The Plastics

Chatterbox
5/F Mandarin Orchard
333 Orchard Road
Tel: +65 6831 6288

In my previous job in the States I had to be on the road quite a bit, and probably stayed at one too many Courtyard Marriotts for this lifetime. To explain – Courtyard by Marriott is a brand of hotels in the Marriott Group, with locations across the United States, which is designed for business travelers. By that I mean that it is purely functional, with little to no frills. The rooms are blockish, staid affairs that look as if they were furnished in the 70s, and you’d be lucky to get a pool in the hotel, much less other standard hotel amenities. They are popular with business travelers because they have a wide coverage across the country, and because they get the two most important things to the business traveler right: free high-speed Internet, and a hard but surprisingly comfortable bed.

Anyway, since they are no-frills, and also because some Courtyard locations are in the middle of nowhere – not all Courtyards have in-house restaurants. (Some just have a vending machine or two stocked with pretzels and candy.) The ones that do, often have sad excuses for a full-service restaurant, offering little more beyond a breakfast buffet and a limited, unchanging menu of simple dishes for the rest of the day. The food screams bulk, low-cost, pre-frozen, insta-mix – most of it tastes terrible and is probably worse for your health. (The saddest part is trying to improve the flavour of these terrible meals with the little pre-packaged salt and pepper packets that they provide, which themselves do not have much flavour.)

I mention the Courtyard not because I want to review their food, but because I want to give you an impression of the feeling you get while eating at one of these places – which is standard for breakfast and unfortunately unavoidable for some other meals. The furniture quite often belongs in that pre-fabricated, plastic IKEA category – sturdy, easy to clean, modular and stackable to reduce storage space needed. The crockery and cutlery are the kind that you would get in college cafeterias, and you’d be lucky to get nondescript elevator music piped through at one of these places. In short, the entire dining experience is one that is somewhat like the approach to providing accommodation to these business travelers – purely functional. It creates an impersonal, “plastic” feel, ensuring as unmemorable a dining experience as you are likely to have.

(I want to temper my indictment of Courtyards by acknowledging that sometimes to even have that option is a blessing. If you’ve just arrived at your hotel after a long, harrowing day of work and travel, to be able to have some hot food – regardless of its quality or the setting in which you eat it – is something all travelers are grateful for.)

The in-house dining at hotels in Singapore is vastly different. First, since Singapore is so small and built-up, and because of the abundance of five-star and boutique hotels, there is no market for the business traveler type of mid-range hotels. Second, I think it is a point of cultural pride for hotels to have stellar in-house dining options (this is why most top-end Chinese restaurants are in hotels). So needless to say, the unique Courtyard experience – if I could call it that – is almost non-existent in Singapore.

But that “plastic” feel does exist. Eugene was hosting an overseas guest in Singapore, and wanted to showcase local foods to her, in the comfort of an upscale setting. He chose Chatterbox at the Mandarin Orchard, and invited me along. Now, I suspect that a large majority of people in Singapore have heard of Chatterbox, but the percentage that have actually eaten there is, in reality, very small. Chatterbox is famous (or infamous) for one thing – their chicken rice, which is in turn famous (or infamous) not for its quality, but that it costs upwards of $20. (You can get the same dish in hawker centres anywhere from $2 to $4.) When Eugene invited me along, I was disinclined to go, but in the end curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

The Mandarin Orchard recently underwent a name change (from being the Meritus Mandarin) and significant facelift, but in reality has been around in various guises for a really long time. Chatterbox, too, has similarly been around for a really long time – it used to be on the top floor of the hotel but is now on the fifth. Now if there is one thing I respect restaurants for, it is longevity. Whether you like the place or not, for Chatterbox to weather – just in the last decade or so – the Asian financial crisis, the SARS epidemic and the global financial meltdown (and to come out of it STILL able to charge $20+ for their chicken rice) deserves some praise.

Chatterbox serves a variety of local favourites, at wildly inflated prices. We tried several of them – obviously the chicken rice, but also an upscale laksa (with lobster and large prawns), as well as the nasi lemak. All of those dishes cost more than $20. Now I know to an objective observer, that doesn’t sound like a big deal at all. There are places in Singapore where $20 will only get you your pre-dinner drink, especially the higher-end French places. But the audacity of Chatterbox’s business model is that they are effectively selling what you can get in hawker centres - for almost ten times the prices. I suppose that other hotel restaurants operate at this price point too. But the others take the effort to dress up their offerings, either by adding Continental elements and calling it fusion food, or by calling it a different name to “brand” it differently (eg. charcoal-grilled chicken skewers instead of satay – if you call it the former, you can sell it for $2 a stick; if you call it the latter, the going rate at hawker centres is 30c or 40c a stick.)

