfying claypot rice in Singapore). A good portion of chunky chicken thigh pieces with lup cheong and salted fish pieces, drizzled over with loads of dark sauce and a fair bit of oil I suppose. Quite tasty, but don't think you can finish it all (too much!)



So if you ever need some good asian food, hop on down to Collins rd. On weekends, they serve nonya kueh, curry puffs and rice dumpings toos. Oops, I meant dumplings?

Yet Con

What if I told you the Hainanese chicken rice you've been eating all along, isn't really Hainanese at all?

What if I told you that real "Hainanese chicken rice" isn't that nice at all but rather, lacks the robust flavour you have grown accustomed to?

Don't go throwing chicken rice balls at me now. Well, what do I know? Qin and her family is of Hainanese descendant and her brother tells me that their chicken rice is dry, sauceless, and the chicken is really, really kampung tasting. Not that I'm complaining because I get to eat really good, tasty chicken rice here in sunny Singapore everyday.

If you want to get a taste of true authentic, Hainanese chicken rice though, get off your butt and visit this place called Yet Con, the only authentic Hainanese restaurant left in Singapore located in Purvis street.



In fact, their chicken although sauceless, isn't as scary as it sounds. It's got a nice chicken-y taste and is quite succulent in terms of juiciness and texture.

But why would you want to go through that much trouble just to taste some chicken rice? Well, I'll give you two more reasons; their tze char and steamboat.

Steamboat seems to be really popular over there and having tried it before, I'll say it's fairly good.

I'll be able to recommend a few tze char dishes though.



Stir-fry beef with kailan. Slightly tender pieces of beef with a robust sauce to rely on. Always something I'll order here.



Hainanese chap chye isn't like the sloggy and slimy and mushy chap chye you find in economic rice stalls. Here, it comes with a crunch, a guarantee of it's freshness. Plus, who needs sauces that reek of dried shrimps to make a good dish? Here, it's refreshing but flavourful and comes with seafood and meat, all the more you should get it.



Even if you have a distaste for all of the above, this is what you should be here for. Hainanese pork chops. Even if you don't take pork, comon try a bite, sometimes you need to live a little ya know?



MMMMMMMMMMmmmmm mmm! It's crispy and SO DAMN TENDER. Shockingly true, and not what I expected. It comes doused with a tomato based sweet n' sour sauce which is surprisingly, not tomato-ey at all. It's dark brownish rather, a testament to the other oriental sauces they add in to obtain the slightly sweet savoury taste with a nice tang from a good dash of vinegar.

So you don't wanna take a bite at all. Eat the potatoes that come with the dish, it's super duper nicely pan fried and have that old school taste. Oh, but what a waste.

Our favourite

Okay I absolutely have to rave about this chicken rice. It is, in my teeny weeny opinion, the best chicken rice EVER! Of course I haven't tried Tian Tian yet but that's not the point.



The point is, this has been our favourite chicken rice stall ever since we found it 2 years ago. Why? Because it's awesome! That's why!

Firstly, the chicken is superbly tender. Even the chicken breast meat is unbelievably soft and it's not those flattened-by-the-cleaver kind. Needless to say, thigh meat is ... Omph!



Secondly, rice is well seperated, flavourful, not too oily. Goody.

And most most most most most importantly, their sauce. Ohhhhh my gawd this is just awesome. The sauce is not the usual soya sauce and sesame oil combination. This sauce is in fact, a little reddish in colour. Why?! I have not idea but it's super good! Let's just say it's not overly salty and it's like the main focus of the dish. It's like, adding a turbo to the dish!

Oh yeah and the chilli sauce. Well, fair enough and pretty average. But what I like is they do have ginger sauce which compliments the chilli very well.

So yeah, this is by far our favourite chicken rice stall (except for Tian Tian which we haven't tried because of the idiotically ridiculously long queue everytime we are there!) and I do hope you try it.



Besides, it's beside my favourite min jiang kueh stall!

Address:
Kovan Food Centre
Kou Wei Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice
#01-19
Opp Heartland Mall and beside Hougang Pancakes

What makes the cut?

Besides being a common dish on this little island, I believe the chicken rice is a dish every single Singaporean can relate to. Simply put, it's the food that we grew up eating when every neighborhood coffee shop religiously has a chicken rice stall, or something we can fall back on when there's nothing good to eat around the area. Plus, when asked what you want for a takeaway meal, chicken rice is the most convenient food as almost every place has it.

But what does it take to cook a good plate of chicken rice?

