Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice - Revisited

18th June 2011

Revisited Tian Tian at Joo Chiat after work for lunch on one of the working Saturday. Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice is always one of my favourite chicken rice stall in Singapore. Love their fluffy fragrant rice and super shiok chilli!

Which chicken rice stall is your favourite?  

Boon Tong Kee @ Balestier Road

25th Apr 2010

Boon Tong Kee a chicken rice restaurant chains in Singapore, started it's first flagship shop along Balestier Road in 1983. It was such a great success that the other 5 outlets & 1 foodcourt stall started one after another until today with a central kitchen. We used to dine at the Balestier outlet quite often since my schooling days with my parent, then with di during our courtship days till now but the last time was before my blog started. It was so much cheaper and nicer back then.... However, now the standard seem to have dropped when I visited them recently with my family after visiting my Aunt Peggy at TTS. She was hospitalised for weeks due to low platelets count. That's why we did not have much homecooking in the weekdays for the month of to Apr to May 2010 as my Aunt visited her almost everyday.

We ordered half white chicken and some dishes for the 5 of us and total bill came up to almost $110 plus which I think is quite overpriced and not value for money. Here's what we had...

Poached Chicken


Chicken was tender but tasted bland, lack of fresh chicken sweetness.


Chicken gizzards


Nothing extraordinary.


Steamed Song Fish Head with Bean Sauce


One of the signature dishes. The fish was very fresh and free of mud taste but the sauce was a bit too sweet for our liking.


Stir Fry Bittergoud with Eggs & Salted Eggs


My favourite dish for the evening. Love the runny egg that coated the bittergoud and the salted soya bean that flavoured up this dish.


Kailan with Oyster Sauce


The standard must have dish when we dine at Boon Tong Kee but Aunt think that the sauce was too sweet for her liking.


Appetizer - Roasted Honey Char Siew


Highly recommended by the staff to try. Their signature roasted char siew which I find it just ordinary nothing to shout for.


Chicken Rice/Porridge



The rice remain as good as before. Very fragrant and firm texture. Porridge was another alternative if you want something light as it goes pretty well with the chicken and other dishes.





Boon Tong Kee
401 Balestier Road
Singapore 329803
Tel: 6254 3937
Opening hours
Mon–Sat: 11am – 4.30am
Sun: 11am – 2am

Yet Con Hainanese Chicken Rice

6th April 2010

Highly recommended by my brother so we went to try it out on a weekday dinner. No regret as we enjoyed the food tremendously. Yet Con has been around since 1940 (as stated on the menu cover), almost 70 years of history even older than Singapore. The air conditioned restaurant looks really very old and original. The boss and helpers are mostly elderly Hainanese. Service is competent and the wait for the food is quite short too. The restaurant starts to fill up after 6.30pm so better to go around 6pm to avoid the dinner crowd.

This authentic and historical restaurant serve traditional Hainanese chicken rice, stir fry dishes and steamboat. Very homestyle which remind me of Hainanese granny's food. We ordered half a chicken to share and some side dishes. Total bill for 4 was about S$60.00. Quite reasonable for the quality food and will love to return to try their steamboat which seem to be quite a hit too.

Hainanese Chicken

Very traditional not the usual smooth and succulent chicken with sauce. That's how my MIL (also Hainanese) cook it too. I like the original taste of the chicken but the meat was not very tender.

Roast Pork

Very fatty and not very well seasoned, the flavour came from the dark sauce only but love the crispy skin.

Stir Fry Seafood & Pork with Fish Maw

My favourite dish that evening. This is a must try! A very comforting stir fry dish with my all time fav fish maw, pork, squid, prawn and Chinese cabbage in a rich and flavourful sauce.

Fish Fillet with Sauce

This is another very homestyle dish. The fish was cooked in dark sauce, probably oyster sauce too, chilli, spring onion and ginger. The sauce just make you ask for more rice.

Stir Fry Baby Kailan

A simple stir fry vegetable dish with nice wok hei.

Chicken Rice & Soup

The rice was very fragrant and the texture was good. You will be surprised the complimentary soup was very tasty too. As for the chilli was too watery for our liking.

Yet Con Restaurant
25 Purvis Street
Singapore 188602
Tel: 6337 6819
Opening hour: 11am to 9.30pm

Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice

18th Mar 2010

Famous chicken rice stall in Maxwell Market - Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice, now open a branch/shop in Joo Chiat! Branded and upgraded to a air-conditioned restaurant with uniformed staffs. I discovered them when I was lunching at Everything with fries last week. This is one of my favourite chicken rice stall in Singapore. When I was working near Maxwell road years ago, I ate Tian Tian chicken rice at least 2-3 times a month for years. Really miss them and have not been eating it since I changed job, simply everything are nice from the rice, chicken, sauce to the chilli.

The last times I ate at the stall was almost 6 years ago but I'm glad that the standard still maintain. No GST and service charge but the prices are almost 30% more at the shop than at the hawker stall which is understandable with better dining ambiance and higher overheads. Business is surprisingly still very good even at a new location with not much publicity. With 3 other colleagues, total bill for 4 was S$36.00 so was about S$9.00 per pax.

The rice (@ S$0.80 per plate) was very fragrant and not too oily. A perfect match in heaven to eat it with the chicken and the chilli. Yum...

Half Chicken - S$14.00

So succulent and tender! The sauce was excellent too, specially blended by the boss and not simply just sesame oil and soya sauce.

Crystal Chicken Claws - S$4.00

Chicken Spare parts - S$3.00

Beansprout with Cuttlefish - S$4.00

Other than Chicken rice, they also served some zi char dishes. Just stick to chicken rice and you will never go wrong. All of us enjoyed our lunch very much. Indeed was our best work lunch for the month of Mar 2010.




Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice
443 Joo Chiat Road
Singapore 427656
Tel: 6345 9443
Opening hour:
10.30am to 10.30pm daily
(closed on Mon)

Five Stars Hainanese Chicken Rice

Sunday dinner... Kampong Chicken Rice at Five Stars along Upper Bukit Timah Road after grocery shopping at NTUC Finest. It was rather crowded during dinner time but the serving time was very fast & efficient even for the zi char dishes. I was amazed as we sat down gave our order, the food was served less than 5 min later. Well to me, overall so so only not really very fantastic but was above average chicken rice standard. Personally I prefer Boon Tong Kee Chicken Rice. This is a good place for a quick dinner and the zi char prices are very reasonable.

Five Star Hainanese Chicken Rice
6/7 Cheong Chin Nam Road
Singapore 599731
Tel: 6466 3000