In their defence – the portions are huge, and can easily feed two. But huge portions alone do not justify such a price tag. I was hoping for some unique selling point, however inconsequential, to shed some light on why Chatterbox is able to charge such a premium. I found none, and instead came away with active disappointment at their food. The chicken rice is dry and bland. While the ingredients do seem fresh, the laksa is a little salty. The nasi lemak is a major disappointment – the rice is not “lemak” enough, the sambal uninspiring, the chicken rendang sorely lacking in spice.

But what disappointed me the most about the place was the shades of that Courtyard “plastic” feeling that I got from sitting at Chatterbox for close to an hour. I didn’t feel any emotional engagement at all: not from the food, not from the setting, and not from the service – which I have to say was efficient if a little impersonal. Now I hesitate to lump Chatterbox together with the various nameless Courtyard in-house restaurants, for that would be drawing the argument to a seemingly plausible but ultimately false extreme, a leap of logic. Yet sitting in the Chatterbox brought back memories of the Courtyard and my travelling days, eating cookie-cutter meals in cookie-cutter spaces, eating to live instead of living to eat – and I couldn’t help but wonder why.

What gives a restaurant that ability to engage its patrons emotionally? What makes it more than the sum of its parts, gives it personality and character, makes it an institution? I tried to think back to the places I had been to that were great at this – Bayona in New Orleans, CAV in Providence, Coppi’s Organic in DC. You don’t have to have exquisite food to create a great dining experience; apart from the pizzas I thought the rest of the food at Coppi’s was never very good. Yet I still went back there time and time again. Coppi’s had character, and it stemmed from a few things – the racing memorabilia on the walls, the quirky, attractive hipster-lite waitstaff they always seemed to hire, the purity and solidity of their food concept (Ligurian cuisine made with organic produce).

By the end of my meal at Chatterbox I had come to terms with the disappointment of mediocre food. You can’t have truly transcendent meals every day of the week, every week of the month; and part of the bargain in being adventurous and trying out new (or in this case old) places is that some will invariably be disappointing. But what rankled me long after we had left the place was how utterly devoid of personality it had been. I struggled to remember a concept, a unifying theme – something, anything – that typified the place. Sadly, I could not come up with anything.

The good life

By now, it should be pretty standard practice for credit card companies to offer the power of "analytics" along with their online portals. You've seen them - the tools that show you how much of your expenditure per month go to travel, food and other categories of expenses. I cringe each time I use them, since such a large portion of my spending goes towards food and beverage - way too much, in fact. And what kind of category is food and beverage, anyway? It's too broad. Now, if my credit card company could break that down further, that would be really useful. Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese. Wine, hard liquor, beer. Well, maybe it wouldn't be useful, but at the very least if I broke it down into smaller pieces I wouldn't be confronted by such a large histogram each time.

In any case, I spent more money on wine this month, thanks to the World Gourmet Summit hitting town. The good folks over at Sassicaia kindly agreed to do a vertical tasting and there was no way I was going to miss out on that. Here are my tasting notes, in the order of tasting.


2006 Barrua - A sister wine to Sassicaia and one of two "primer" wines. Tannins unfortunately overpowered the fruit (perhaps it was still young), so all I got was prunes.

2008 Guidalberto - The other "primer" wine. Though younger than the Barrua this was less tannic and more similar to Sassicaia in that it had the kind of forest glade nose that you expect from Sassicaia.

2006 Sassicaia - An absolute blockbuster. Someone at the tasting ventured that this had "muscular tannins", which I thought was an apt description. One of those wines with a perfect blend of tannins, acid and fruit. This will keep for ages.

2005 Sassicaia - By contrast, a lot more muted. Hit all the notes that you would expect a Sassicaia to hit, but unlike some of the better vintages, does not linger on your tongue or in your memory.

2004 Sassicaia - My favourite of all the wines I tasted that night. I had had this before with RK in DC, but only now do I appreciate it as my favourite of the recent Sassicaia vintages. Elegant, elegant wine. Again, the forest glade feel, hints of espresso. Great structure. By far the vintage with the creamiest mouthfeel, which I loved. It's like eating a piece of bread with too much butter spread on it. Good, French butter. Absolutely divine.

2003 Sassicaia - I should mention that the organiser of the tasting had advised us to taste the vintages in pairs: 06/05, 04/03, and 02/01, and I later saw why. Each of the pairs contained a so-called stellar vintage ('06, '04 and '01), and you could better appreciate their excellence by comparing them to what I hesitate to call a lesser wine. The '03 Sassicaia is a great wine in its own right, but it was far from the star of the night.

2002 Sassicaia - A bad year for Tuscan wines, but as the organiser explained to us: what holds for Tuscany doesn't necessarily hold for Bolgheri. This was not as full as the other vintages, but definitely a very tasty wine indeed.

2001 Sassicaia - Drinking very well now. The tannins have started to fall away, leaving the fruit flavour more exposed, and you can really taste the sophistication. There is just so much going on here - currants, cherries, nuts, chocolate. Delicious.

