Sunday, August 19, 2007

Five Star Hainanese Chicken Rice

Kampong Chicken Rice

These guys are a few doors down from Boon Tong Kee on River Valley (417 River Valley Road, 6235-6760, with other locations including Serangoon Garden Way and East Coast Road). They seem to differentiate themselves from their (perhaps) better-known neighbor with the tagline, "the one & only original Kampong Chicken Rice," which I believe means that they don't use ranch-raised chickens.

To be honest, I had a bit of trouble telling the difference between that and mass-produced chicken though. Not surprisingly, the meat was a bit tougher, but I really couldn't tell if there were much of a difference in taste, especially since that mildly sweet sauce that they doused all over it really just overpowered whatever taste there was in the meat to begin with.

Well, it still tasted good when paired with the ground ginger, and the rice was fluffy. And I kinda liked some of the non-chicken rice things that they had on the menu, such as some ground pork-covered tofu thing. Perhaps more importantly, I liked it better than Boon Tong Kee...the River Valley outlet, anyway. I'm normally not one to pick on ambience, but that place is just too weird for me with its pyramid-shaped rice, green paper-wrapped utensils, and Ferrero Rocher appetizer (they give it to you at the beginning of the meal!). It's almost as if they were trying so hard to impress that they accidentally took the exit into Tacky-land.

3 comments:

小妹 said...

Not sure if u've tried the chicken rice stall at the hawker stall at a market next to the queenstown mrt station. At level 2.

Rice is not too oily and chicken is quite tender too ;)

Anonymous said...

The Boon Tong Kee at Balestiar has pretty good tze char.

Aaron said...

I just stumbled upon your blog from a google search on Borgo. Check out Wee Nam Kee chicken rice near Noveena, across from the church, I believe on Upper Thompson Road. It's gold.