First, the rice must be soft and fluffy, well coated with oil but not too greasy and very importantly it must but fragrant and flavorsome after being well cooked with garlic and the other essential ingredients. The steamed chicken must be tender and succulent while the roasted ones must not be too dry and yet well roasted enough to give out the sweet smelling scent of roast chicken. The sauce is what makes or breaks the dish and it cannot be too salty and must be tasty. And of course not forgetting the sauces; the chilli and ginger combination and dark sauce which must be good to compliment the dish yet not being too overpowering.

Disappointingly, Wah Nam Kee Chicken Rice which I read as being rated among the top 10 chicken rice in Singapore, doesn't make the cut. Well, not to say that it's bad, which it isn't. But being rated as one of the best, one would always expect something more. However, I feel that the food served is only average or only slightly better than what you would be able to order in a coffee shop.

The chicken we ordered was tender which is good but somehow, it all ends there. The sauce was normal tasting and was even on the verge of being too salty. The rice was a complete disappointment. It was slightly undercooked and it wasn't fragrant at all while the chilli sauce was also too salty.



The shrimp dumpling or water dumplings were not bad though to give them some credit. But overall, it better than average, just not quite there yet. Besides, they also have tze char items which most patrons ordered so I wouldn't be passing judgment too quickly.



Well, I've definitely tasted better chicken rice around this sunny island and I hope to review them soon.

Chickedy chicken

Chicken rice must be the most common food in Singapore. Don't agree? Okay then, find me a single hawker centre or food court which doesn't have a chicken rice store. Ah ha! Bet you can't, can you? What sets a good plate of chicken rice apart is firstly, the fragrance and taste of its rice and secondly, the tenderness and taste of the chicken and last but not least, its chilli sauce! Yup, chilli is probably one of the most important food item in Singapore and to have a complete package, the chicken rice needs to have a kick ass chilli.

Comon, chicken rice is so common that I don't have to blog about it right? Oookay, so how about chicken porridge? Not those congee with shredded chicken meat in it, mind you. I'm talking about Hainanese chicken served with porridge. I was watching this foodie show on channel 8 with Bryan Wong in it and they were introducing this stall which serves chicken with porridge. It looked pretty good on TV so, why not check it out?



Upon reaching, it was CROWDED. The queue was long (no kidding) but it moved pretty fast because you get your orders taken and they will deliver it to you. Food that was served included steamed Hainanese chicken, 5 different kinds of porridge (fish, chicken, sotong, mixed or plain w/ or w/o egg) and teochew yu sheng (raw fish).

Here's what we had:



First and foremost, the chicken. Yum yum! The chicken is quite tender (and I ordered chicken breast) and the serving is quite worth it for $3. I hate it when certain chicken rice stalls will "slap" the chicken with their knife to make it flatter (and thus making it look like there's more) to "tenderise" the chicken. This stall, as you can see, doesn't do that and the meat is still quite tender. The main component which captured this dish is the sauce they used. It tasted lightly of soya sauce and had a very slight hint of chinese wine. Thus making the sauce not too salty and very good to eat on it's own. I almost gobbled the whole plate without the need for any chilli sauce!



I ordered the mixed porridge but apperently, it must have been too noisy because the auntie served me the plain porridge! Oh well, I couldn't be bothered to change it either. The plain porridge was fragrant and tasted quite nice, with chai poh (preserved vegetables) and some sauces (sesame oil and soy sauce I think?) in it. The texture was smooth but not to the extent of a gluey paste, meaning you can still taste the soft rice bits, and was quite nice overall. Besides, it's only 50 cents for a big bowl.





The yu sheng we ordered can be said to be the best teochew yu sheng I've ever had (although I don't eat alot of teochew yu sheng) and agreed to be the best among all three. Once again, the sauce captured our taste buds. It was very lightly but sufficiently flavoured and not too salty. It also doesn't have any oil in it which makes it very, in my opinion, refreshing to have. I could've kept on going without getting sick of it. The fish slices were abit on the low side though. But trust me, it's nice!



Lastly, the chilli! Once again, thumbs up for this chilli sauce. If you thought that it's just your average Joe chicken rice chilli sauce, you're deeply mistaken. This stall must have experimented because they added lemon into it which gave it that extra kick and made it much more nicer. The amount of sweetness and saltiness was also well balanced and gave it more flavour.

Overall, I'll say go for it! If I can travel halfway across Singapore for a good plate of chicken with some well cooked porridge, so can you!

Address:
Jurong West Market Street 51
Stall #01-44
Soh Kee Cooked Food