If all accounts are to be believed, the 2007 Sassicaia promises to be another stellar offering. At the tasting I could see people slyly tapping at their Blackberries, and at first I just thought this was rude. Later when I overheard a conversation I realised that many of these people were frantically on their phones and Blackberries with their wine brokers or distributors, urging them to "Don't think! Just buy!" (verbatim quote). I suppose, then, they could be forgiven.

Tourist Trap - DO NOT PATRONISE

Sin Hoi Sai
55 Tiong Bahru Road, #01-59
Tel: +65 6223 0810

It is quite depressing to realize that you cannot, for some reason or another, return to a restaurant that you used to enjoy going to in the past. It is one thing if it closes, or if you are moving away from the city forever; I am sure that has happened to many people, in many places. It is another if the quality drops beyond a point where you will no longer patronize the place – as in the case of Cashion’s Eat Place in my final year in DC. That is a sad thing in its own right. But it is a terrible scenario when you choose to no longer patronize a particular restaurant because they have changed their business practices for the worse. I recently went back to a perennial favourite – Sin Hoi Sai in Tiong Bahru – and was so disgusted with my experience there that I cannot bring myself to return.

Sin Hoi Sai has been a mainstay of the tze char scene for decades, and has built up a reputation for solidity and reliability. It is especially popular amongst night owls because both branches open till late (or should I say till early in the morning). That differentiating point aside, the food is generally good to great, with few misses. The wok hei of their dishes is there and their portions are always pretty generous. Despite it undergoing a modernization facelift in recent years, the original outlet at Tiong Bahru also retained what was – for me – the most distinctive part of their restaurant: the alleyway al fresco seating.

Countless early-morning trips to Sin Hoi Sai for a plate of 月光河 after a night at the clubs have cemented some very sentimental memories for me; and coupled with the fact that this is also a regular choice for gatherings whenever my old rugby team-mates want to get together for a meal, means that this place holds a special place in my heart. Since moving back to Singapore I have only been back to Sin Hoi Sai twice, and while I have never been wowed at this place, it has always delivered tasty tze char.

(月光河 – The Moon’s Reflection in the Water: The Chinese have a penchant for flowery and beautiful-sounding names for their dishes, and this is no different. Playing on the double meaning of 河 to refer to both a body of water, and as a shoftform for 河粉 (hor fun, or wide rice noodles) – this is a simple dish of noodles stir-fried with seafood in a dark soy sauce, served with an egg cracked into the middle of the dish.)

The popularity of this place has also surged on the back of many favourable reviews, both in the local and overseas press, and a few years back the New York Times even saw fit to recommend it. However, the good thing is that the restaurant is seldom crowded, and you can always find a table (unless you have a huge group of more than 10, but in which case it’d be hard for you to find a table, or tables, anywhere). I can see why the NYT would recommend it too, for it is a good place to ease foreigners into street food, and is a passable representation of what Singaporeans eat without being too much of a culture shock. You don't have to eat in the alleyway if you don't want to, and the indoors part of the restaurant is well ventilated and quite comfortable. When Jose and Angel were in town for a visit, I brought them here - which I believe says a lot about it. The fact that I was willing to take Jose, the man who taught me how to cook, to this place for one out of a limited number of meals he had in Singapore - meant that I really thought it was worth going to.

The other day I had a craving for salted-egg crab, which Sin Hoi Sai does a very good version of; and coerced my eating companions to make the trip down to Tiong Bahru. (The other advantage for me is that it is near my office, and I don’t have to pay ERP to get there during peak hours.) There is quite a bit of street parking available around the area, and if you are really unlucky you can always park at the multi-storey carpark at Tiong Bahru market.

We didn’t take very long to decide what we wanted (since we already had an idea of what that was) so when we flagged down the nearest waitress we were surprised to find out that she could only take drink orders. Some of the top-end Chinese restaurants are like this – and have a strict hierarchy in place amongst the waitstaff. Usually there are the captains, then the normal waitstaff, then the runners and bussers – and they each have very defined tasks, and what they can or cannot do. At some of these posh places, only the captains can take food orders, and I’ve been in some restaurants where the runners are not even allowed to place the dish on your table, but have to stand by the table and wait for the captains to do it. There is a rationale behind this silliness – usually only the captains take the food orders because they are the ones who have been briefed by the chef on the specials for the day, what to push and what not to; and they are usually the ones with the experience and the knowledge to help guide the diner in his or her choices. The posher places also have the captains present the food because they are supposed to introduce the dish and say some nice things about it. Unfortunately this practice is slowly dying and I haven’t heard anyone do a proper job of introducing the dish (beyond saying its name) in years.

