Xin Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice ($3.50)!
Hainanese chicken rice from Xin Kee: tender poached chicken over fragrant stock-cooked rice, with a garlicky chilli and soup. $3.50.
A reliable hawker lunch: Xin Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice at $3.50, one of those quiet neighbourhood stalls that has been doing it right for years. 😋
What we had:
- Hainanese chicken rice: poached chicken over fragrant rice, with chilli, dark soy and a bowl of soup
Chicken rice lives or dies on three things, and Xin Kee gets all three. The chicken was the proper poached version, tender with that slightly translucent, gelatinous skin that tells you it was gently poached and rested rather than boiled hard. Sliced thin off the bone, the meat actually tasted of chicken, with the soft layer of fat just under the skin still there.
The rice was fragrant and glossy, cooked in chicken stock with garlic and ginger and finished with chicken fat, each grain distinct and savoury enough to enjoy on its own. The chilli leaned a touch more garlic than heat, with lime for brightness, lovely mixed with a little of the sweet dark soy as a dip for each slice.
A bowl of clear soup from the poaching came on the side, with a few sprigs of coriander and a dash of pepper. At $3.50 it is honest pricing for a properly done plate of the national dish.
Overall: 4.3 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Tender poached chicken, fragrant stock-cooked rice and a punchy garlic chilli. Would re-order.
