On a chilly downcast Delhi winter day, there are few things that can pick one up. And despite not having a tiramisu, we found something that did just that.
It had been quite a ways to Zomaland’s Singapore Experience Zone from the nearest metro station on that gloomy Friday, but the person we were to meet had come so much further.
Chan Hon Meng, 54, is the son of farmers, who were mostly occupied with growing their crops and rearing their livestock on the outskirts of Ipoh, Malaysia. The keyword here is work, and that is what everyone on the farm did. Since his parents were busy with their farming it fell on young Chan to prepare the meals. And ‘twas from these small embers that one day a star would be born.
Given his skills and passion for cooking, Chan gravitated towards a career in the culinary arts, leaving home at 15. Through journeys and apprenticeships, he eventually reached Singapore, and even as he kept working, he evolved his philosophy towards food: simple, affordable, delicious.
In 2009, Chan opened his own hawker stall in Singapore’s Chinatown, that most meta of markets. It was called Liao Fan Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle and designed as a working man’s meal.
This dish he served, and still does, is literally a soy-sauce marinated roast chicken with rice. Perhaps the most outré thing about it is that the chicken is baked with its skin on, rendering a Peking duck-like finish, but that’s about it. In fact, it’s fairly standard for chicken to be served like that in East Asian cuisines. It’s soy chicken and boiled rice, and it’s a Michelin-starred dish.
It was in 2016 that the usually ostentatious Michelin Guide awarded its first-ever stars to establishments not cloistered in European je ne sais quoi and exclusivity. It awarded one to this farmer’s son.
Since chef Chan doesn’t speak English, the one question to be answered was is his dish really all that?
Dear reader, it is, confounding as it may seem. It’s literally a piece of chicken with soy drippings and a heaping of rice. And while the idea of the dish (sold at Zomaland for H 200) may be simple, affordable, and delicious, the interplay between starchy rice, tender chicken, and that barely present soy is like nothing we’ve ever tasted before.
And we’ve been raised on Chindian food, in which an ounce of soy covers a multitude of sins. It is a stand-out dish which is presumably why it boasts a Michelin star. The price? Two dollars.