In any case Sin Hoi Sai is not that kind of posh place, so it is a little weird to have that waiter segmentation. But that is not our concern. What was our concern, though, was the most ridiculous example of product-pushing I have ever encountered. The waitress asked us for our drink orders – to which I replied Chinese tea – and one of my dining companions wanted to know more about the cold, homemade drinks they had to offer, whether they be lemon tea, lime juice, barley water or something along those lines. The waitress recommended aloe-vera. At the time, we didn’t think it odd, and I even thought it was some aloe vera herbal tea, so I switched my order to that as well. What was eventually brought out was an aloe vera dessert – which I’m sure was delicious, but given our circumstances we had to send back. We gave this a lot of thought, but were nowhere close to figuring out an answer. Why would anyone upsell you on dessert when all you wanted was a drink before dinner? This was absolutely unbelievable.

That in itself is probably not enough for me to denounce Sin Hoi Sai. What would do it, would be the exorbitant prices. We were charged $60/kilo for the salted egg crab, which I suppose could be considered restaurant prices, especially given that crabs are not in season. Yet Sin Hoi Sai is not a restaurant, and that said I would also be hard-pressed to charge that kind of prices even in a restaurant. The company I work for runs a few restaurants, and I’ve been to the market enough to know the rough prices for mud crabs. The importer gets them for $6-$12 a kilo, and as a consumer you can typically get them live in the market for around $18-$20 a kilo. The market price for the cooked crabs ranges from $25-$45 a kilo for tze char places, or $45 - $65 for restaurants. Now I know transportation costs a fair bit, especially for “cold chain” logistics (for live seafood this typically just means Styrofoam boxes and lots of ice), but $60 a kilo for crabs when you are sitting in an alleyway eating them is a little difficult to justify. My impression of what crabs cost could be outdated (for I don't eat them often), but for that kind of price I’d expect a scantily-clad model to break open the shells and feed me the pieces of meat.

Now I say that in jest, because deep down I know that these prices are par for the course when it comes to tourists. A large number of the popular seafood places are tourist traps, and charge silly, silly prices. (A portion of these margins no doubt goes to the concierges at the hotels, for steering tourists toward these places.) What’s interesting is that at some places you even get a locals-only discount – usually 20% and if you know the management, can go up to 50%. That they are able to do that gives you an idea of the kind of margins they are making. Sin Hoi Sai has never been cheap. But for it to make the jump from slightly-overpriced local favourite to outright tourist trap is a sad development indeed.

This wouldn’t be so difficult to swallow if the food was not good, in which case I would happily go on my way and never eat at this place again. The fact is that I do think the food is pretty good. But it’s not good enough to justify high prices and shameless (if illogical) upselling.

Peace and quiet at the Gallery Hotel

I think it is a sure sign of age that one begins to appreciate property cycles. The Alkaff Mansion recently went under tender after a few unoccupied years – an undignified period in an otherwise glorious history. I remember going to the Alkaff Mansion as late as 2003, as a fresh-faced intern accompanying my bosses for a lavish team dinner. The food was uniformly terrible, but the Old World luxury and decadence that the place evoked was something else indeed. Yet on subsequent trips back to Singapore I learnt that it had closed, and late last year when I found myself in the area I decided to drive by on a whim. The place was deserted and the grounds had fallen into disrepair – leaving the Alkaff Mansion a shell of its former self. I mourned it silently and went on my way again, completely forgetting about this place until recently. The news that the property was put up for tender gave me a good feeling, but also reminded me of my age. Who knows what manner of other establishments I have seen come and go – in the world of slim margins that is the F&B business?

I went to the Gallery Hotel twice recently, both times in search of good food. This place is similarly a wonderful space for dining and drinking outlets, but in danger of being forgotten and made irrelevant. Both times when I was there it was quiet, far removed from the heyday of Mohammad Sultan Road, and seemingly far removed now even from the hustle and bustle of the Clarke Quay area, which is but a stone’s throw away.

To explain, the Gallery Hotel is a boutique hotel located right at the very end of Robertson Quay, on Mohammad Sultan Road. The stretch itself used to be chock-full of bars and pubs, and I recall many a fun night out there; but SARS proved too much of a blow for many of these places to recover from. Consumers fled the place, and so did the businesses not long after. Now, the place is a little less boisterous, and there are more restaurants than watering holes. The foot traffic has gone down significantly, and the area’s businesses are kept afloat, I’m sure, only by its affluent, largely expatriate, residents.

What I’ve always appreciated about the Gallery Hotel is its architecture – something that I haven’t seen it get much public recognition for. The Mondrian-eque windows on the main tower block are probably its most recognizable aspect, but there are many other postmodern characteristics of this building that make it very distinctive. The building – if you can call it that – is really a collage of different building forms. There is a main tower block, and various incongruous “satellite” building forms attached to it, each with unique shapes and sizes. Chief among these “satellites” are three cylindrical structures fronting the road – each containing F&B outlets. The one inconvenience that this “disassembly” creates manifests itself if and when you are going to the Gallery Hotel and looking for a restaurant for the first time. Nothing is intuitive – you can’t even follow the numbering patterns of the outlets – and of course the building forms are so surprising that you don’t expect to find dining outlets in some of them.

