Hainanese Chicken is a dish served by early Chinese immigrants from the Hainan; a southern province of China. Considered to be one of the national dishes of Singapore, it is popular among Malaysians, Thailanders and Vietnamese. To prepare the chicken is soaked and boiled in pork and chicken stock; reusing the broth over and over; only pouring more water to the when needed. The rice; on the other hand is cooked again on another reserved chicken stock which gives it a shiny; oily and delightful flavor.
One afternoon, at around 4PM. I suddenly had an urge to eat some wonderful chicken, choosing between the savory flavor of Bacolod Inasal or Hainanese Chicken, I chose the latter and was not disappointed. If you are looking for a good sit down dinner for clean white chicken look elsewhere as Hainanese Chicken Delights is a fastfood type restaurant which has 24 branches scattered around Luzon. So operational hours, ambience, accessability differs from branch to branch. With regards to comfort; it’s a fast food chain, so expect small tables and colored mono block chairs to welcome you.
The menu is quite extensive for a specialize fastfood chain. They carry fried tofu dishes, squid, pork, noodles and dumplings; and if you have a knack for Soya-based drinks, then go order some. Price ranges from 100 to 300 pesos; and they serve unlimited Hainanese rice.
For my experience; feeling hungry, I ordered a White Chicken that comes already with rice. No drinks; as I have only a few hundreds left on my pocket. The whole meal was satisfying; I started scooping up some dark; sweet yet salty sauce from the chicken and got through with one cup of rice with one cut of the chicken and a few spoonful of that magical sauce. My next 2 cups of rice were over for a couple more fair share of hainanese sauce and 2 more slices. Got to 6 cups of rice until we finished the whole 1/4 chicken which was priced at 139Php only! The hainanese chicken was flavorful with the sauce but the meat was bit tough and dry. You could get by that flaw by dipping it on the condiments provided; very spicy, red chili sauce, the popular ginger sauce and soysauce. The Hainanese rice; which again was unlimited, was a bit cold when it was served to me. But it was a good meal nevertheless for 139Php. There are some improvement they could do with their food; but if you are drop-dead really hungry you could not go wrong with ordering their special white chicken.
The staff were courteous; but since I was the only customer at that time; I was not sure if lunch time strikes if they could manage the amount of people eating there. Food quality is good but not great. You could tell that the chicken was a bit dry, and the rice was about a quarter-day old.
What could you expect from a fastfood chain with affordable meals? Well it is as expected, the only surprisingly great was the hainanese chicken dark sauce. Everything else in my plate were not stellar but okay (again, for a fastfood chain). If you are into a clean, white chicken meal this is the best choice; otherwise you may find yourself skipping across other restaurants in the foodcourt.
