Hainanese chicken rice. It’s a brilliantly simple dish of poached chicken with seasoned rice and basic sides. It’s not much to look at but it’s a cultural and culinary heavyweight that’s done as much for loose skin as any body positivity movement.
From humble Hainanese beginnings to Singapore’s national dish, this hawker classic of cooled poached chicken and fragrant steamed rice is one of Southeast Asia’s most beloved dishes. And for those of us indoctrinated into the church of chilled chook, there is no finer quartet: supple, gelatinous bird; a steaming bowl of the gelatine-rich poaching liquor; a schmaltz-smothered mound of pandan-scented rice brimming with fried garlic and ginger; and a palette of chilli, ginger and soy dipping sauces.
After sampling 27 variations – virtually every example I could find in Brisbane – these are the six best.
Sunnybank Oriental | Photo: Fergus Hurst
Sunnybank Oriental 东方茶餐厅
Even after a quarter-century, this chaotic cha chaan teng continues to pump out perfectly poached poultry. Tattered drapes of silky skin, stained with the remnants of soy and sesame, barely cover the modesty of the plump, pale flesh underneath.
Each slice is seasoned to its core, enhanced only by radiant chilli sauce or a peerless ginger-spring onion oil, dotted with hoops of sweet spring onion.
New Season Asian
Thai-style khao man gai is practically identical to Hainanese chicken in both flavour and execution, with one key exception – the sauces, which are amalgamated with tao jeow into a kind of addictively funky mixture.
Ironically, the sauce at New Season is probably my least favourite of all the Thai joints in Brisbane, but the rice is delightfully oily, the soup peppery and the chicken moist. It also comes with the added bonus of a single playing-card-sized slab of congealed blood, perfect for sating any bloodlust that might arise from a morning of meetings that could’ve been emails.
Singapore Fast Wok | Photo: Fergus Hurst
Singapore Fast Wok 興興
Even in the Lion City there’s a tendency for the rice to be relegated to the role of supporting actor. Fortunately, Singapore Fast Wok’s Oscar-worthy version is packed with fried garlic and ginger, and so slick with chicken drippings that you’ll find yourself obsessively wrestling every plump, slippery grain off the plate.
The fowl plays second fiddle here, but aim for lunch to secure a freshly chilled chicken. When everything comes together, this might be as spiritually close as you’ll get to the legendary hawkers of Singapore, complete with pastel pink plates and a panorama of Marina Bay’s mythical Merlion.
Your Personal Chef 米饭班煮
You might assume the specialty of a restaurant whose name roughly translates to “Rice Boss” would be obvious. But the real draw is the unctuous gilded chook cooked to within a whisker of blushing pink and slumped in a shallow pool of its own delicious juices. It’s texturally sublime and tastes more intensely of itself than anything else.
The real philosophical dilemma you’ll grapple with is this: can the best chicken rice be served without soup? Would Sponge Bob be complete without Patrick? Harry Potter without Ron? Well, if an institution like Singapore’s famous Tian Tian can go sans soup, then the answer is emphatically yes. Just make sure to get your order in early, before they inevitably sell out.
Malaya Corner | Photo: Fergus Hurst
Malaya Corner 旺角
It’s fitting this chaotic Sunnybank restaurant sits at the Mad Max-esque intersection of Market Square and McCullough Street, a lawless wasteland where basic road rules do not apply. Malaya Corner feels equally anarchic: for every one-star rant lamenting the pace of service, there are three glowing five-star rebuttals.
I can’t pretend that the Hainanese chicken rice is superior to the glowing orange vat of Malaysian seafood laksa, which is one of the best the city has to offer. But on a good day, when the mustard-yellow chicken and rice are sticky with a salve of schmaltz, and the soup isn’t quite so murky, it competes with the best. Or, to paraphrase Anchorman’s Brian Fantana, 60 per cent of the time, it’s good every time.
The Noodle Club 面缘
Runcorn Plaza is one of the most eclectic strip malls in Brisbane, where a lazy afternoon food crawl starts with smoky lamb testicles, meanders through bowls of Taiwanese gaifan, and finishes with a six-pack of still-warm egg tarts and an antacid. If there’s room, you can also squeeze in the city’s most complete plate of HCR.
The Noodle Club is an anomaly. Not because of the delicate, supple texture of the beach-blond chicken, nor because the rice glistens with a balm of delicious chicken fat, not for the lightness of the soup, nor the vibrancy of its sauces, but because it delivers something that no other pollo pusher in Brisbane can: consistency. It dishes up the same wobbling mass of gloriously jelly-like chicken, every time.
Author’s note: In case my commitment to HCR was ever in doubt, here’s the full list of chicken slingers that were sampled as part of this ill-advised journey: Sunnybank Oriental, Singapore Fast Wok, New Season Asian, Malaya Corner, Your Personal Chef, The Noodle Club, Little Nyonya Kitchen, New Alley, Platform Pho, Malaysian Makanan, Uncle Rocky’s, Joy’s Asian Cuisine, Mr Tall Pork Noodles, Thai Topia, Old Street Claypot, Mui G Kitchen, Sri Mahkota, Roti Place, Satay Ria, Ya Hoo Dining, AJ Vietnamese Noodle House, Kinn-Imm, Thai Nakonlanna, Zen Flavours, Emily Yeoh, Jackpot Dining and Lert Rod Thai.