Yew Chuan Claypot Rice is one of the most popular stalls at Golden Mile Food Centre. It ticks all the boxes for a good traditional claypot chicken rice including cooking from scratch and finishing over charcoal stoves.
The queue is long and wait is at least 30 minutes but you wouldn't know it because customers are waiting at their tables. The simple ordering protocol is to find a table first (which can be challenging during peak times), go to the stall, make your order, pay, and let them know your table number. Your cooked orders will be delivered to you at your table (reason is the heavy claypot is too hot for customers to handle).
I appreciate it that at Yew Chuan, the rice is cooked from scratch, not par boiled. It is first cooked over a gas stove, and then finished over gentle charcoal fire. No mean feat considering the tiny space hawkers have to work in.
Stall owner Pan Nip Chang learned the ropes of cooking claypot chicken rice at Geylang Claypot Rice, Geylang Lorong 33 and later became its head chef. (Source credit.)
We arrived over two hours before opening time but they would take orders
only near 12:00 noon. We were among the first to order and our food came at around 12:15pm. Not bad.
The claypot rice looked good. This is the minimum order of $14 for two persons.
Over the rice, there's chicken, salted fish, pork sausage (lup cheong), liver sausage (yun cheong),
and choy sum greens. Be careful of the scathing hot claypot which retains heat for a long time.
We dribbled in the obligatory sweet-savoury black soy sauce and aromatic oil liberally, partly because the contents in the claypot were slightly on the mild tasting side.
The claypot rice looked delicious after a vigorous stirring.
The boneless cubed chicken (thigh) was tender and savoury sweet (but not as tender, juicy and
sweet savoury as
New Lucky). The lup cheong (Cantonese pork sausage) and liver sausage added layers
of savoury taste. The salted fish gave the dish another salty layer
(remember to mash the two pieces of "powdery" salted fish before stirring into the
rice). The greens added colour and a juicy sweet crunch.
Overall, Yew Chuan's claypot rice is a little light handed in flavours,
so the dark soy sauce and aromatic oil come in handy to boost its
taste.
The bottom layer of rice was way overdone but it's not an issue at all. The layer of rice just above it was done to a perfect brown crust and added nice crispy gritty chewy crunch to the nutty rice. Just leave the charred layer stuck to the bottom of the claypot alone i.e. discard.
Talking about rice, Yew Chuan use better quality rice than
New Lucky of Holland Drive and comparable with
Lian He Ban Ji of Chinatown.
Pro-tip or rather a caution: Yew Chuan will give you only the required utensils for your portion, meaning two pax portion is given two sets of utensils and no more. If you have a party of four, you will still get only two sets of utensils if you ordered a two person serving. There..., I saved you some scolding 😛 (Brusque hawkers are part of the fun of eating in gritty hawker centres, so be a good sport ok? 😄 )
Yew Chuan Claypot Rice is one of my top choices at Golden Mile Food Centre.
Written by Tony Boey on 29 Mar 2021
Very arrogant and rude staff, especially the service woman. Don’t expect service because their business is just too good. Despite of that, they have a very poor service system, I waited over an hour, I saw people who came later than me got service, when I ask them, why other came later got service and I ask how long do I have to wait.
ReplyDeleteThey started pointing fingers among one another for answer. And eventually the young woman told me I can have the next one they were still cooking, without any apologies, she even told me I have to collect myself. So I collected my claypot, After the poor service, I thought perhaps the food could make up for their poor service. To my disappointment the rice was like half cooked and it was tasteless. It was a very total let down. I wouldn’t recommend anyone. And I will not want to give it another try, especially such rude service staff. If I have a choice they do not even deserve a star.
false review above
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