But to the hotel’s credit there is a lot of signage, and if you are observant enough you will not even need to stop and ask for directions. And once you get to the place you are going to, the calm and quiet that the whole compound exudes is enough to make you want to kick your shoes off and settle in with a nice warm mug of tea.

Satsuma Shochu Dining Bar

Satsuma is located in one of those three cylindrical structures, and is a Japanese place famous for its collection of Japanese shochu – liquor typically distilled from sweet potatoes. The word on the street was that the food was very good too; so when I lost a bet to Kevin recently and had to buy him dinner, I exercised my option to choose the place and took the opportunity to try Satsuma out.

I arrived first, and had a few minutes to settle down with a nice mug of citrus tea and check out the surroundings. The teak paneling with sakura motifs may be stereotypical, but it just looks so damn good in the warm lighting that you forgive them that much. I assume this place is frequented by Japanese expatriates or tourists (and indeed we did see several groups of them), because the waitstaff greet you in Japanese, and it seemed that most of them at least spoke a little bit of the language.

The one thing that you can be assured of going to a Japanese restaurant, and especially one that is actually frequented by Japanese, is that the service is going to be good. Indeed, it is a far cry from the normal service standards you get elsewhere in Singapore. The people who waited on us were warm, patient, and friendly – which, as shocking as it may sound, is a lot to ask for in Singapore. I think there are a few things to look out for in restaurant service. Most basic of all is functional competence – whether someone can bring the food to your table, refill your water, and do all the basic tasks involved in waiting tables. Second of all is their attitude – you always want the friendly ones, not the ones who look as if they would rather be somewhere else, and definitely not the angry ones. The best of the best also have technical competence – they know enough about the food and the wine to make informed recommendations. And underlying all of that is their passion – whether they have the passion for food and the passion to do a good job and ensure you have a great night out. I have met people with all four characteristics, but usually two or three is good enough. In Singapore even the functional competence is not a sure thing, and anything beyond that is a tremendous bonus.

The food at Satsuma is pretty good too. We stuck with the sumiyaki – basically meat on a stick, grilled over charcoal. This place compares well with Kazu in Cuppage Plaza, but the interesting thing is that the sumiyaki in Kazu was a lot smokier and you could taste the char. Satsuma’s sumiyaki is a little more refined and visually more pleasing. I’m not saying one is better than the other, however, just that they are different and that I enjoyed both. I was impressed that they could ask for our doneness preference for the steak skewers (medium-rare), and even more impressed when they actually delivered on their promise. It must be difficult – or if not difficult must take some skill at least – to ascertain perfectly the doneness of tiny squares of meat on a stick which are being held over a charcoal flame. Because the squares are so small, and the proximity to the flame so close, the room for error is a lot greater – so kudos is definitely due the kitchen staff at Satsuma. Since we are Asian we also ordered some rice dishes, but neither the garlic fried rice or the curry rice with pork belly was very outstanding. I think the trick here is to just stick to the skewers – most of which were very good – and avoid the rest of the stuff that is on the menu.

Sapporo Ramen Miharu

The Japanese people’s love of ramen has been well-documented and has served as fodder for popular culture – with good reason, too, for there is nothing like a bowl of noodles and hot soup in a harsh winter. This love of ramen has been exported worldwide (through lesser “instant” variants of the dish), but these instant noodles do no justice to the quality and quantity of the many Japanese regional variations of ramen. Indeed, very few places outside of Japan can truly claim to do so, for several reasons. Japanese flour is typically milled to a higher quality than others (lower ash content, etc); and their water is generally softer than that which can be found in other countries. This has positive impacts on, respectively, their quality of their noodle products, and the flavour of their broths.

Miharu was recommended to me by ML, who I didn’t know very well at the time she made the recommendation. (I still do not know her very well.) Typically I am wary of following up on the recommendations of strangers, for not everyone has the same standards of quality. (That’s just a nice way of saying that I am a snob.) But you have to admit that clearly the recommendations of people whom you are confident know and appreciate their food – would carry more weight than someone who you barely know, someone you may not even have broken bread with. Yet there was something about the way ML recommended this place that made me put it on my list of places to try. She was insistent, yet not overbearing, and the way she described what she appreciated about Miharu as opposed to some other places made me think that at the very least, she knew what she was talking about.

So the other day when I again found myself in the vicinity of the Gallery Hotel, I decided to give Miharu a shot. Miharu imports their noodles (Nishiyama brand noodles from Hokkaido), and several other ingredients from Japan, and so in that respect is considered quite “authentic”. But I have long since realized that even the same ingredients cooked in different locations can produce vastly different dishes, especially in Singapore, with our temperature and humidity. Besides, I have never been to Hokkaido, so what would I have to compare Miharu against?

