chicken rice – Michael Eats

Location: 1419 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.thainyyom.ca/

Thai Nyyom has a delightfully focused menu. Outside of the appetizers and desserts, they serve just three things: chicken rice, khao soi, and a rotating special. The chicken rice and khao soi are both available in vegetarian versions, but that’s it. If you don’t want one of those three things? Too bad, go somewhere else.

Honestly, I wish more restaurants would do this. Just serve a handful of things and do them really, really well rather than spreading yourself thin with a huge, padded-out menu.

I went with the chicken rice, which is an abundantly simple dish, consisting entirely of poached chicken served on top of chicken-infused rice. It comes with a container of hot sauce on the side, but otherwise, this is about as simple as it gets.

It’s really good. In particular, that rice is pretty much perfect, with a really fragrant, chicken-packed flavour that’s profoundly satisfying.

I wish the chicken were a bit better — it doesn’t quite have the silky texture that you’ll find in the best versions of this dish, and has a mildly leftovery flavour — but the rice is so good that it basically didn’t matter.

Plus, any issues with the chicken basically disappear once you add some of that zingy, garlicky hot sauce. That stuff could make anything taste great.

Location: 713 College Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.kissmypans.com/

I’ve mentioned before that Singaporean cuisine isn’t nearly common enough in the city, so it’s quite delightful that Kiss My Pans — a Singaporean brunch spot in Little Italy — not only exists, but is extremely popular.

They have a pretty extensive menu that basically covers Singapore’s greatest hits; I tried the roasted chicken rice, and the char kway teow.

Chicken rice is a classic dish that features chicken served with chicken-infused rice. It’s traditionally served with either poached (which is my preference) or roasted chicken, which is what they serve here (well, they call it roasted, but I think it’s actually fried, as it has a level of crispiness I don’t think you can get in the oven?).

It’s quite tasty. Both the rice and the chicken are slightly on the dry side, but otherwise the flavours are right where you want them to be, with the soy and chili sauces on the side adding a nice savouriness and zippiness.

I also tried the char kway teow, a stir-fried noodle dish that gets its distinctive dark colour from dark and light soy sauce. Again, it’s not the best version of the dish that I’ve had (the flavours don’t quite pop the way they should, and the wok hei might be a bit too pronounced, with a borderline bitter flavour throughout), but it’s still very tasty. And again, it’s not like we have a million Singaporean restaurants to choose from in the GTA; I’m just happy that this place exists, and is pretty good.

Tag: chicken rice

Satisfying Chicken Rice at Thai Nyyom

Solid Singaporean Food at Kiss My Pans