The Chicken Rice Shop

Hello everyone! It's been almost a month since my last post and it feels so good to be back. Well, I didn't have a proper job so I tried my best not to go out and spend money. Plus my mum is one great cook, can't bear to dine out. My sister's birthday just passed a few weeks back and we went to Sofra for a good lunch. (Check out my review by clicking the link)

That being said, now I finally got a decent job as a relief teacher and I also got a few students to tutor so my holidays are rather meaningful. More importantly, I can treat myself to good food with really awesome company. So last Friday, Roslina and I went to have lunch at The Chicken Rice Shop at Vivocity. It was my first time there but Roslina was telling me that the place served really nice food with excellent service which was what we needed with our stomach growling. Some background information: The Chicken Rice Shop is a Malaysian company which has originally started in Malaysia. Now it has franchises in Malaysia as well as abroad such as Singapore, Philippines and Taiwan.

One good thing I like about this shop is that they have preset meals to choose from. In our case they 3 different sets to choose from. When asked for recommendations, the staff kindly shared his opinions and we went for the Set B (Priced $25.90nett) which introduced their new chicken, "Ayam Sodap Belado" which will be further shared in the post.

Photos were all captured with my iPhone 4S and blame my tummy for the poor photography skills. I couldn't wait to dig in so that explains why my pictures didn't turn out as well. Another thing I like about this restaurant is that they serve all the dishes together so you can enjoy the meal without having to wait for the other dishes. The picture shown above was our spread for two.

The rice was fragrant and had nice flavors. I have tasted rice which has an overpowering ginger and garlic taste but this was to my liking. We were served with the chilli as well as some ginger paste. The chilli was not too spicy and went well with the other dishes. I am not a fan of ginger so I did not like it but Roslina said it was nice.

We chose the Roasted Chicken over the steamed one and the chicken was tender and the sauce was light. Nothing special about this chicken but it was well made.

This is the Ayam Sodap Belado. We were told this was rather new and as a chilli lover I absolutely loved this dish. It had a bit of a sourish spicy taste which I didn't mind at all. Plus the chicken meat was really tender and soft.

I am sure most people are familiar with this dish, Pak Choy with Oyster Sauce. It was nice having some greens along with the other fattening food. I loved this. The greens were not overcooked which is plus and the sauce complemented the chicken rice dish. It tasted good just by itself as well.

This is called the Pai Tee which I found it rather interesting. I am sure everyone has tried the popiah. This was another version of it. They had the radish and carrot filling stuffed in a crispy pastry topped with crushed peanuts. Although it was quite big, we were able to fit the whole thing into our mouths. It was a nice twist to the normal popiah you find in coffee shops or food kiosks.

We were also served some fishball soup which I did not really like it because the taste of the fishball was really fishy. Yes, it might sound lame cause after all it is FISHball. But in defence, I have tasted my mum's fishball soup and never once it has tasted fishy.

Overall, this place filled our empty stomach and we even had to force ourselves to finish the food so that we won't waste them. I am rather particular about service and this restaurant provided us excellent service as they will check with us how our food was and if we needed anything else. I was really surprised that we only had to pay $25.90 because the set meals were already inclusive of GST and service charge with was another plus point from me. We spent about $13 per person. I would definitely visit this place again and it's HALAL.

The Chicken Rice Shop

Vivocity

1 Harbourfront Walk

#B2-37

Singapore 098585

Tel/Fax: 02-6376 9388

OR (another outlet)

Causeway Point

Woodlands Square

#B1-16

Singapore 738099

Website: http://www.thechickenriceshop.com

We were so full afterwards we went to my favorite coffee place Starbucks to redeem my free coffee (yay!) and chill. The place I was sitting at seemed to be emitting too much light which explains my white face.

PS: I made some fudge brownies today and they were really good so I will share it in the next post. Stay tuned! 

∞

Buffet at Straits Kitchen

I love buffets. I love the part where there's variety of flavours and options to choose from, not the guilty feeling that you get after stuffing your face and seeing your tummy bulge out until you can't walk. As it was the last weekend of the year 2012, my friends and I decided to indulge ourselves with good food in a posh restaurant.

As a kiasu Singaporean, we decided to make reservations for 8 a week ahead at Straits Kitchen and we were given the biggest table in the restaurant. 

Having an open kitchen format, you could see chefs working as you enter the restaurant. No matter how many times I dine in at a restaurant with an open kitchen format, it never fails to excite me. Once we got to our seats, all of us dispersed and started taking food from the different stations and started filling up our long table.

This rojak, gado-gado and popiah station. 

The popiah as a whole was normal but the rojak was really nice especially with the youtiao.

Yes, our table was huge and I couldn't stop smiling looking at the food. (It was crazy)

In excitement and hunger we spared no time for taking individual pictures (which I regret now) and started eating once the table was filled up. 

We had naan, curries, masala prawns, aloo chat, tandoori chicken, satays, rojak, popiah, gado-gado, rendang, mutton, roasted duck, roasted chicken, steamed chicken, fried rice, stir-fried vegetables, char kuay teow and a few others which I may have forgotten to mention.

We loved the masala prawns from the Indian section that complimented the naan and prata very well.

I must definitely mention the roasted duck. I had been craving for duck for a really long time and my eyes was probably twinkling when I ate it. Not a biased opinion, but it was the best dish there.

Laksa and Prawn Noodle

You should not waste your stomach for these. The laksa tasted too milky even with the addition of chilli and the prawn noodle was bland. If you notice at the back, the duck was my favourite. 

We were seated in a position where we were directly facing the duck. Vanessa and I were going crazy with the roasted duck. After this I won't have to think about duck meat for another 3 months.

Fruits

We finally decided to start on desserts and fruits. Sadly there was not much variety with the fruit selection but I got eat the passionfruit after a really long time.

Pandan Cake and Onde Onde

The pandan cake was really nice and moist. It wasn't too sweet nor was it too bland and it was up to my liking. But I love cakes. I did not try the onde-onde because Sam told us it wasn't good and the flour seemed thick as well.

Sago with Gula Melaka

The kuihs generally were not bad. I am ashamed that I am unfamiliar with some of the names here. But the rainbow coloured kuih and the brown kuih with coconut was good.

Goreng Pisang

Who doesn't love goreng pisang?

Durian Ice Cream 

and this was AWESOME. 

If you love durians, you should definitely have a lot of these.

I did not take a picture of the muah chee, but that was really good as well. But sadly I was too full for all the desserts and but still managed to try a bit of everything. Normally, I have enough room for desserts but yesterday was a different case. 

Overall, my friends enjoyed the food and we enjoyed the company. My friends are big eaters, maybe that was one of the reasons that we were able to stuff so much food inside our tummy without bursting. For the price that we paid, it was a good experience overall including ambiance, food and service. Although all these local delicacies can be found in most hawker centres, the experience, service and quality of food received is definitely different. Best of all it is Halal! I would rate it 4/5.

The Address:

Straits Kitchen

Grand Hyatt Singapore

10 Scotts Road

Singapore 228211

Tel: 6732 1234

Nearest MRT: Orchard

Price: $44++ for lunch on weekends for adults

On a side note, Happy New Years Eve!