Follow us on Telegram for the latest updates: https://t.me/mothershipsg
In the 1970s, there was quite a bit of buzz for the construction of what would then be Singapore's tallest building and hotel.
The Mandarin Hotel was being worked on by "a team of top hotel management people" from all over the world. The S$60 million building would even have Don Ashton, a Hollywood set designer who had worked on "The Bridge of River Kwai", design their interior.
The Straits Times described what the lobby might look like once it opened.
"The hotel lobby will have a glass chandelier- the world's biggest piece of glass now being made in Venice- and a 70 ft by 15 ft marble frontage with golden Chinese murals costing S$750,000."
Don gave his modest vision for the hotel, saying the entrance to the hotel would "sparkle like nothing ever did in Singapore".
And somehow, in the midst of this glitz, glamour and literal Hollywood vibes, the humble chicken rice would find its way to "Asia's best hotel".
Local food in a local hotel
A relative quirk of hotel menus back then was how they catered to their guests instead of serving up a variety of novel local treats. This was a point brought up by Peter Gehrmann, the first executive chef of Mandarin Hotel.
Speaking to Makansutra in a 2013 interview, Gehrmann said the norm at the time was to serve foreign guests "home cuisines" they were more familiar with.
Lien Ying Chow, the hotel owner, however, suggested Gehrmann include three local dishes on the new menu.
Gehrmann, who wasn't so sure it was a good idea, decided to go along with it anyway. In doing so, they would become the first hotel in Singapore to provide local fare.
After a local chef from the same pioneer Chatterbox batch took Gehrmann out for "good chicken rice", the chicken rice was joined by char kway teow and laksa as the three Singapore representatives in the hotel's menu.
Choosing the food was only half the battle. In the aforementioned Makansutra article, Gehrmann also went into detail on the team's challenges when setting up.
The team worked with local cooks and "fine-tuned" recipes to get their desired taste. Operationally, they had to develop a working set of procedures in the kitchen.
As Gehrmann sourced for quality ingredients, he was very strict about wanting chickens that followed a particular breeding process, as this process typically yielded larger chickens.
The plating was also quite unique for its time. Gehrmann had decided to serve the chicken on a "ceramic 'boat' vessel" so that it would "fit onto a platter" and be easier to carry.
Good reception, good chicken
The Mandarin Hotel's coffeehouse, Chatterbox, finally opened its doors on November 15, 1971.
There doesn't seem to be any concrete numbers reported during the early days. Still, less than a month after the coffeehouse opened, an ST article described the place as "already doing a roaring business".
A New Nation article in 1973 noted that the eatery was "packed to capacity" every day at lunch. They narrowed the culprit down to some chicken rice served on a "ceramic 'boat' vessel".
"The Hainanese chicken rice, a meal of white rice cooked in bouillion, accompanied by a plate of gently simmered chicken and soup, is very attractively presented on a tray.
The chicken is beautifully tender, and the rice is cooked to just the right consistency."
The S$3.50 plate of chicken rice sold like hotcakes.
In 1982, the eatery moved about 136,000 plates of chicken rice, making around S$1.6 million in the process. The chicken rice revenue itself accounted for about 20 per cent of the eatery's turnover.
They were using more than 29,000 chickens a year at that point.
Even though there have been less flattering reviews over the years — ST's Wong Ah Yoke said in a 2006 review that the standard had dropped and rated it as only "above average" — the eatery's popularity has remained incredibly consistent.
They were even selling 250,000 portions a year in 2010.
All this to say, it was still an incredibly popular dish.
For the next part of the article, I was thinking of going down to try the much-vaunted dish itself. And to note down how closely it resembled the New Nation article perhaps.
Can you keep a secret
The Chatterbox is currently closed (this is of course at the time of writing, it is very much open now!).
It's slated to open on March 14, 2022, the kindly PR personnel informed me while also promising to keep me updated the moment it reopens.
But I still really wanted to try the chicken rice. Maybe there's a recipe or something?
Some preliminary Googling on the establishment uncovered a National Treasure-esque level of secrecy for its recipe.
The recipe has been labelled a "closely guarded secret", with many reports saying only a very select few know the entirety of the recipe.
An 8 Days article even described the secret recipe with the same language used in spy thrillers: "They might have to kill you if they tell you… the full recipe"
According to the article, only six chefs in the world are "privy" to the full recipe.
That secrecy has been a constant theme in more recent coverage on the eatery.
