Le Cheng Kampong Hainanese Chicken Rice • Promising Newcomer in the East (of Singapore) 乐城海南鸡饭

We met up at Le Cheng, a relatively new chicken rice place in the East (of Singapore). Do we need another chicken rice shop in Singapore? 🤔 Yes, but only good ones 😬

Le Cheng Kampong Hainanese Chicken is a spin off of Gu Zao Ren Seafood Taiwan Porridge which is located right next door to Le Cheng. Gu Zao Ren founderAh Seng sold chicken rice at Bukit Timah 9 Mile decades ago - his daughter Liya is reviving Ah Seng's old chicken rice.

So, Le Cheng is the return of the old Bukit Timah 9 Mile chicken rice.

(I never tried Gu Zao Ren Taiwan Porridge before.)

Liya now runs Le Cheng Kampong Hainanese Chicken which opened 6 months ago (in 2024).

Le Cheng is a simple space, just basic sturdy furnishings, obligatory menu photos on whitewashed walls. But, the restaurant is air conditioned, clean and comfortable. In Singapore, when the food is good and word gets out, people will come.

Le Cheng uses relatively large, 1.8kg weight free range chicken.

We had a quarter bird which was cut in relatively large chunks, lightly doused with brown sauce and oil.

The meat was soft tender with fat that melt into savoury juice in the mouth and there's velvety smooth yellow hued skin. The tender meat had a subtle squeaky chew to the bite at the end which I like. The meat, fat, skin had a sweet chicky taste overlaid with slight savouriness from the dressing sauce.

It was delicious and compared well with my favourites 169 in Chinatown and Da Po at Golden Mile.

I love the rice at Le Cheng. It was flavourful and aromatic. The rice was boiled in chicken stock with chicken oil, garlic, ginger, pandan leaves, etc.

They use good quality fragrant rice with mostly whole long grains. The grains were at just the right moistness, tender with a nutty bite.

Flavourful without the taste of flavour powders and not overly greasy. Liya said this was how chicken rice tasted in her Hainanese family since she old enough to remember anything.

Forgot to use the black soy sauce until we were done and leaving. The rice was flavourful enough on its own and I plain forgot? 🤭

Liya was proud of her chili and ginger which were freshly made. Zesty, sharp, perky, but I didn't really need it as the chicken was so tasty on its own.

No chicken soup given for chicken rice 😁

Le Cheng also serve poached salted duck. Yeah, when you go to Hainan island, you will realise that they are also big on ducks (as well as geese, not only chicken).

The duck was good too. Had nice ducky sweet flavour in the tender meat which was not overly chewy at all.

Hainanese mutton soup in claypot.

The meat was fall-off-the-bone tender, only very slightly gamey which was complemented by herbal taste from the soup made with more than a dozen herbs and spices.

Chai poh egg or omelette filled with chopped sweet type preserved radish and greens.

Sweet savoury eggy flavours in that thick flat "pancake".

Obligatory greens and mushrooms nicely executed. Crunch, juices and flavours retained with overlay of savoury flavours from sauce and oil.

Some people think Singapore has too many chicken rice shops already 🤭 But Le Cheng is a worthy new kid on the block. Give it a try, especially if you are an Eastie - it's another good option at your doorstep.

Let us know your experience in the comments 🙏