All chooked up

You know how it is when you’re really, really hungry and are enroute to a meal you’ve had before and you just know it’s going to be so good because you can taste it?

Looks are massively deceiving.

Insipid saucing gives bean sprouts a bad name.

That was how it was at lunch. I’ve been known to be very fickle when it comes to what to eat, but today I knew I wanted the chicken rice at Yat Yeh Hing in People’s Park, opposite St Ignatius Church in PJ. We even managed to find parking.

I ordered roast chicken and bean sprouts. The drinks in the shop are catered by the restaurant owner, who also makes ala carte dishes, so I also ordered a tofu from her. I barely waited till the shutter clicked on my camera before I began eating. Shock and horror! The chicken was so tough and stringy that it has the texture of untreated hemp. I hoped it was just that odd piece, but three pieces in and I was masticating so hard I could have cut a wisdom tooth, had I any left to cut.

It was only after my plate of rice was finished that I got a decent, tender piece of chicken. By then my jaws ached and I was in a bad, bad mood. Kit reminded me that the last time we ate here we took the steamed chicken, so it may well be that the roast chicken was always a dud. Looking around, all the tables had the steamed chicken.

Still, it pissed the heck out of me to have the worst chicken I have ever eaten at this very meal. The place was chosen for its track record. It is inexcusable that he’d stink at roasting chicken while excelling at steaming them. And if he knew he stank at it, why the hell does he offer roast chicken? Even his bean sprouts were insipid. Although plump and fresh, they lacked the combination of oil, stock and sauce which makes it a crunchy, salty, satisfying mouthful.

For RM6 I could have had a whole banana leaf lunch. With a banana for dessert!

The only decent thing was the tofu. But at RM6 for that little cake, it was hardly worth it, seeing its topping was pickled radish and a little minced meat. Sure, it was molten soft inside and very good when warm, but if I have to sit through bad chicken for this tofu again, you can forget it.
The final nail in the coffin was the fact that the glasses the tea came in were so very badly washed that one still had the imprint of lipstick on it. While I am not squeamish and have eaten in more than my share of unhygienic places, this stinker was the final straw. I’m big on personal space and privacy and to have someone’s lip print on the cup I’m supposed to drink from is akin to asking me to French kiss a stranger wearing a very unfetching shade of coral.


Goodbye chicken rice shop at the corner, it was not nice knowing you and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I stop by again. I’d eat at the Chicken Rice Shop more willingly next time!