Saturday, January 10, 2009

Hainanese Chicken Rice

About 75% of Singaporeans are of Chinese descent, which explains why the unofficial national food was also created by Chinese immigrants. I'd heard that you haven't really been to Singapore unless you've tried Hainanese Chicken Rice, so I decided to track it down. One of the well-recommended places is Tian Tian, which is in a little food court type place near Chinatown. I know that Tian means "heaven", so I'm assuming that Tian Tian means really good stuff.
All the little stalls in the food court specialize in one dish, and the place is popular all day long. I was there on a Wednesday at about 3 in the afternoon, and I still had to wait about 20 minutes.
I got a large portion, and it worked out to just under 3 bucks Canadian. It actually looks pretty bland - just some chicken on top of some white rice - but it was surprisingly good. They marinate the rice in chicken broth, and only use really fresh chicken, although I didn't see any getting slaughtered.
I got some aloe vera drink to go along with it, and that was also really tasty.

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