Yakader Muslim Food @ Tekka Market. Singapore's Briyani Wonderland

Tekka Market in Little India is a briyani lover's paradise. There are more than 10 different hawker stalls serving this popular dish at affordable prices. To pick a stall to try, I circled the three rows of stalls and stalked them for a while until some stallholders recognised me before I ordered anything 😂

For this visit (there were many visits before and many more to come), I opted for Yakader Muslim Food as they seemed the busiest and the food display impressed me most (I mean made me feel more hungry).

Yakader's briyani is done dum briyani style i.e. the chicken and mutton are cooked embedded between layers of spice infused rice in a large, deep pot. The marinated meat and spiced rice exchange flavours when cooking in the sealed pot, making everything taste and smell better (according to the theory).

We had this chicken briyani to share as we were on a whole day food trail. On my own, my preference would be for lamb 🐑

For $5.50, we got a huge mound of golden-red-yellow rice on banana leaf, chunk of chicken, a hard boiled egg, pickled vegetable and a small bowl of dhal.

It is really very affordable and good value in my opinion.

Alas (that was my first reaction), we were given the default chicken breast as I didn't specify the cut I wanted (which would be the more tender and juicy thigh).

It turned out that the chicken breast was tender (not soft). It didn't infuse any spice flavour but its slightly moist meat had a subtle chicky sweetness which I like.

Briyani is full of spices, so naturally sweet meat without infused spices actually provided the dish with welcomed balance.

The long grain basmati rice was tender-soft, well coated and infused with aromatic spices. It was neither greasy nor wet. A splash of curry added more spice flavour to the rice. Bits of cardamon, clove, raisin, etc., here and there in the rice released perfume when we bite into them.

The hard boiled egg added value and nutrition but not much more flavour 😄

I like this crunchy achar as it tasted savoury sweet spicy with very little sourness (I don't like sour things 😄 ).

I enjoyed our briyani lunch today - it's a lot of joy that $5.50 can buy in Singapore. Next time, I shall go for their fall-off-the-bone tender mutton briyani.

They also have fish (but it is not done dum style).

Tekka Centre is chock-a-block with briyani stalls jostling for customers, so competition is razor sharp here. Which one(s) among the dozen of briyani stalls here is your favourite?

Restaurant name: Yakader Muslim Food

Address: 665 Buffalo Road, stall #01-259, Singapore 210665

Nearest MRT: At the doorstep of Little India station

Tel: +65 9178 3427

Hours: 10:00am - 7:00pm (Tues off)

Date visited: 26 Dec 2020