Hainan Chicken Is The Food That Means Everything To Me

Erick Galindo and I walk into Hao Jing Seafood Restaurant, a Cantonese-style restaurant about a 10-minute drive from my house. It’s one of those chameleon-ed restaurants in a classic strip mall in the community of Hacienda Heights, surrounded by signs written in Mandarin Chinese. When we sit down, we pick up right where we left off.

Megan: How long did you live in your car?

Erick: I don’t actually remember, but it was several weeks. I was too ashamed to ask for help. Especially to ask my parents for help. I just felt like such a disappointment.

Megan: What changed?

Erick: Well, I had to change … everything.

It's true when you’re trying to accept help from the people who love you the most; sometimes, something deep in your life has to change.

But when you’re getting to know someone for the first time, second time, third time, or 10th time, there’s one thing that may never change.

As Erick tells me about the wildest thing he's done for love, which you can hear all about in this week's episode of the WILD podcast, I tell him about my past. Silently.

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As I nod my head and ask questions, we each break apart a pair of wooden chopsticks. We sip white ceramic tea cups filled with jasmine tea. And I start to order the food that my family (on my dad’s side), would have made: Peking duck, beef chow fun, oyster omelet, and Chinese broccoli.

Before placing our order, I squint my eyes and carefully scan the menu. There’s one dish that’s deeply a part of me that’s missing from the menu: Hainan chicken rice. As an American-born Wasian (white and Asian) woman, it was one of the first dishes that brought me closer to my Chinese-Singaporean family. I want to share this dish with Erick as he shares his life with me.

If you want to get to know me, you have to get to know Hainan chicken rice.

Savoring the memories

I first ate Hainan chicken rice when I was 14 years old, visiting Singapore for the first time. On that trip, I met my father’s whole family for the first time. Every time I take a bite of Hainan chicken rice, I’m reminded of the dinner tables filled with my 26 aunties, their various dialects, conversations about my father’s childhood, and stories about my grandmother, a woman whose lips I have but whom I’ve never met.

Hainan chicken rice takes me across the world, to a part of me I look like the most, but act like the least.

It reminds me of the roots that were never a part of my everyday upbringing.

When I’m getting to know someone, I have them get to know me through my grandmother's and my aunties' food.

Here are my top three spots to eat Hainan chicken rice in Los Angeles.

Listen to Episode 7 of WILD

Savoy Kitchen

The first time I heard about Savoy Kitchen was from a friend of a friend. I told them my Chinese-Singaporean father had just moved into my apartment after a health crisis, and to celebrate his improvement I wanted to take him to a restaurant that would remind him of Singapore. Savoy is the kind of place that transports you to your auntie’s homemade cooking.

Savoy is known for the Hainan chicken rice. I usually get dark meat. And if you’re sharing it with family, you can always get a whole chicken. Savoy’s Hainan chicken rice tastes like my auntie’s cooking because of the moisture trapped in the chicken. It’s maintained. The chicken is cooked perfectly, meaning it’s juicy and not too salty. That kind of balance allows me to take in the dish exactly how it’s intended. No fancy spices cover it up or distract you from its natural state. It’s the type of dish that feels personal and tastes like it’s been made just for you. Savoy has mastered cooking a dish for the family at a high scale. The rice is also delicately subtle, and addicting. And the other thing is the soy sauce. It’s also homemade. When I ask the waitress about the ingredients, she smiles and tells me she can’t tell me. She’s loyal. A keeper of the keys.

When I look over to my father, who usually has a critique to give about everything he eats and ask him, “What do you think?” He doesn’t say anything. He just nods his head approvingly. He’s too busy chewing and enjoying his food to give any kind of critique.

Cluck2Go

A plate of fried chicken from Cluck2Go in Pasadena.

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Megan Tan

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LAist

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Down the street from Pasadena Community College is Cluck2Go. When I get out of my car, I can immediately smell what my mouth is craving. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to go inside when you’re standing outside.

Cluck2Go has a super casual dining feel. It’s where your white plastic cups of water will be refilled by the server/cashier without you standing up. The menu is simple. People come for the Hainan chicken rice, which is served Singaporean style, has more Cantonese influence, and is often served with a red chili sauce.

After I order, the first thing that arrives in a white paper container is the chicken broth. The broth originates from the chicken that you are about to eat. Bathed in its heavenly juices and tastes like a warm hug.

Even though the classic Hainan chicken rice (dark and white meat), is soft and juicy, and is everything you could want — I have to admit, the real surprise wasn’t the dish everyone comes for, but the dish that is a little overlooked: The fried Hainan chicken rice.

I’ve only ordered a dish in the United States (I’ve never had fried Hainan chicken rice in Singapore). The fried Hainan chicken rice is a next-level that makes me feel like I’m eating something familiar but the remix version. The fried Hainan chicken rice takes the juicy, cozy, and softness of the classic Hainan chicken and enfolds it in with a crunchy, thin-crusted layer of fried skin. When I have my first bite, my eyes roll back, I quickly black out, and then I jolt myself back to the present, only to regain consciousness so I could have another bite.

With one bite, your tastebuds will be rocketed to a place that is comforting, warm, and too good to be true.

Cocoin Kitchen

Cocoin is a hole-in-the-wall destination. It’s located in the corner of a quiet strip mall on the south edge of Hacienda Heights. Cocoin is the type of place you can take someone who is in their most extremely comfortable state for an incredible casual dining experience.

Cocoin is also the perfect place you come to when you don’t want to cook but also don’t want to overspend — the place you order from when the plan is to get amazing takeout food because you both intend to watch a movie and eat amazing food in the comfort of your home.

If you do decide to dine in, there are a handful of tables at Cocoin. And I guarantee, when you look around, most of the tables will have chicken rice on them. This type of chicken rice is secure with who it is and what it is. It’s not trying to be over-decorated. It embraces its plastic-contained pre-made sauces. It’s the type of meal that a father who is in between work calls but is on a mission to feed dinner to his two girls.

The meal at Cocoin embraces an incredible amount of flavor with good size portions. Here you can order a whole chicken and rotate back-and-forth bites on a lazy Susan.

This is a neighborhood joint. The kind of place where the woman at the register doesn’t know my name but knows who I am. It’s the type of place where she’ll ask me (when I don’t order the chicken rice), “You want chicken rice?” It’s the kind of place that'll know you more than you know yourself. Because, yes — I do always want chicken rice.

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