$23 Giant Truffle Chicken Rice Platter With Islandwide Delivery to Feed Your Fam

Slotted along the strip of eateries in Upper Bukit Timah’s The Rail Mall, New Teck Kee Chicken Rice has been there since 2013. The air-conditioned, 60-seat restaurant started out as Teck Kee Chicken in 1999, when its founder Mr Lee Hock Liong set up his own stall in an S11 kopitiam in Yew Tee after training as an assistant cook under a “Hainanese chicken rice master”.

After opening New Teck Kee at The Rail Mall, Mr Lee decided to rebrand in order to pivot beyond chicken rice. A handful of “comfort foods” were shortlisted for the expanded menu, including classics like laksa and porridge, as well as zi char staples like hei zho (fried prawn rolls) and cai poh neng (preserved radish omelette).

Li Yong Shen, 31, had been helping out with the biz since he was nine, starting from the stall’s S11 days. When Mr Lee Hock Liong wanted to close New Teck Kee upon his retirement in 2016, Yong Shen felt that it would be a waste of all the years his father spent building up the brand.

The ‘N’ level holder deemed it difficult to find a suitable job in a “paper chase” society, and thus took over his father’s business in 2016 — both to preserve the brand as well as to help support the family. “It’s not easy. Not because I’m running a traditional business [as a millennial], but because I’ve taken over in a time where F&B is undergoing a transformation and digitalisation,” he shares. “The recent circuit breaker flagged the importance of adapting through challenging times,” he adds. Yong Shen mainly oversees the business, a chef that he hired helps to cook the food in the restaurant by following the family’s traditional recipe. “[Though] there are times I have to personally do the cooking and chopping of the chicken,” he says.

This IG-friendly large chicken rice platter drizzled with truffle oil was introduced in May. Yong Shen intends for the dish to break away from traditional chicken rice, as a way to be “fun and different” as New Teck Kee pushed to survive the circuit breaker period, where biz was down by 30 percent. While things have started to improve, business is still “far off from what it used to be” pre-Covid 19 days. We order the Truffle Chicken Rice Platter from New Teck Kee’s online platform, with about two hours notice for the restaurant to prep.

The platter arrives in a flat basin-sized black plastic container. As we prise off the lid, the unmistakable aroma of truffle oil wafts through the air. The communal platter features plenty of rice draped with both poached and roasted chicken, garnished with cucumber and tomato slices, plus cilantro leaves. We’re told white truffle oil is drizzled all over the grains and meat just before the platter is sent out for delivery, in order to retain as much of its fragrance as possible.

Yes. The ratio of truffle oil to rice was on point, with the oil adding a layer of earthy fragrance to the grains. It complemented the savoury sauce-drizzled rice (the sauce comprises soy, oyster sauce, rose wine and “other secret ingredients”). While the truffle flavor takes over the usual gingery notes, we could still discern that it’s chicken rice — and not truffle rice — due to the addition of the yummy chicken sauce. It’s actually pretty addictive — kinda like how it’s hard to put down a bowl of truffle fries or truffle potato chips. “I’d put on Netflix and snack on this,” says our makan kaki. The aroma is more assertive at the start, so best to chomp on this as soon the lid is taken off.

New Teck Kee’s white chicken is first poached in chicken broth, before being dunked in iced water to achieve a smoother texture and some gelatin beneath its skin. As for the roast chicken, it’s soaked in maltose and hung to air-dry before being cooked. Surprisingly, we prefer the latter — it was unexpectedly more tender and juicy compared to its counterpart. Prefer one chook over the other? You can request for all of the same kind at the same price. You can even ask to hold the truffle oil (more chicken will be added instead).

There’s more than enough rice to go around if you’re ordering this for a group of four (not five, as stated). However, we felt that the protein portion was probably good for up to three people only. So you might want to top up $3 for extra chicken if you prefer more meat. Compared to the truffle rice platter, the Roasted Chicken for One Pax ($5.90) is dwarfed. You can enjoy both the party-sized platter and the single portion serving at the restaurant for dine-in, at the same price.

This zi char menu item is decently succulent and flavourful. However, we would’ve liked a more generous portion of crunchy water chestnuts in the filling. It needs a quick toast in the oven to restore its original crispiness (inevitable when ordering fried items via delivery).

Although chicken rice purists might scoff that truffle oil changes the character of the dish completely, we think this pairing is a refreshing change if you crave something beyond the traditional offering. Yes, it’s a bit richer than usual due to the extra fat. And yes, the truffle does alter the taste of the chicken rice — but only slightly, and quite deliciously at that.

New Teck Kee Chicken Rice is at 450 Upper Bukit Timah Rd, Rail Mall, S678069. Open daily. 10am - 9pm weekdays; 10.30am - 9pm weekends. Tel: 9208-6713. Islandwide delivery available via newteckkee.ezqr.sg for a fee that varies by area, with no GST charge.

Selected photos: Alicia Teng