Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice @ Katong Shopping Centre

Keef has mentioned he liked Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice in Katong Shopping Centre when I returned to Singapore in 2012. He said the ko lei chye tng (cabbage soup) was good and it came free of charge! 3 years later I’m here with a huge appetite. The queue was long, and that’s a good sign!

Katong Shopping Centre is a shopping mall located along Mountbatten Road in Singapore. Established in 1971 and opened to the public in 1973, it is the first air-conditioned mall in Singapore. – Wikipedia

Tommy (left), Mark (right) and Alvin playing waiters of the day.
Alvin was still at the stall getting more food!

We tried to squeeze everything onto one table but it was not enough.
Alvin and I sat at adjoining table to partake our meal.

More rice please :)
The bottom front plate of acar (pickles) with abalone slices was complimentary from the stall owner.

Usually, when we go out eating, the guys would split up the task – one would do the queueing up and ordering, one or more would help to get the sauces, cutleries so that when food came, we could start ‘stying’ and the rest be seated or try to find a table (when extremely busy i.e. lunch time). We managed to be seated outside, quite far away from the stall.

This particular day, Alvin was the one getting the sauces. He took so much the stall helper “chided” him. Alvin told us later that he understood why the stall helper was “frustrated” – there was a long queue and taking all these sauces before our turn would disrupt his workflow of refilling fast enough and holding up patrons who were in front of us. I use quotation marks in the words chided and frustration as it wasn’t an unpleasant or rude encounter but for lack of better vocabulary on my part (my mind is in Hokkien mode now, lol…). I think the owner felt bad and gave us a complimentary acar with Thai-style sweet chilli sauce dressing as a kind gesture of apology for his assistant’s remark. Thank you! :)

There were standard freebies that come with the chicken rice meal here i.e. acar and the cabbage soup which Keef raved about. I don’t know how they apportion the free soups but we ordered two types of chicken yesterday, the poached and the roasted and we got another bowl of soup with melon chunks, pork ribs and chicken feet.

Free Cabbage Soup.

I like the winter melon soup but when eating chicken rice, cabbage soup seemed more appropriate.
Behind is the complimentary Acar (pickles) we got with quite a lot of abalone slices.
On left was the “oily rice” which is chicken rice cooked with chicken broth and some extra ingredients like ginger and garlic, etc… etc…

Now for the non freebies, hehehe… We ordered the following which cost us a total of under S$55 inclusive of 4 plates of chicken rice.

Chicken Gizzards and Livers.
I found the gizzards a little “gamey” but I have always preferred livers to gizzards.
I did enjoy the velvety texture of the livers with some chilli sauce and ginger mince.

Boneless Chicken Feet was succulent and crisp with a hint of sesame oil.

We found most of dishes that were laden with the same dressing to be a tad on the sweet side (for our taste) so that when we had this blanched Beansprout, the savoury sauce was a welcome change.

I don’t know why we call this Roast Chicken when it is actually deep-fried.

Poached or Boiled Chicken.
I like this better than the roast.
The skin was slippery smooth without visible fats.
I had spooned some sauce over the chicken before we started to eat but when dining, I skipped the extra sauce (as I found it sweet) and had chilli sauce mixed with ginger mince and *premium dark soy.
The dark soy for chicken rice is thicker in viscosity and richer in taste than the standard soy we use for cooking.

Review from my pals:
Tommy revealed that it was a different kind of Chicken Rice (CR) experience, “The soups, acar with abalone & beansprout dish stood out more than the chicken itself!” He liked the savoury crunchy beansprout dish most. Mark liked the fried garlic bits on the chicken and loved the chicken feet. Alvin was not blown away by the chicken rice but he was impressed by the generous serving of soup (with lots of ingredients) and acar. I liked the soups, beansprouts, poached chicken sans the dressing sauce and livers. The rice was fluffy but not as fragrant as expected. The chilli sauce was not spicy enough for my taste but better than most other CR stalls. Nevertheless, Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice was the most popular stall judging by the longest queue formed in this tiny basement food court. Overall, we did enjoy our lunch. It was a good thing we sat outside as I reckoned it would be warmer and noisier inside.

And oh! The chicken is not boneless by default, you have to ask for it but I like mine bone-in.

The queue kept building up during lunch time.

Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice
Address: #B1-85/87, Katong Shopping Centre,
865 Mountbatten Road.
Singapore 437844.

Opening hours: Daily
10am – 8pm

Tel:(+65) 97896073

P.S. Did you notice we had no drinks? Probably because we had free soups and limited table space, we didn’t order any. So! That was an excuse for round 2. Coming up next post, coffee with nonya kueh ;-)