The first dish I’m going to review is the simple yet profound ‘chicken rice’, or cơm gà xối mỡ, in particular. Cơm gà literally means ‘chicken rice’, while xối mỡ refers to the cooking method of pouring boiling oil over the chicken to make the skin crispy. This makes it completely different to more popular Chinese style chicken rices, such as the Hainainese chicken rice, which simply uses boiled chicken. There are other types of chicken rice as well, but that’s for another time.

Cơm gà xối mỡ from “Cơm Gà Xối Mỡ” in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

The restaurant was located near the Japanese street in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City, slightly hidden away in an alleyway. They only serve one dish—their chicken rice—and seemed to be a family owned business with a very friendly owner. I’m not entirely sure if this is the actual name of the restaurant, as it is just the name of the dish, but that’s what Google Maps told me anyway I ordered the chicken rice, and it only took a few minutes for the dish to arrive.

The first thing I remember is that the entire plate was emitting an extremely nice aroma, full of spices, cooked chicken and char. Resisting the urge to barge into the chicken, I decided to have a bit of the rice—which was the source of the charred aroma and was browned very nicely. Contrary to expectations, however, the rice itself did not have any saltiness attached to it—just a nice, charred flavour along with the slight taste of chicken broth. Then when you pour a few drops of soy sauce onto the rice, it adds the needed saltiness, while the flavour of the soy sauce mixes perfectly with the chicken and char of the rice.

Then came the chicken. The outside was cooked until it was super crispy—even though there was no batter or crumb—but the meat inside remained extremely juicy and succulent with the flavours of the spices completely soaked in. I’m not sure which spices were used to flavour the chicken, but I kid you not, it tasted 100 times better than KFC! When combining the rice, chicken and a tiny bit of soy sauce together, it tasted absolutely amazing—chicken providing the rich flavour of its spices and umami, rice providing the charred aroma, and the soy sauce ‘tightening’ the flavours together.

Overall rating

I was really impressed by this chicken rice and would rate this to be a whooping 9.5/10. I don’t have any negative comments to make about this dish apart from the fact that they are so far away from my home and wish they’d start selling somewhere near where I live.