Hello! 鸡排: Old-school Western food by young blood from $7.50
When I was little, I really thought that food in the Western hemisphere was what is commonly served by hawkers here: fries, baked beans, coleslaw, and a slab of protein (beef, fish or chicken), grilled or deep-fried.
Kid me thought it was the best thing ever. Obviously, I now know that’s not actual Western cuisine, but it hasn’t changed how much I enjoyed eating local “Western food”. Hello! 鸡排 (Hello! Jipai) managed to hit my nostalgia button with their offerings.
Hello! 鸡排 is a relatively new stall, having taken over a space previously occupied by another Western stall that went viral on TikTok. (It was called “Not Your Grandpa’s Grill”). Hello! 鸡排 is a joint venture between 2 friends, Daryl and Kah Weng.
Daryl has a background in fine dining, and Kah Weng runs a cai fan stall called Li Ji Cooked Food a few units down, which he has been doing for the last 9 years. He works at Li Ji Cooked Food in the daytime, and then helps out at Hello! 鸡排 in the evenings – gruelling work.
Knowing that Chinatown Complex’s clientele typically consists of an older demographic, I asked the pair, “Why a Western food stall?” The response was that the location didn’t offer much in the way of Western cuisine, so they wanted to stand out. Kah Weng said that it was slow going at first, but eventually, the elderly clientele began to warm up to their offerings.
What I tried at Hello! 鸡排
Hello! 鸡排 has a very simple, straightforward menu (I like this). Instead of 3 columns of things to look through, they have categories of chicken, pork and fish for mains, one for sides, and then small bites. Prices also seem fairly reasonable – a Whole Spring Chicken is S$10.80 and Fish & Chips goes for S$8.
I ask the folks at the stall for their recommendation and am told that the Chicken Chop with Black Pepper sauce (S$7.50) is one of their signatures. I also got a Homemade Mushroom Soup (S$3.50) to try after seeing quite a few positive reviews on it.
I was told that plans to expand the menu are in place once operations are stabilised – for instance, they’re working on flavoured rice as an alternative carb offering for their mains.
Since the chicken chop is cooked to order, my food takes a bit to get to me. It’s served with a generous amount of fries, a scoop of coleslaw (you can opt for either baked beans or coleslaw), and a fried bun. A fried bun! I love these, and not many Western places serve them nowadays.
As I start cutting into the chicken chop, I notice that the skin is quite crispy and crackles slightly as I work the knife through it. The meat itself offers no resistance, and reveals a moist, tender interior that’s seasoned well. The black pepper sauce also actually has the taste of, well, black pepper, and isn’t gloopy or extremely sweet like other examples I’ve tried.
The coleslaw is refreshing and has a bright, crisp texture and taste. The vegetables aren’t limp and soggy either, and provide a good contrast to the other foods on the plate. Kah Weng says that their sauces and coleslaw are made freshly from scratch, and it shows, particularly in the coleslaw.
The fried bun is exactly what you’d expect – crispy, slightly greasy, tasty goodness. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The fries used here are the thicker cut variety, and while I personally enjoy shoestring fries more, these were what you would want in a fry – crispy outside, fluffy inside. I am a simple person; give me freshly fried fries out of the fryer and I am happy.
Next, I turned my attention to the mushroom soup. From where I was seated, I was able to watch the cook prepare it – a portion was put into a small pot, and carefully whisked over heat. Lashings of Emborg cream were slowly added bit by bit, whisking all the way until the right consistency had been achieved.
The soup was creamy, but not overly rich to overpower the earthy taste of mushrooms. There was the unmistakable flavour of shiitake mushroom, and Daryl said they use a combination of shiitake and button mushrooms for their soup.
While overall I found it really good, I think I would’ve added just a pinch of salt for my portion. This is pretty much the standard of mushroom soup I’d expect to find in a more upscale location, so getting this amount for just S$3.50 is really quite a steal.
Final thoughts
Well, a picture tells a thousand words. The only reason my plate isn’t completely scraped clean is because I foolishly snacked on something beforehand, and the generous portion size.
It’s a nostalgic taste that’s executed well, and the mushroom soup was one of the nicest I’ve had in recent memory. It might be a good thing that I don’t live very near Chinatown, because I’d be tempted to trek down more often than my health permits for Hello! 鸡排’s food.
Expected damage: S$7.50 – S$10.80 per pax
Order Delivery: foodpanda
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