What I could say, though, is that Miharu is good without being spectacular. The noodles had good texture, but retained a slight waxy taste from the alkali salts, which may not have been washed out thoroughly. The broth that I tried (tonkatsu tonshio – pork-based broth with salt) had good flavour, but not enough spice for me, and I regretted not picking the chili miso broth. The strip of pork loin (char siew) and the hard boiled egg were both ordinary at best.


What I can’t decide on – is how I feel about the addition of corn as a topping. My grandmother used to do this on the first day of Chinese New Year (when she kept vegetarian) – in effect using corn to substitute pork bones as a flavour enhancer for stock. It produced a sweet stock vastly inferior to anything you can get with animal products. Now, it may not be bad if it did not have to suffer this comparison, but in my mind I always compared the corn-based broth that my grandmother made – with the other broths that she made the other days of the year, with pork bones or chicken bones or dried scallops. At Miharu they add corn as a topping, which I didn’t like; but given my childhood I doubt I can call that a fair or objective indictment.

While I cannot say that I did not enjoy my experience at Miharu, I have to be honest and say that it was quite mediocre. Unfortunately, that means that ML – who I hope is not reading this – is henceforth struck off the list of people worthy of making recommendations.

Chicken rice wars

Some time back I wrote about the wealth of chicken rice options in the Bugis/City Hall area. What I forgot to mention was that that area is not the only one with a concentration of chicken rice excellence. District 15 in Singapore (the East Coast/Katong area) is packed with so much good food it almost defies belief; but with one latest addition to the fold, the chicken rice wars have definitely heated up a notch.


(A) Tian Tian
443 Joo Chiat Road

The original Tian Tian is in Maxwell Market, and it may not be an exaggeration to say that there is literally always a line for their chicken rice. I have been there at meal-times and in-between-meal-times, and it does not quit. There are always people waiting for this chicken rice, and with good reason too. Their version of chicken rice hits all the right notes, with the chili and the chicken gravy being absolutely stellar. Recently, the owner’s daughter opened an 80-seater restaurant along Joo Chiat Road, which I chanced upon while going for the bak kut teh a few doors down. I’m not going to lie – I felt like I had won the lottery.

It must have been early days when I discovered it, for it wasn’t all that packed, and we were able to get a table pretty easily. There are more dishes on the menu than just chicken rice – Hainanese pork chop, mixed vegetables and so forth. It’s a limited selection, and unfortunately none of it is any good. But nobody really gives a damn, because it is only the chicken rice that people are here for anyway.

For some reason I recall the version at the original stall to be better, but it might be psychological. Sometimes when you have to wait for your food, it tastes better when you’re eventually eating it. Also, eating chicken rice in air-conditioned surroundings may be comfortable, but somehow detracts a little from the experience. I thought the chicken gravy here was a little saltier than the original, and the soup was quite disappointing, but the rest of the components – the chili, the chicken, the soy sauce – passed muster. All that being said, the version here is still top drawer, and I can foresee the other chicken rice alternatives in the area looking over their shoulders warily from now.

(B) Five Star
191 East Coast Road

The interesting thing about this place is that the waiters, when idle, stand outside to exhort (in a polite manner, of course) passers-by to enter – a technique typically used in tourist-heavy locations like Boat Quay or for poor restaurants trying to drum up business. Five Star faces neither of these predicaments, so I have never understood why they resort to this tactic, which isn’t exactly classy. Perhaps the competition is really too stiff in this area.

Anyway, if you do eventually choose to dine at Five Star – you will have an enjoyable experience. Five Star uses “kampong birds” for their chicken – which means that not only is it a different breed to the birds you normally get elsewhere, but that instead of being bred in cages, they are allowed freedom of movement in a limited enclosure. Not exactly free-range, but it’s better than nothing. In any case it results in meat that is not so fatty – which may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

It is surprisingly good. This is probably one of the versions of chicken rice that induces the least guilt, for it is not too oily, and of course the birds have less fat. What is also surprising is that the rest of the dishes served at Five Star are pretty decent as well. I know someone who brought her overseas guest to Five Star for a definitive chicken rice experience. While I probably would not have done the same, I can see why she did so.

(C) Boon Tong Kee
199 East Coast Road

Perhaps the reason why Five Star employs such aggressive sales tactics is because Boon Tong Kee is just a few doors down the road. To explain: Boon Tong Kee is the original hawker-made-good of the chicken rice scene, one of the first few to commercialise and open branches. To date there are six outlets across the island, and overseas expansion is on the cards. Serious foodies view chains with a healthy distrust, and it is only natural to have suspicions of whether chains or franchises can replicate the quality of the original. I say that with a touch of irony, because most of the places on this list have more than one outlet too.

