Xin Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice ($3.50)!
Xin Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice $3.50 — proper hawker chicken rice with tender poached chicken, fragrant rice, signature chilli sauce.
Wednesday hawker lunch — Xin Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice at $3.50. One of those neighbourhood chicken rice stalls that’s been quietly doing the proper Hainanese version for years.
We ordered:
- Xin Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice — $3.50
Hainanese chicken rice is the Singapore national dish that lives or dies on three components: the chicken, the rice, and the chilli sauce. Each one has to be right, otherwise the whole plate fails.
The chicken was the proper poached version. Tender, with the skin still slightly translucent and gelatinous (the giveaway that the cook was the slow-poach-and-rest technique rather than the high-heat boil). Sliced thin off the bone, with the slices arranged fanned-out over the rice. The flesh tasted of chicken — not water-logged or bland — with the fat layer just below the skin still soft and flavourful.
Rice was the fragrant version. Cooked in chicken stock with garlic, ginger and a touch of pandan leaf, then finished with rendered chicken fat at the end for the signature glossy finish. Each grain stood distinct from the next, with the fat coating giving it the proper aromatic depth.
Chilli sauce came as a small dish on the side. The Xin Kee version had the standard Singapore garlic-chilli-ginger-lime balance, leaning slightly more garlic than chilli, with the lime adding the proper acid lift. The kind of chilli sauce that you want to mix a small spoonful with the dark sweet-soy sauce and use as a dip for each slice of chicken.
A small bowl of clear chicken soup came on the side — the by-product of the poaching process, lightly seasoned, with a few sprigs of cilantro and a touch of white pepper.
Small portion of pickled green chillies completes the plate.
At $3.50 this is honest hawker pricing for a proper Hainanese chicken rice.
Overall: 4.3 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Reliable Xin Kee chicken rice — would re-order.
