Hey Hive!
Now that a lot of people here have already gotten vaccinated, I'm very happy to hear that Singapore is now allowing in-house dining again but obviously you have to be vaccinated. But since there aren't any restrictions this allows us to try out different food places again!
Chicken Rice is one of my all-time favourite Singaporean dishes, which makes sense since it is Singapore's national dish. If you've never had Hainanese Chicken Rice before, it's a dish of (typically) poached chicken and seasoned rice, served with chilli sauce and cucumber slices. According to Wikipedia, it was created by immigrants from Hainan in southern China and adapted from the Hainanese dish Wenchang chicken. Chicken Rice is ubiquitous in Singapore and you can find a stall that sells chicken rice in almost every hawker center here.
Source: Asia Pacific Food Industry
I've written about a few different chicken rice stalls we've tried here in Singapore, but one of my go-to chicken rice restaurants is Boon Tong Kee! My family used to patronise Boon Tong Kee almost every month when I was younger and since it's been a while, we thought we'd try it again.
Boon Tong Kee is a Chinese restaurant known for their chicken rice. In fact, it started out as a small stall in Chinatown serving Cantonese chicken rice in 1979 and Mr Thian Boon Hua later established a restaurant with his family in 1983.
They now have quite a few restaurants across Singapore and this particular one we went to was in Ang Mo Kio at the bottom of this block of flats. It was quite understated other than the huge signboard outside, and was quite a big restaurant too.
They even boasted healthier rice outside while we waited to be seated.
Thankfully it wasn't packed when we went in since it was before peak dinner time. The crowds only came in after we left which was a relief.
The interior looked fairly open compared to the outlet I remember back in the day. But then again it was a completely different outlet in the east side. This one looked a bit more modern but they still had the picnic blankets on the tables. There were also some booths along the sides for smaller groups so we sat there.
I think they expanded their menu since the last time we patronised though since there was a lot more stuff now. They even had different combo sets for takeaways.
But since we were dining in, we checked out their full ala carte menu. Of course they had their signature boiled chicken:
But they also had crispy chicken and different types of meat like pork:
They also had different vegetable dishes:
Seafood dishes:
and Beancurd dishes typical of other chinese restaurants here.
We excitedly waited for our food while enjoying the aroma of the chicken rice in the restaurant. About 10 minutes later, our food arrived!
We remembered the crispy chicken being really good the last time we visited Boon Tong Kee (which was quite a few years ago), and since both of us like roasted chicken over white chicken we ordered half of the Crispy Kampong Chicken, which came with a side of prawn crackers and of course two bowls of their special rice.
For vegetables, we ordered the spinach with three kinds of egg:
And just to try we ordered some fried tofu as well:
This was our full order and we actually started trying the chicken rice once the chicken came since it was cold where we were sitting and we didn't want to chicken to go cold.
The crispy chicken was so good, and very aptly named since it was indeed crispy. You could feel and hear the crisp whenever you bit into the skin of the chicken, it was almost as if it was deep fried. Since it was a half chicken there were different parts and some bones but it wasn't too messy.
The spinach was pretty much what you'd expect from any other chinese restaurant. It was pretty average but still good and nutritious. There were chicken eggs, salted eggs and century eggs in there, which we don't eat at home so it was nice to have this again.
The tofu was kinda meh. It was savoury but could use more seasoning like some pepper, and could have been fried a little more so it was more crispy. But I think this was intended since they were being healthier.
It was same with the rice actually. They boasted that they have healthier rice but it didn't have the same kick as in most hawker centers. It did still have the usual chicken rice taste but less strong and definitely tasted healthier compared to usual chicken rice stalls. Not that it's bad, just different. Sean didn't like it as much though but I thought it was okay.
It was definitely a very filling meal and I was so stuffed by the end of it. We did end up demolishing everything on the table though.
I'd say the crispy chicken was definitely the highlight of the meal, and while they've taken a healthier turn, Boon Tong Kee still holds up as a chicken rice restaurant and I would probably visit again if I ever get a craving for good chicken rice. I don't think I found my favourite go-to hawker stall for chicken rice yet so this will still stand among the top for me. And there's also a variety of other dishes to try so it's a win-win of sorts.
If you have a craving for some restaurant-quality chicken rice, try Boon Tong Kee!
Thanks so much for reading!
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