So it is rather surprising when you realise that the quality, and the quality control, at Boon Tong Kee is actually very good. I have been to a couple of their outlets, and the food is eerily consistent. You can count on Boon Tong Kee to give you a representative version of chicken rice, but to call it merely “representative” seems to diminish it unfairly. To me it is not the best, but it may be to some others; and whatever the case it is still very, very good.

(D) Sing Ho
103/105 East Coast Road

What is it with chicken rice restaurants and chains? Is the production process one that is very easy to replicate? And who are all these people consuming so much chicken rice? How is the market not saturated by now? It is quite mind-boggling how there can exist so many different chicken rice stalls in the same area, much less within 200 m of each other. My hypothesis about chicken rice is that it is fairly commoditised and to some extent quite homogenous. While the good ones are really, really good – the mediocre ones are not too bad either, and will satisfy your fix in a pinch. As a result, nobody I know is loyal to one stall and one stall only, because the costs of switching are low and do not result in marked differences in quality. Few people would travel far and wide for chicken rice, because chances are that there is a decent enough version near where you are. So this means that the effective radius of demand for any given chicken rice restaurant cannot be that large (as opposed to some other local dishes with greater differentiation). So why does an anomaly like District 15 still occur? Maybe the people of Katong eat a hell of a lot of chicken rice.

Sing Ho is another chain, with four outlets in Singapore, one of which is further up the road from the others mentioned on this list. In my opinion this is the one that suffers the most from the competition. Every time I pass by this place it is always half-empty, in stark contrast to their branch at Middle Road which is always bustling. I have been to both, and must say that Sing Ho doesn’t produce a bad version of chicken rice. Truth be told it is probably above average by some distance. But it is also clearly the weakest of the lot along East Coast Road, and it shows.

(E) Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice
Katong Shopping Centre basement

When you are faced with such stiff competition, you try any means of differentiating your product. Delicious Boneless – despite the cheesy name – is the David amongst the Goliaths on this list, for while the others are chains, this is not (as far as I know). The way this place differentiates itself is by serving their chicken covered in specks of deep-fried garlic bits. This helps if you like garlic, for the taste and crunch are nice complements to the mild flavour and smooth texture of the chicken. Another differentiating factor is that while other places typically provide soup of clear chicken broth, this place makes a little more effort to add other ingredients like carrots and mushrooms. The end product is not amazing, but it is a refreshing change to simple chicken broth.

That said, the rice is not as fragrant as that of its competitors, and the condiments (chili and dark soy sauce) are also a shade inferior. I haven’t been back here in a long while, and that probably speaks volumes.

(F) Hai Kee
Formerly at 126 East Coast Road, now at 84 Marine Parade Central, #01-135

This probably doesn’t belong on this list, firstly because they don’t make chicken rice per se, but soya sauce chicken (which comes with either rice or noodles); and secondly because it is no longer on this stretch and has recently moved about half a kilometer away, to Marine Parade Central. But it is here because it is one of my favourite treatments of chicken in Singapore and as a (somewhat) similar product, offers competition to the rest of the outlets on this list too.

I used to stop by at this place to buy half a chicken home for dinner – without checking back if food had already been cooked, or if anyone else was eating. I knew that even if dinner had already been prepared, everyone would still save room on the table (and in their stomachs) for Hai Kee’s soya sauce chicken. I was blindsided when they moved, showing up one day to find a new stall in its place. The new stallowner also sold soya sauce chicken in addition to other roasted meats, and so refused to tell me where Hai Kee had moved to, insisting that I give him a chance instead. Unfortunately despite what I say about chicken rice being non-differentiated, soya sauce chicken – or rather Hai Kee’s version of it – is very much so. I turned him down, and mourned the loss of one of my favourites.

I like Hai Kee in spite of the fact that it is supremely unhealthy (or should that be BECAUSE it is supremely unhealthy?) I assume the guy is Cantonese, because he uses young, fatty birds. I actually have no idea where he gets his chickens, because they seem to be at least twice as fatty as anything you can get anywhere else. In addition, it is almost disgusting how much sesame oil is in the sauce. The thing about hawkers is that very few of them bother to emulsify their sauces, so the sheen of oil on top of them is extremely evident. And it is extremely evident how much more oil Hai Kee uses in its sauce compared to anyone else. It goes without saying that all this makes for a fabulous meal.

After months of searching, my mother and brother finally found Hai Kee again. They had popped up in Marine Parade Central, a stone’s throw from their original location. It was as if all was right again with the world.

Minus Hai Kee, it wouldn’t be far off the mark to suggest that the other chicken rice purveyors in the Katong area are in a market of perfect competition. The sellers supply a product that is effectively homogenous, so none of them can afford to be price setters. In addition, with the advent of food blogs not unlike this one, consumers have almost perfect information and face little to no switching costs. If you love chicken rice, look no further.