However, this is a rather stark departure from how the recipe was discussed in the eatery's early days.
Here is Mandarin's then-director of food and beverages, Stephen Lim, describing the dish in 1983:
"We do not make the chicken rice from any secret recipe," he said. "It is just the traditional Hainanese method with chilli, ginger and soy sauce."
Although he did acknowledge using some slight culinary twist, it was a twist he readily shared:
"However, he admitted to having an extra feature in the dish. We use the protein of the chicken to make a jelly and spread it on the meat. It makes the chicken taste smoother"
Feels more perfunctory rather than a Colonel Sanders-ian secret recipe.
Former Chatterbox executive sous chef Han Seng Fong set up his own chicken rice stall, declaring that the recipe at his new stall was "the same as the one I used when I cooked at the hotel."
Even Gehrman has YouTube tutorials on how to cook the chicken:
In fact, ST even published the recipe back in 1976.
Time will tell
So did the recipe just become more secretive as time went along?
I asked the incredibly patient PR rep for Chatterbox whether the recipe in ST was the real deal.
The Chatterbox people were unable to confirm the source of the recipe as there was no one on their current team "aware of this recipe that was published back then".
Makes sense, it had been a while back.
They also very kindly helped me schedule an online meeting with executive chef Liew Tian Heong, who has been at Chatterbox for over three decades.
So is the current Chatterbox chicken rice sticking with the same recipe?
Well, yes and no. While the recipe has not been changed, Liew said that the "cooking methods" had been upgraded.
That means less oil, tweaking the fragrance, and even changing how the chicken is cooked — the last one being the most recent change. Instead of boiling the chicken like they used to, Chatterbox chickens are now steam-boiled.
But that still left me in quite a predicament. How to taste something that the diners were having in the 70s?
For that, let's go back to when the menu was still being sorted out.
Remember the local chef from the pioneer Chatterbox batch who had brought Gehrmann out for "good chicken rice"?
That same chef, Kiang Joon Toh, would work nearly seven years at the Mandarin Hotel before striking out on his own at a legendary establishment in its own right, the now-defunct Rasa Singapura Food Center.
According to the Makansutra article, at some point in time, Kiang then set up Jiang Ji Traditional Hainanese Chicken Rice at Havelock Road with his children.
Jiang Ji is still around, but it's now at Yishun Ring Road and run by Kiang's children.
With impressive credentials as well.
When I went there on a Sunday, two of Kiang's children (Raymond and Susan) were there.
They very patiently took some time to read through the screenshot of the 1976 ST article.
"About the same" was their conclusion.
They did say that their father, who taught them everything they knew, would probably have whipped up a different recipe from his Chatterbox days, but that the recipe he eventually ended up with had stayed consistent since he struck out on his own almost 40 years ago.
By the way, a quick six-word review to describe their offerings.
Wha, the chicken rice damn nice.
Image from Jiangji.sg Instagram because the photos I took of my own chicken rice were terrible.
For a more in-depth review, read this Johor Kaki article from 2020 here.
Raymond then very breezily offered to show me their recipe so I could compare the two. I declined but was quite taken aback at the nonchalance in which this over 40-year-old recipe was offered up. (Here it is if you all are interested, though.)
I later asked Raymond why he was so casual about sharing a recipe that had been passed down for a not insignificant amount of time.
"There's nothing, not much of a secret. Everyone is using almost the same thing, it is about how you process it. During, before, and after."
This is the one
And to a certain extent, that is kind of what Chef Liew from Chatterbox espoused as well.
When I asked him how Chatterbox prevents their former chefs from trying to recreate the recipe, Liew was rather matter-of-fact.
It was up to them if they did.
Liew, however, highlighted the difference in quality at Chatterbox. Specifically, the difference in the quality of ingredients used, like their free-range chickens.
Recall the strict chicken-sourcing process dictated by Gehrmann? This rigour appears to carry on well into recent times as well. In a Facebook post from Aug. 2020, Chatterbox revealed that four out of 10 chickens delivered to Chatterbox are rejected by their chefs.
Therefore, the likelihood of departing chefs being unable to replicate the Chatterbox chicken rice might have more to do with the sheer cost of ingredients and the quality control they impose rather than any secret ingredient like ice cream soda in nasi lemak or something like that.
There are many factors contributing to their legendary chicken rice, including the chickens they procure from trusted suppliers, their rigorous quality control, and the chilli made with a really expensive blender.
