Good Year Local Hainanese Chicken Rice Ball

I was thrilled when when I googled "chicken rice ball" and found this stall serving the chicken rice balls right in the heart of Singapore. As most Melaka-trekkers will know, in recent years the chicken rice ball has slowly been disappearing from the famous stalls in the town. So we decided to head down to Toa Payoh to seek our fave chicken rice variant.

Location: It was easy locating this coffeeshop which faces the main road (Lorong 1). The problem was finding a carpark space. Fortunately there is a multistorey carpark (MSCP at Blk 110A) located a few minutes behind the block.

Service: It's self-service and a long queue forms at lunch time. Ordering is brisk and the operators (a family, I think) are very friendly people. Our only grouse is that the chicken rice balls are only available ala carte, when you order half a bird. You can't have chicken rice balls with the standard set meal for one, which is a shame. After some discussion, they allowed us to "upgrade" to the rice balls (but after our meal and upon closer calculation, turned out they just added the cost of rice balls to our rice meal). That's expensive!

Flavours: The roasted (brown) and boiled (white) chicken meat was not tender at all, and at times even chewy. The rice balls however were quite fragrant and double the size of those in Melaka. Even the chilli sauce tasty a bit off, unlike the usual garlic chilli sauce that comes with the dish.

Verdict: Notwithstanding the texture of the chicken, it would be a nice place to come whenever we have a craving for chicken rice balls. However, we'd have to come in a group!