Old Mother Hen Traditional Herbal Soup Restaurant

136 Sims Avenue (between Lorong 17 & 19)

I am always on the lookout for a good claypot rice. I love the smoky flavour of rice cooked in a claypot over a charcoal fire. This place serves it Hong Kong style, with loads of lap cheong (waxed meats), salted fish, a salted egg and chopped up chicken that had more bone than chicken. The claypot rice was lovely alright, but still a notch below the ones buried in Chinatown complex.

What was interesting was that this place, unlike other claypot restaurants, was more like a zhe char restaurant with many other specialities – the renowned black chicken soup that appeared deathly black had a pleasant herbally taste to it; gorgeous stir-fry intestines that was chewy to the bite, the first such dish I have tasted outside of Malaysia; the steamed pating (fresh water fish from Malaysia) that tasted very rich. Total bill for all these dishes plus a few more was about S$80 / US$48 for four.