Of innovation

Restaurant Kin Kin
40 Jalan Dewan Sultan Sulaiman 1,
(Off Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman)
Kuala Lumpur

So much of the productivity in the culinary world comes through imitation. Chefs the world over are continually learning from the dishes and techniques of other chefs, or other cuisines. To be sure, specific recipes and formulations are closely guarded, but I can’t think of many other enterprises where the sharing of intellectual property is as unfettered (and as un-priced or unregulated). This imitation is most prevalent in Asian hawker fare, where successful dishes are reverse-engineered and replicated until they become staples of the food scene. I can think of a few examples, like cereal prawns and Marmite pork ribs.

So it is a momentous occasion when that rare innovation occurs in the hawker scene, when someone creates a new dish that is quite unlike any other (and in the process spawning his or her own wave of imitators). A recent trip to KL – a veritable mecca for hawker fare – yielded just such a discovery: chili pan mee (辣椒板面) at Restaurant Kin Kin.

A group of us made the drive up to KL over the long weekend, and tried this place on the recommendation of a couple of locals who were serious foodies. Typically, when word-of-mouth recommendations are passed between foodies – it’s hard to avoid drawing comparisons. These comparisons can be drawn across cuisines (“It’s like a Chinese version of spaghetti bolognaise.”), across dishes (“It’s a mix of Hokkien noodles and char kway teow.”) or in reference to other versions of the same dish (“It’s similar to the one in MacPherson, but they use more sweet sauce for this one.”). However, the person who recommended this place to us was at a loss for comparisons. “I don’t know how to describe it to you”, he said, “Just try it – it’s a life-changing experience.”

So we packed ourselves into two taxis and ventured forth for a late Saturday lunch. Kin Kin is located in one of the last places you would expect to find good food – one in a row of shophouses ranging from auto shops to goodness knows what else, on a sleepy side street off the main drag in the Chow Kit area. As it was a Saturday, most of the other shops along the stretch were closed, and the only hustle of human activity emanated from Kin Kin, making it easy to locate. It was about 3pm in the afternoon – well after normal lunch hours – but the place was still crowded. Surely a good sign.

Kin Kin is a dusty, humid store in a dusty, humid city (the lack of ventilation becomes crucial once you realise that spice – the kind of sweat-inducing, lip-numbing spice – is what makes their signature dish so good). There really isn’t anything you can say about its décor, apart from the fact that the ceramic wall tiles are adorned with messages hand-written in permanent marker. These messages range from proclamations that there are no other (legitimate) branches, to warnings not to even attempt to steal the house-made chili paste. Curiously enough, they are written in a faltering English, which in itself is sometimes hilarious, but must also be taken to mean that this place enjoys a significant tourist clientele (or that tourists are more likely to make off with the chili paste).

When I say that the chili pan mee is a dish unlike any other, I might be exaggerating slightly. 板面, loosely translated as “board noodles” since they refer to flat flour noodles (like fettucine), has come to represent another dish that is typically served in soup, together with minced meat, mushrooms and deep-fried anchovies (ikan bilis). The version at Kin Kin does come with all those ingredients – but is served dry, with the addition of a poached egg on top. The piece de resistance, however, is the loose paste of chili flakes that is placed on each table. What you are supposed to do is to add however much chili you can handle to your bowl, then mix it together with the noodles and other ingredients. The runny yolk of the poached egg helps to incorporate everything, and the end result is something that looks like spaghetti bolognaise.


It tastes completely different, though. The best part of Kin Kin’s chili pan mee, in my opinion, is the noodles. Springy to the bite and cooked to perfection, they belie the fact that all that went into their creation was probably just eggs, flour and water. The other star is, of course, the chili paste. From the dark intense colour of the paste, I expected an overpowering flavour. What I got was something just shy of that – something that still allowed for the subtle tastes of the other ingredients to shine through without overpowering them. Yet the chili still had an intense flavour of its own, a sort of umami that defied description.

There are many things you have to put up with if you want to eat at Kin Kin, where the balance of power is most decidedly not with the customer. You have to wait – a combination of it being always crowded and the production process being slow – up to 30 or 40 minutes for your food. Service is almost non-existent and the staff operate on their own terms – meaning that they will get to you when they can and want to. Then there are the spartan and stuffy surroundings, which do not exactly inspire confidence in their hygiene levels. But these failings, which might be death blows for any other establishment, are only minor inconveniences to be suffered willingly here at Kin Kin. The quality of their product (and the reasonableness of their price) makes everything worthwhile.

On the drive back Laura remarked that after trying this, and other hawker specialties during the trip – she remained unconvinced that KL had the variety of hawker fare to challenge, say, Taiwan. She pointed to a greater variety of foods and snacks in Taiwan, and a greater variety of treatments, as evidence of a more innovative food culture. She may be right, or her allegiances may be due to the fact that she is from there; and I personally haven’t eaten enough in Taiwan to speak intelligently on the subject. Either way I think we can agree to celebrate innovation when we see it, and Kin Kin is certainly a good example.