JUST CHICKEN DINNER

SERGEANT KITCHEN BOASTS SERVING PREMIUM HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE FROM SINGAPORE

Afavourite Thai street dish everyone loves is khao man gai or Hainanese chicken rice. It’s simple and easily accessible thanks to the indomitable presence of Bangkok street vendors. The dish is also popular in Singapore and widely sold in food courts over there. It’s a dish we see everyday and perhaps even eat regularly, but Sergeant Kitchen promises a premium version of the dish.

Singapore’s Sergeant Kitchen has been making Hainanese chicken rice for a while. It has brought its specialty to Bangkok with its first store on the 6th floor of CentralWorld. The restaurant boasts a 14-ingredient recipe along with an intricate process of cooking the chicken and rice. Apart from the Hainanese chicken rice, the menu also includes fried chicken and roast chicken, as well as an assortment of appetisers, desserts and drinks.

It’s to be expected that the price is slightly higher than streetside khao man gai, with a dish of Hainanese chicken rice priced at B78. The expected varieties of fried chicken (B80), roast chicken (B78), or a combination of roast and Hainanese (B109) are also available. We’re glad that the prices weren’t ridiculously jacked up. But with all the boasting of 14 ingredients and serving up a premium version of a dish we’re very familiar with, the question is “Does Sergeant Kitchen deliver?”

We believe you get your money’s worth. The restaurant definitely gives a more sophisticated experience compared to what would you have at a streetside stall or a shophouse and the chicken is significantly fatter. But is it a “premium” version of the dish? Not really. It’s a slightly better version of its streetside counterparts, but other than that, it pretty much tastes the same. Even the sauces aren’t that different and if they’re toting it as “premium”, we expected something to be vastly different from the chicken rice on the streets.

Bottom line, Sergeant Kitchen serves up a cleaner and meatier chicken rice and if they had stores littered around the city, they would be our go-to place when we crave khao man

gai. Sadly, that’s not the case yet, so we’ll eat there when we’re in the area but we have no qualms about eating from the stall on the corner.