Famous Shanghai Xiao Shao Xing Chicken📍Yunnan South Road 小绍兴白斩鸡 云南南路店 ☎ +862163260845

Xiao Shaoxing 小绍兴 is a famous chicken porridge (yeah..., not rice) restaurant at Yunnan Road (South) in Shanghai.

If you love chicken, there is really no reason to miss out on Xiao Shaoxing restaurant as it is within walking distance from Shanghai's obligatory check-in landmarks like Nanjing Road, Yu Garden and The Bund.

Xiao Shao Xing started in 1943 here at Yunnan Road (South) as a street side chicken porridge stall.

The founder was a small built man from Shaoxing city, hence the name 小绍兴 "Xiao Shao Xing" or "Little Shao Xing" which remained to this day.

Seventy years on, Xiao Shao Xing is a large grand restaurant today and many consider it the best chicken place in Shanghai, if not at least the most famous.

A good chicken served starts with a good chicken selected.

Xiao Shao Xing uses 三黄鸡 "three yellow chicken" which has yellow feet, yellow feathers and yellow beak. In the past local Pudong 浦东三黄鸡 was used but as the breed has become rare, other breeds that feature yellow feet, feathers and beak are used (including at Xiao Shaoxing).

At Xiao Shaoxing, only at least 90-day old, around 2.5kg weight hens with no blemished skin are used.

The birds are dunked in hot water three to five times before poaching for thirty minutes. The poached birds are immediately given an ice water bath once taken out of the hot water.

The ice bath tightens the skin, making it smooth and crunchy while locking in the chicken's juices and flavours. The fat just beneath the skin also turns into jelly.

The chopped chicken 白斩鸡 is beautifully presented in a yellow mound. The dish is served at ambient temperature with skin and bones intact in the large chunks.

The doneness is perfect - which in Shanghai (and among Chinese poached chicken enthusiasts, in general) means the bone hollow has traces of pink (blood and marrow) while the meat has very little or none of it.

The yellow skin is smooth and soft crunchy, meat is tender and juicy, flavour is naturally sweet and fresh.

Instead of rice, at Xiao Shao Xing, the famous chicken is eaten with porridge.

Xiao Shao Xing's signature dip is made with ginger, scallion, soy sauce, and secret ingredients.

The porridge is made by boiling rice in chicken stock, so it has a sweet savoury flavour.

Me, I will never get tired of the classic Chinese poached chicken. The skin is velvety smooth and softly, delicately crunchy to the bite. The fat jelly just below the skin literally melts in the mouth, releasing the natural sweetness of chicken. The meat tender and juicy with visceral fat, is subtly squeaky to the bite and floods the mouth with flavours and aromas that find their way all over our palate and nose.

It's a heavenly pleasure that reminds me that life has been good.