YouTuber eats at 100 stalls to find the best steamed chicken rice in S'pore

Eager to find out which eatery sells the best version of Singapore’s unofficial national dish, a YouTuber spent two months dining at 100 Chicken Rice stalls across Singapore.

Angel Hsu spent some $5,000 in the process, and even ran into some gastrointestinal issues.

Speaking to Mothership, Hsu, who is originally from Taiwan, said she wanted to make a video featuring various chicken rice spots in Singapore, while highlighting the best ones.

She began by shortlisting 100 stalls across the island that had at least 10 reviews on Google.

To ensure a level playing field, Hsu ordered only steamed chicken breast from every stall.

"If a stall can do breast meat well, then everything else would be even better," she explained.

She also came up with a grading system for each component of the dish – the chicken's tenderness, the rice's fragrance, the quality of the soup and chilli, the dish's overall saltiness, and its value, based on the amount of chicken served.

There was also a scientific purpose to her grand experiment.

Hsu, who has an educational and career background in life sciences, also took into consideration the amount of E. coli bacteria that the lab found in a stall's chicken rice dish before assigning a rating.

The lab results of the chicken rice Hsu tested ranged from 9 to 490,001 colony forming units per gram (CFU/g).

A score below 10 would mean "no bacteria detected" while a score above 490,000 would surpass the level of bacteria that the machine can detect.

"I wouldn't recommend a stall with more than 100CFU/g as the best chicken rice in Singapore [because] my audience's health is more important," Hsu said.

Hsu began her “Chicken Rice Tour” in February. She visited stalls between 11am and 3pm, covering as many as five stalls a day.  

She would dine at the stalls, weigh the amount of chicken served, and grade each component in the dish, all while filming herself, of course. 

She would also buy a packet to go, which would be sent to the lab for testing. 

According to her, the four best chicken rice stalls were:

Best soup: Ah Five Hainanese Chicken Rice / Fried Rice / Porridge (Blk 158 Ang Mo Kio Ave 4, Singapore 560158)

Most tender kampong chicken: Kampong Chicken Eating House (247 Outram Rd, Singapore 169047)

Best rice: Ah Boy Chicken Rice (Mentor Eric Teo) (678A Choa Chu Kang Cres, Singapore 681678)

Best overall: Wee Kim Hainanese Chicken Rice (51 Yishun Ave 11, Singapore 760355)

All in all, Hsu spent over $5,000, with $1000 spent on chicken rice and the rest towards lab tests, parking fees and petrol expenses.

Aside from her wallet, the experiment also took a toll on her health.

Hsu said she had diarrhoea on an almost daily basis as a result of eating chicken rice every day.

According to her, nearly half of the 100 dishes were found to have more than 100 CFU/g of E. coli, which is above the Singapore Food Agency's standards.

Needless to say, the self-professed steamed chicken rice lover is not “so sick” of the dish.

Check out Hsu's comprehensive spreadsheet here.