Best Chicken Rice in HK - Mandarin Chicken Rice (Singapore) 文華雞飯

Mum took a day off yesterday and decided to jam a few things into her afternoon, lunch in TST, visit flower market in Mongkok and then cooking lesson in Time Square. No wonder she looked exhausted when she got home in the evening. But lunch was definitely the highlight.

Dad has been telling her about this chicken rice store for a few months but they never found a chance to visit. With the weather cooling down, he thought it would be just the right time to try a place with no air conditioning. But after a little bit of online research before they went, they realized this chicken rice store has moved to a new location nearby, from Austin Road to Hillwood Road, where the whole street were lined with small restaurants on both sides. You can even reserve a table in this new location. They left home, once they figured out on Google map where they should park the car.

Walking up a flight of about 30 steps from Austin Avenue, where they parked their car, they saw Hillwood Road. The smell of chicken rice attacked your senses straight away. The new store is located right after the flight of steps and looked clean and simple from the outside.

As soon as mum was seated, she went about ordering and decided on half a chicken plus two bowls of chicken rice. They took the half-and-half option for the chicken, ie half portion roast chicken and half portion boiled chicken. The three condiments are an important part of Hainanese chicken rice and this store makes it easy for you to enjoy them, as you get three full containers right on your table. So no messing about going back to the store for refill as in hawker centre in Singapore or worst where you get tiny dollops in some pretty crockery in Hong Kong as if you should not have more.

As they were among the first customers of the day, the chicken arrived promptly and the chicken rice followed soon after. The chicken rice was fragrant and not overly greasy. Both the roast chicken and the boiled chicken were tender and surprisingly had some semblance of chicken taste. And dad was glad that they had the condiments right on the table, as he practically made his bowl of rice into a bowl of chili, ginger, chicken flavored rice. Mum thought the black soy sauce was too runny, but that didn't bother dad too much as he was never a big fan even when the best was on offer.

It is often difficult to make comparisons when you are not doing a blind test or having the same food in a short space of time. But the chicken and the rice here must be among the best that they have tried. Perhaps better than those from the famous Chatterbox and not far from TianTian 天天 in Maxwell market both in Singapore. Definitely better than DaShaoYe 大少爺 in Happy Valley and we shall reserve judgement on the much hyped Hainan Shao Ye in World Trade Centre. And by Hong Kong standard, the prices were really reasonable. They spent HK$101!! See if the photos will whet your appetite.