The Hainanese chicken rice wars are heating up in the San Gabriel Valley

Who makes the best Hainanese chicken rice? It depends on who you ask.

The poached chicken and rice dish was invented on Hainan island, China’s southernmost province, but it appears on menus all over Southeast Asia. In Singapore, it’s the national dish, and there’s an ongoing debate over whether Ah Tai or Tian Tian, both in the Maxwell Food Centre there, serves the best. I tried both when I visited last year, and neither camp is wrong.

In Los Angeles, restaurants that specialize in Hainanese chicken rice, like the decades-old Savoy Kitchen in Alhambra, have helped popularize the dish.

An order of Hainanese chicken rice from Savoy Kitchen in Alhambra. The restaurant has been serving the dish since 1982.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

Though the menu at Savoy boasts pizza, pasta and even a roasted Cornish hen, I’ve never actually seen anyone in the cramped dining room eating anything other than the Hainanese chicken rice. Servers come around to the tables every five minutes or so to refill your trio of chicken rice condiments: ginger, chile and sweet soy.

My best friend will tell you that Savoy makes the best Hainanese chicken rice. My Chinese grandmother might agree. Though I’ve always thought the constant lines were more about the tiny dining room and the affordability of the restaurant. When I was in high school, the plates of chicken and rice were less than $10.

My mom prefers the chicken and rice at Cluck2Go in Pasadena, and before it closed, Side Chick at the mall in Arcadia. She’s a new convert for the chicken and rice at Heng Heng Chicken and Rice in Thai Town. If you ask my cousin, she’ll tell you the chicken at Green Zone in Temple City is the juiciest.

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If you didn’t grow up eating the dish, it may be difficult to understand the allure of a plate of unassuming poached chicken, the pale skin intentionally slack, and a mound of rice cooked in the poaching liquid. It’s simplicity, pure flavors and contrast of textures are what I find so comforting. And if you really need a jolt of salt, acid or heat, the dish is typically served with condiments that offer just that.

Chef Hong Xiao spent years cooking Hainanese chicken rice around the San Gabriel Valley before opening Hong Coffee and Bakery in Monterey Park earlier this year. But you’ll have to search for it to find it on his menu.

The restaurant and storefront has about four tables inside and a long deli counter with cups of silky tofu, cakes and a variety of sweet and crunchy snacks on display. There’s a long list of noodle soups on the menu, with bowls of broth brimming with fish balls, wontons and springy egg noodles. If you manage to make it past the soups and lo mein, you’ll find the Hainanese chicken rice.

An order of Hainan chicken with rice from Hong Coffee and Bakery in Monterey Park.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

“I know that many places around here have the chicken and rice dish, but I wanted to make it and see how it did with customers,� Xiao says during a recent visit. “I came up with my recipe by pulling from each place I worked before, choosing the parts I liked from the dish.�

Xiao’s chicken is firm with the slippery skin barely attached. Each piece is full of the poaching liquid, fortifying the chicken with its own juice and fat. His rice resembles the broken rice you might find at a Vietnamese restaurant, slightly chewy and plump with the chicken broth it was cooked in.

“The most important thing is to get fresh chicken,� he says. “That, and how much time you cook it in the broth.�

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Xiao serves his chicken with a ginger paste, dark soy and a side of pickled cabbage and carrots. The pickles are a nod to his childhood in Guangdong, China, where he would buy jars of pickled vegetables from the street vendors.

“I never had pickles with Hainan chicken before, but I liked the flavors and I figured it would go well together.�

They do. And it’s only a matter of time before plates of chicken and rice start to outnumber the bowls of soup on his tables.

At the new Burd Chicken Rice in West Covina, real estate agent Dee Meas is serving his own version of chicken rice inspired by bai mon, the chicken-and-rice dish found all over Cambodia. After working in commercial real estate and helping dozens of restaurant clients find spaces for their businesses, Meas decided to open Burd Chicken Rice in a strip mall earlier this year.

An order of chicken and rice from Burd Chicken Rice in West Covina comes with chicken broth and two dipping sauces.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

Born in Cambodia, Meas and his family fled the Khmer Rouge for the U.S. when he was 4 years old.

“Chicken rice is a staple,� Meas says on a recent call. “Bai mon in Cambodia is our version of chicken rice, very similar to Hainan. I grew up eating Cambodian food with traditional flavors from my mom, but our version is more catered to everybody.�

Meas toasts his basmati rice in a blend of “secret� aromatics that give it a distinct yellow hue and a nutty, slightly bitter flavor. The grains are glossy from the poaching liquid, cooked in the same broth as the chicken.

An order of fried chicken skins for Burd Chicken Rice in West Covina. The restaurant specializes in chicken and rice.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)

In addition to the more traditional poached chicken, Meas is making grilled chicken marinated in lemongrass and ginger. He’s also deep-frying the chicken after it’s poached. You can order any of the preparations over rice or wrapped in a giant flour tortilla. And there are cups of fried chicken skins as crunchy as potato chips.

Each order is paired with either one, or both ginger condiments. One is a mix of garlic, ginger and scallion sauteed in oil until the fragrances bloom and the alliums just start to wilt. The chili-ginger is its fiery counterpart, with the heat of bird’s-eye chile, fresh ginger, garlic and the acidic punch of rice wine vinegar.

In an effort to set Burd Chicken Rice apart from other chicken and rice-focused restaurants, Meas says he trademarked the concept of sugarcane drinks with chicken and rice. He’s making fresh-pressed sugarcane juice and mixing it with coconut water and passion fruit and kumquat, but the chicken and rice is reason enough to visit.