Good Year Local Hainanese Chicken Rice Ball
Good Year Local Hainanese Chicken Rice Ball
庆丰年海南鸡饭团专卖店
Blk 111 Lor 1 Toa Payoh #01-366
Ratings: 6.0/10
While I was briefly scanning through my blog archive, I realised that the dish that is most often blogged about in this blog has to be the chicken rice.
It is inevitable that chicken rice will be the most blogged about food in this site. The popularity of the Hainanese chicken rice is unrivalled in Singapore. If you are a Singaporean who is currently reading this blog, just start thinking whether you have been caught in at least one of the situations listed below:
- Have cravings for chicken rice or have to eat chicken rice at least once a week/month
- Have gone around trying the different highly-recommended/famous chicken rice stall in Singapore
- Have found yourself in a debate/discussion of which is the best chicken rice stall in Singapore
- Have mocked about the expensive chicken rice sold at Chatterbox.
It is an almost irrefutable fact that Hainanese chicken rice is Singapore’s national cuisine.
But wait…Hainanese chicken rice balls?
For this stall that I’m going to blog about, instead of chicken rice, it is chicken rice balls that are served. The rice balls are actually rice that is pressed together to form the shape of a ball. The rice ball is also the most unique feature about this stall that has differentiated it from the plethora of similar chicken rice stalls in town.
The rice balls taste soft and mushy. Personally, I prefer the usual rice that is being served to these rice balls. One characteristic of a good chicken rice - plump aromatic rice with lingering taste of the chicken stock and pandan leaves that has been used to cook it. Sadly, I feel that this important characteristic is missing from these rice balls. The rice has been pressed too tightly together causing the rice to lose its characteristic fragrance and taste.
The chicken is soft and tender, but it is a bit uncooked, as seen from the reddish tinge on the meat in the photo above. As for the char siew, I found its texture tough and hence not sufficiently chewy.
The chicken rice is served together with a tasty bowl of soup cooked with peanuts and chicken feet and three different sauces - garlic, chilli and dark soy sauce. I especially love the chilli sauce. Though it seems to be more watery as compared to the usual chicken rice chilli, it tasted good and spicy.
Another complaint of mine about the stall: I was really thirsty after eating it for lunch. I guess that signifies the amount of MSG that has been used during the cooking.
On the whole, the chicken rice tastes decent and definitely above average. This is the stall to patronise if you have a craving for chicken rice but want to try something that is slightly different from the usual run-of-the-mill chicken rice, simply because these rice balls have added such an interesting twist to our national dish.
