Tiong Bahru Chicken Rice Opens First Restaurant At Takashimaya—Here’s Our Review

Tiong Bahru Chicken Rice has a new restaurant at Takashimaya

Chicken rice stans may be familiar with Tiong Bahru Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice, the legendary stall at Tiong Bahru Market. After receiving the Michelin Bib Gourmand award numerous times and opening several stalls across the island, the brand is taking its next big step with the opening of its first restaurant concept at Takashimaya Shopping Centre.

Image credit: Tiong Bahru chicken rice

The restaurant offers what the brand is best known for, but with a few extra steps. Alongside the usual steamed and roasted chicken rice, there are customisable rice options and an oven-baked version. The menu now stretches well beyond chicken rice, reading more like a zi char lineup. But with all these additions, does the food still hold up?

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Food at Tiong Bahru Chicken Rice

Let’s start with the yin and yang of chicken rice: steamed and roasted chicken. These can be ordered in single-serving portions under the names Hainanese Chicken Rice ($10++) or Roasted Chicken Rice ($10++), respectively, or in Quarter ($16++), Half ($25++), and Whole ($45++) chicken portions.

Since we prefer steamed to roasted chicken, we were thoroughly impressed by the rendition here. Just look at that gelatinous layer of fat between skin and meat—that’s how you know the chicken underwent the ice bath treatment, resulting in wonderfully tender and juicy meat. The roasted chicken, while not as texturally impressive, was also pretty succulent, with the roasting and marination process imparting a bit more flavour to the meat.

There are three types of chicken rice here. The first, Fragrant Chicken Rice ($2++), features your standard jasmine rice, though its flavour is anything but—we were impressed by the savoury depth and aroma of the rice, with each grain fluffy and separated. Then there’s the Fragrant Niigata Koshihikari Rice ($3++), which uses sticky short-grain Japanese rice. Our favourite, however, was the Fragrant Basmati Rice ($2.50++), which infused long-grain basmati rice with the addictive flavours of chicken, ginger, garlic, and pandan.

We found that chilli sauce was a little too mild for our liking—neither tangy nor garlicky enough. But even if you’re not the biggest fan of their chilli, there’s the ginger and sweet soy sauce to enjoy with your dish.

If you’re bored with the steamed/roasted binary, opt for the Oven-Baked Whole Chicken served with Japanese Rice ($60++). The above picture depicts just the chicken, but the dish is usually prepared with rice underneath it.

While the concept is certainly exciting, we found ourselves a little let down by the quality of the chicken. The oven-baking process seems to have stripped the chicken of much of its moisture, leaving most of it tough and dry. The rice, however, was again excellent, as the juices of the whole chicken managed to seep into it during the cooking process.

There are a few other novel dishes to try, such as the Chilli Soft Shell Crab with Mantou ($23++). A cross between Japanese tempura soft-shell crab and our local chilli crab, this was a fun dish to have, especially since you can soak up the chilli sauce with the bite-sized crab and mantou. However, the crab lacked a crispy edge, and the sauce lacked the sweet, umami goodness of chilli crab sauce.

We thought this was another crab-themed dish due to its red floss shell, but it turned out to be the Golden Cereal Prawn ($19++). This dish fared better, though, as the prawns were light and crispy on the outside, thanks to the floss-like cereal flakes, and juicy and sweet on the inside. However, we felt it could use a bit more of that spicy kick from the bird’s eye chillies.

The Hainan Curry Fish Pot ($38++), meanwhile, lets you choose between a whole fish head and fish tail. While we found the fish fresh and tender overall, the curry was a little watered down, and could’ve been richer, more aromatic, more piquant.

Ambience at Tiong Bahru Chicken Rice

The restaurant is certainly impressive looking—the space is almost mid-century modern in how it makes clever use of green, yellow and brown wood tones to create a chic yet soothing vibe. And though you might not be able to tell from the picture, the restaurant is also surprisingly spacious, with an entire back section fitted with plenty more tables.

Tiong Bahru Chicken Rice is a six-minute walk from Orchard MRT Station.

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Tiong Bahru Chicken Rice’s first restaurant concept nails the chicken rice aspect—that much is certain. Its zi char dishes have some notable flaws, but due to the sheer variety, you might just find something you like.

For Michelin-approved Taiwanese soup in Taka, read our Moon Moon review. For other eats in the same mall, read our Takashimaya Food Hall guide.

Address: 391 Orchard Road, #B2-36A, Takashimaya Shopping Centre, Singapore 238872
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 11am to 9pm, Sat-Sun 10:30am to 9:30pm
Website
Tiong Bahru Chicken Rice is not a halal-certified eatery.

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Photos taken by Enze Kay and edited by Marcus Neo.
This was a media tasting at Tiong Bahru Chicken Rice.