Chewing Into History

“Hainanese chicken?” the day manager asked, raising a square plate with rounded edges and a bowl of light yellow rice, almost white in the light, her bespectacled face frazzled by the noise 15 chattering college students were making at her restaurant on a lazy Monday afternoon.

             Four tables were lined up before us, their warm light brown tops turning even warmer and even lighter in the early afternoon sun. The group, all raring to eat, filled the restaurant with questions about the menu: What looks good? What does this mean? Do you think this is good? What are you getting? If some had ordered earlier, they were already eating. Either way, the table was too busy to notice the poor manager.

        “That might be theirs,” one by the restaurant’s glass doors, finally noticing the brunette, mumbled, pointing to the middle half of the four aligned tables. 

        With new hope the manager smiled and tried again: “Hainanese chicken?”

The chicken lay boiled and chopped on clean white porcelain with sweet soy sauce, chili paste, and blended ginger...

           
            No answer; it seemed the whole table was too focused on eating their roti canai and tom yang goong to hear me ask whether or not we did order that darn meal. 

One more try: “Hainanese chicken?” 

            No one remembered ordering it. The manager trails off to the kitchen window irritated, lips pursed, taking the order with her.

            It took 15 minutes of probing before the vindicated manager returned bringing with her Penang Hill’s “authentic Malaysian” dish: the Hainanese chicken rice.

            The chicken lay boiled and chopped on clean white porcelain with sweet soy sauce, chili paste, and blended ginger—neatly divided in a small rectangular container—placed before it. With the dish came a palm-sized bowl of rice, a plateau of muted margarine yellow topped with spring onions, and a bowl of chicken broth. Everything was eaten together: All three sauces were mixed into each juicy morsel of chicken and taken in with the broth-soaked rice. The ginger stood out the most; salt followed, trailing on the tongue; then margarine and the softest kick of chili. It was mild—typical of Southern Chinese cooking. 

Wenchang Chicken

            There is a similarity between Wenchang chicken in Southern China’s Hainan province and this Malaysian dish. Penang Hill chef Dennis Machica said Hainanese chicken is boiled for an hour before the flame is extinguished and salt, onions, and spring onions are added to the broth. The chicken is then submerged in ice water for another hour before it is placed into chicken stock. Wenchang chicken is also boiled and, like Hainanese chicken rice, is smooth, pale, and served with rice flavored by the chicken’s own oil.

            Talk about a meshing of traditions.

         China has had a long relationship with Malaysia, said Tan Chee-Beng in his book Chinese Peranakan Heritage in Malaysia and Singapore. From the early traders who settled in the archipelago and married the locals to the Chinese Peranakan (“locally-born”) or Baba of the 1832 British Straits Settlements of Melaka, Singapore, and the restaurant’s namesake Penang, the Chinese have since been mixing their recipes with Malay cooking traditions in what is called Nyonya (“descendant”) food. 

             In Penang, north of the Malaya Peninsula, the Hainanese chicken rice has thrived to the point that it is now regular hawker fare. One will be able to see it in the stalls that line George Town, the first British settlement in Penang after the Sultan of Kedah handed it over in 1786, competing with the food from Hindu Indian Peranakan, the Indian-Muslim Jawi Peranakan, and fellow Baba from other parts of Southern China whose forefathers came with the trade boom in Penang in the 19^th century.    

            The dish has gone far with the travelling Chinese that even the Straits Chinese in Singapore and Thais have their own take on it. And now here it is in the Philippines. 

            The novelty in Hainanese chicken rice comes not from the flavor but from its history—a dish both Malaysian and Hainanese with spicy and mild combining into something unique, something distinctly Malaysian—distinctly Penang. It’s intriguing to taste a part of Penang’s heritage and to chew on the idea that this is only a part of the island’s history of colonization and immigration: Every bite is a story of adaptation, and there are many more stories to bite into. 
 

            Located in the Promenade at the Greenhills Shopping Center, Ortigas, Penang Hill boasts authentic “Malay-Singapore Cuisine.” According to night manager Fred Macaso, Penang Hill’s founders—siblings Michael, Jenny, and Jinky Ang— sent the restaurant’s previous chef to Malaysia just to master the local recipes.

            The restaurant is open every day from 11:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and can be reached at +63(2) 7253727. Prices range from P100-300.

            Penang Hill also has branches at Robinson’s Place, Manila Midtown and Shangri-la Plaza Mall. These branches can be reached through (02) 567-1926 and (02) 910-2530, respectively.