Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice.Wanton Noodle (新記馳名雞飯.雲吞面), Margaret Drive Hawker Centre

There's a bit Sin Kee Confusion going on. The Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice which I started off getting myself acquainted with that was previously at Mei Ling Food Centre. The stall later relocated to Holland Drive as Sin Kee Famous Cantonese Chicken Rice (which later morphed into Margaret Drive Chicken Rice). It's run by a son of the founder, Benson, as far as I am aware. They've always made it clear that they don't have branches.

But there's a couple of other Sin Kee chicken rice around. This one is at Margaret Drive/Queenstown and they too call themselves Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice (#01-30 Margaret Drive Hawker Centre, 38A Margaret Drive). Unlike that Sin Kee which I mentioned previously, this one has roasted chicken and wanton mee.

Chicken's decent but they're not the standards of the one Margaret Drive Chicken Rice even though their birds looked similar. Breast meat here was stringy. Note to self: get only drumstick/thigh next time.

Rice was adequately flavoured. Good enough to eat on its own. 👍🏼

Chicken liver's passable, not exceptional.

Decent boiled eggs and tau kwa.

One week later...

Came back another day for their roasted chicken thigh (烧鸡尾). Decent tasting cut but not as memorable as the roasted ones that can be gotten from Tong Kee nearby. The rice was delicious just like the last time though. No qualms re-visiting for a chicken rice fix.

Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice.Fish Porridge (新記馳名雞飯.鱼生粥), Mei Ling Food Centre

This was kinda where it truly began for me with the old Margaret Drive chicken rice. Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice. But that old Sin Kee and the current one (#02-22 Mei Lin Food Centre, 159 Mei Chin Road) aren't the same. It's also not the same with another current Sin Kee at the current Margaret Drive Hawker Centre. There's a more complicated history behind the brand which I'm not going into in this post.

This one has a different proprietor at the helm and a smaller stall. Rice was a little wet but still grainy and great flavour from their stock. I could have almost believed that this was a replica of the old Sin Kee but for one thing I noticed. The chicken wasn't as tender. Not that this wasn't any good. It just wasn't the same.

Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice, Mei Ling Food Centre

I had only recently learned of this particular Sin Kee chicken rice (#02-22 Mei Lin Food Centre, Blk 159 Mei Chin Road) stall after having eaten a number of times at the "other" one down at Queenstown which I had thought to be the old stall relocated from the old hawker at Margaret Drive. Whew, that was a long one.

This place turned out to be better than the previously mentioned location. The chilled meat from the boiled chook was more tender, easier to slurp off the bone while the savoury sesame and soy sauce mixture were seemed tastier than the other. The rice was good that one could simply eat them without the chilli. It had one of the rare winning combination of sufficiently greased and yet, light at the same time while being infused with sufficient flavour. It wouldn't be difficult to find an excuse to come back. 

Update: 19/08/2011

We returned for a consecutive day for lunch and this time round, we topped the order up with a side of boiled greens (nai bai). Crunchy stemmed greens with leafy tops that held up their delicious sauce that it was drenched with. This time round, I managed two plates of their rice with nary a drop of chilli and to no surprise, it was still all good for me. I guess the broth that was used for cooking must have gone through the painstaking removal of excess grease for the rice to be so well flavoured without being heavy. None of that garlic scented burps after lunch as well. Yes, it's been a while since I've been excited over a chicken rice stall. This one is just gonna be tough to beat.

 

Sin Kee Famous Cantonese Chicken Rice, Holland Drive

My previous visits to Sin Kee back when there were located at Mei Lin Food Centre had always been on weekdays so this is the first weekend trip down to their stall. Their current stall (Chang Chen Mee Wah Coffeeshop, 40 Holland Drive).

I guess I'm glad we came down since this kinda reminded me why I liked them in the first place. The light yet flavourful rice and those chunky slurp off the bone tender boiled chicken. Skilful strokes of the cleaver that leaves no bone fragments behind as one slurps off those meat. Chilli not necessary but something that's a nice to have for me. 

I'm not going to comment if standards have remained the same because I haven't had them for quite a while and there isn't a metric for it. Assuming that I haven't been imagining it, there seemed to be something a little different from the past. I'm not sure what but it's not changing my opinion of them.

By the way, the teh c in this coffee shop is pretty good. 

Regarding Margaret Drive Sin Kee Chicken Rice (新記馳名雞飯) at Holland Drive

I just realised that the other Margaret Drive Chicken Rice branches that used to be around have disappeared except for this one at Holland Drive which is Margaret Drive Sin Kee Chicken Rice. Up till recently, I also hadn't realised that that the name "Sin Kee" was on their signage. 😬 Always though they were just another branch of Margaret Drive Chicken Rice. 

This does make things less murky, at least for me. It's the stall that I've been eating at since their days as Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice at Mei Ling Food Centre. I'm going to disregard the confusing branding among various similarly named stalls and move on with just this one.

This was from maybe a month back. They're still great without the chilli sauce which allows for some nuances like the flavour of the rendered chicken drippings over the poached bird to be more discernible.

Margaret Drive Chicken Rice, Holland Drive

I don't remember if Sin Kee ever had the name Margaret Drive featured so prominently on their signboard. I do recall that there was a time that they kinda disappeared not very long after they had relocated from Mei Ling Food Centre to Holland Drive some years back. They've obviously rebranded after and even had a branch at Havelock Road Food Centre that had inconsistent standards which eventually folded during the pandemic.

Anyways, this Margaret Drive Sin Kee is located in a different unit from their original one when they as Sin Kee Famous Cantonese Chicken Rice first moved to this coffeeshop (40 Holland Drive). That original unit is currently King of Pao Fan.

Here's the part where I exclaim, damn the chicken is still great! Slurp off the bone tender chilled bird drizzled with their concoction of chicken stock/sesame oil/light soya sauce. There's no metics to any of these quality but this stall is definitely of better standards than the defunct Margaret Drive Chicken Rice branch at Havelock Road.

I've always classed Sin Kee's chicken rice a league above many others. Or was that all others in my experience. I don't actually remember any one which I felt was better than their's which is again, sufficiently flavourful without being excessively oily.