Special Hainan Chicken (Millbrae) [Millbrae]

Solid Hainan Chicken at this Millbrae establishment. The location was <10mins from SFO and is within a block of Broadway. Broadway in Millbrae seems to rival Irving Street or Clement Street in SF for sheer number of solid Chinese restaurants.

It seems they offer a wide variety of noodle soups, but I was in the mood for a rice plate. Portions were generous: half-chicken, mound of rice, small mixed cucumber/wood-ear salad, peanuts, sauce, and a curiously cold singular egg roll.

It also came with a side of milky chicken broth, with the unusual addition of wakame, a la Japanese miso soup.

The chicken was delicious, moist, fatty, and generously seasoned with white pepper. The rice was schmalzy, as is typical for this dish, but curiously also contained some coconut flavor, likely coconut milk. Perhaps this is betraying the dish’s SE Asian proximity and history. The peanuts were deliciously toasted and tasted slightly of fish sauce, perhaps also communicating this same regionality. The scallion/ginger side sauce was a highlight as well.

The single egg roll felt a little out of place, but it was okay with a small drizzle of chili oil. The cucumber and wood-ear mushroom salad was a little too vinegary for my taste. I foolishly ordered an additional side of wood-ear mushroom salad without realizing it was included in the rice plate.

The rice plate itself was under $20. Pretty tasty for a quick Millbrae lunch.

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A curious but very unique and interesting take on chicken rice. I’d love to taste it.

In SE-Asia, the dish varies from country to country:

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Its the same local restaurant group that runs Special Noodle Soup in Cupertino and San Leandro. I tried their Hainan Chicken a few months back in Cupertino and liked it. Give their other Chiu Chow dishes and noodles a try also. I like the soup of their noodle for sure, and have a few frozen meatballs from their in the freezer.

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A very multicultural dish, to be sure. The national dish of Singapore, yet named after a Chinese island, Hainan, and originally named after just part of that island, Wenchang.

And, of course, since this was in Millbrae, the staff were all speaking Cantonese.