At Ubi earlier this afternoon, I found the perfect white poached chicken rice.

It is very difficult to find flavourful chicken that is a good balance where the poached/steamed white chicken meat is firm, and yet tender at the right consistency.

The cooking technique (whether or not it involves soaking in cold water and/or being quickly submerged into salt water after boiling) usually requires the white chicken to first be slightly undercooked.

This can cause the chicken to sometimes lose its flavour because all the yummy chicken juices will inadvertently get drained out into the water.

This is why we will then have to deflect the tastlessness with lots of chilli sauce, ginger or black sauce.

Or worse, the chicken will end up being undercooked.

The ideal Hainanese Chicken Rice does exist, and can be found in Block 305, Ubi.

This is the third outlet of Traditional Rui Ji Chicken Rice and Curry Noodle, and it is now their flagship store.

Their first stall is at 93 Lorong 4 Toa Payoh, #01-48, Singapore 310093, which opened in a coffee shop on 10 Feb 2023.

Then, on 26 June 2023, they opened a stall in a food court at The Gateway, 150 Beach Road, B1-01, Singapore 189720.

On 16 December 2023, they opened their latest outlet at 01-179, Block 305 Ubi Avenue 1, Singapore 400305.

They have the unit to themselves, and there are indoor and outdoor seating options.

It is less than a 5-minute walk from Ubi MRT station (Blue line).

There are lots of car park spaces nearby, if you prefer to drive there.

The menu is extensive and full of family favourites.

There is always a steady stream of customers who eat there or opt to takeaway.

It will probably get a lot more crowded once the office folks in the nearby industrial buildings return from their year-end breaks.

I was there 2 days in a row, and ordered the Chicken Curry Noodles ($6) on the first day.

I prefer chicken thigh, and the portions of meat were very generous.

So generous that I decided I must quickly go again to confirm to myself that it wasn’t by pure chance that the cook gave me extra chicken on 29 December 2023.

I also wanted to relive the tastes of the flawless blends of spices in their curry, as well as the tender tau pok and potato that were welcome accompaniments to the chicken.

On 30 December 2023, I ordered Chicken Curry Noodles, and also a quarter white poached chicken so that I could taste the white chicken without the spicy curry sauce.

The meat is impossibly tender, and the sauce was impeccable.

Every grain of rice was coated with the chicken broth that it was cooked masterfully in.

I wanted to focus entirely on the simplicity of the well-executed white chicken without the distractions and drowning “noise” of the black soya sauce, the ginger or the chilli sauce.

Each spoonful of white chicken was incredibly tender and the chicken skin was gelatinous – the hallmark of the correct way to cook white chicken rice.

The recipe was created in 1949.

The cooking method creates soft chicken meat – whether you prefer breast meat or any other chicken part – while retaining its moisture.

Rui Ji is owned by a brother and sister team: Jass Lee (aged 48) and Joseph Tan (aged 55).

They are related to the owner of the legendary Swee Kee Chicken Rice Restaurant, which operated from 1947 to 1997.

They have family ties through their grandmother’s side of the family.

Jass had worked at Swee Kee Chicken Rice Restaurant for about 10 years, hence her familiarity with how the chickens were cooked and how the sauces are made.

Traditional Rui Ji Chicken Rice’s name in Mandarin is the same as Swee Kee – 瑞記.

Before 1949, Mr Moh Lee Twee began as a street vendor, and sold chicken and rice that were cooked in bamboo tubes.

Business was very good, and he opened his first outlet in 1949, operating in the Yet Con coffee shop in Purvis Street, off Beach Road.

In 1950, the stall moved to 51 and also 53 Middle Road, where it remained for another 47 years.

Between the 1950’s to the 1970’s, Swee Kee was the undisputed King of Chicken Rice in Singapore.

Anyone who had guests in town would bring them to Swee Kee (or eventually, to Chatterbox at the then-Mandarin Singapore) for chicken rice.

After Swee Kee closed in 1997, other chicken rice eateries that sprouted up used names like Zheng Swee Kee, Sin Swee Kee and the now defunct Old Swee Kee, but their owners were not known to have claimed affiliations to the original Swee Kee.

My parents grew up eating chicken with Swee Kee, and the name started to fade from people’s memories after it abruptly closed.

Our generation and our children now have the opportunity to eat excellent chicken rice and chicken curry noodles at Rui Ji.