Oh, quick aside, Liew considers chilli to be one of the most important aspects of chicken rice, taking particular pride in the texture of Chatterbox's chilli sauce.
The chilli was also highlighted by the New Nation article from the 70s.
"The homemade chilli sauce (I judge chicken rice by the type of chilli sauce served) is excellent and the final touch which has made a life-long fan out of me is the minced ginger they serve with it."
Chef Kiang, the former Mandarin Hotel chef who set up Jiang Ji, shares that emphasis on chilli.
In the Makansutra article, Kiang described the chilli as "the most important aspect" of good chicken rice. His obsession with chilli done right was also backed up by his daughter Susan, who described how Kiang would throw out the entire pot of chilli if it wasn't up to standard.
But back to the recipe.
It makes sense for the Chatterbox to fiercely guard its recipe and to accord it near-mythical status.
To many, it's a bonafide institution.
They made the very first chicken rice served in a Singapore hotel, did sales by the buckets for decades, got glowing reviews, and eventually earned the title of Singapore's most expensive chicken rice (although they are lowering their prices, yay). The cream of the crop. An entirely different being of chicken and rice.
But that, in some ways, perhaps undercuts a simpler interpretation of what the Chatterbox chicken rice was.
"We do not make the chicken rice from any secret recipe," he said. "It is just the traditional Hainanese method with chilli, ginger and soy sauce."
Maybe it was just good old traditional Hainanese chicken rice done very well.
And perhaps that very chicken rice was served in a hotel, not because it was a plate of singularly exceptional chicken rice, but because chicken rice itself is just that good and should be served everywhere, including hotels.
This is, of course, not to say all chicken rice is created equal. But the difference can be attributed to more tangible factors like effort, cooking method, dedication, and quality of ingredients.
A restaurant that uses high-quality free-range 60-day chickens cooked by well-trained chefs with decades of training may very well have the upper hand against the competition.
Likewise, a small hawker stall that makes sure their chilli is cooked perfectly, to the point where whole pots of it might be dumped if done wrong, would probably have handily earned their "best Hainanese steamed chicken in Yishun 2020" title.
Final distance
I made my way down to Chatterbox about a week after they reopened to taste the new and improved chicken rice.
There were a decent number of people in the restaurant, and reservations were also quickly snapped up.
According to Liew, they had made a concerted effort to appeal more to locals because of the pandemic (hence the price cut).
As for the chicken rice, yeah, it was really good.
Image from Chatterbox Instagram because the photos I took of my own chicken rice were terrible.
The chicken was tender and had that silky sheen that tends to be common in steamed chicken dishes, but if I'm being honest, the S$25 price felt a bit steep.
Chilli was great, though.
I'm no food reviewer and have never tried Chatterbox before this, so it's hard to make any really insightful points about the taste. Check out a more thorough review of the new Chatterbox taste by Daniel Food Diary.
The reviewer, who has definitely eaten at Chatterbox before, made this observation about the chicken.
"To be honest, the chicken meat itself wasn’t as spectacular as what I remembered it to be, and a regular Chicken Rice eater could probably possibly rattle off a few places that may serve ‘better-tasting’ renditions."
And the passage of time isn't just limited to the chicken rice as well.
The menu has way more local flair.
The hotel itself has also changed a lot from the glitzy Hollywood-themed opening from over 40 years ago.
Although the lights were quite cool, there was no glass chandelier hanging from the hotel lobby. No large glass pieces made in Venice (as far as I could tell). And certainly no 70 ft by 15 ft marble frontage with golden Chinese murals that cost S$750,000.
Or at least I didn't see any of that.
The "tallest building" label now rings hollow while surrounded by equally gargantuan skyscrapers (according to Wikipedia, it's now the joint-111th tallest building in Singapore).
In fact, there technically isn't even a Mandarin Hotel anymore, it's now a Hilton.
Yet somehow, through all these radical changes, an unassuming local hawker dish, part of a bare-bones three-dish local menu that the then-executive chef wasn't even sure of, manages to chug along with its silky, shiny skin.
Still sparkling like nothing ever did in Singapore.
Jiang Ji Traditional Chicken Rice
780 Yishun Ring Rd, Singapore 760780
Opening hours: Monday closed, Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 4.30pm
Chatterbox
333 Orchard Road, #05-03, Singapore 238887
Opening hours: 11:30am – 2:30pm, 5:30pm – 10:30pm
Image from Chatterbox
Follow and listen to our podcast here