Chicken rice is a national dish in Singapore and one of the hardest to review. 8 out of 10 chicken rice stalls serve a pretty good plate of it. That's good news and bad news, the good news is it's pretty hard to eat a bad chicken rice. The bad news is it's hard for every chicken rice hawker to have their own identity for their dish.
Cuisine Better Days Chicken Rice did leave an identity for me. Other than their funny Chinese idiom pun (饱家味国, original is 保家卫国, which means to defend the country), they serve kampong chicken which is not common in Singapore.
Cuisine Better Days Chicken Rice is run by Natalie, who previously run Ah Five Hainanese Chicken Rice in Ang Mo Kio. Its stall is located in People's Park Centre, 5 5-minute walk from Chinatown MRT Station.
Kampong Chicken?
Kampong Chicken is free-range or village chicken. Kampong is a Malay word which means village. Their meat tends to be more firm than farmed chicken, especially on the thigh portions. Kampong Chicken is also healthier due to its high protein-to-fat ratio.
The Ordered dish.
Traditional Kampong Chicken Rice Medium (7SGD)
I topped up an extra 3 SGD for the vegetables and a drink. The portion is decent enough for a person's lunch/dinner. It comes with condiments of homemade chilli, ginger and black soy sauce. Soup is free to refill!
Specially requested Natalie for the chicken thigh meat 😛.
Chicken was ice cold, flavourful and incredibly juicy. As mentioned earlier Kampong Chicken tends to be more firm, but Cuisine Better Days cooked it till very tender.
Dry, fluffy and aromatic are the key factors of great fragrant rice which Cuisine Better Days does very well. Additionally, rice is not oily at all!
Big kudos to their homemade chilli -it's so satisfying! It is spicy with a kick of the lime's tanginess. Pair it up with the chicken, which gives extra flavours and enhances the taste.
Soup is warm and soothing to comfort your tastebud. But a little more savoury would be perfect I feel.
Thoughts
This is definitely an A-tier chicken rice for me. With flavourful but non-oily rice, tender kampong chicken and shiok handmade chilli, Natalie distinguishes her chicken rice from the competition. The things I need to nitpick will be soup and deboning the chicken 😂.
Currently Natalie is operating on a one-woman show, so waiting times are expected to be longer. But, it is worth the wait.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 forks
Previous saga with Better Days Cafe and police report filed against this chicken rice:
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/will-u-go-eat-this-zz-chicken-rice.6950889/page-3
Disgusting business ethics by Natalie Lee
https://www.reddit.com/r/SingaporeRaw/comments/16dwjrh/cafe_owner_being_harassed_by_rival_business_any/?rdt=52093