Going Native

Joining the locals at Hainanese Chicken Rice .

Down in Ban Hua Thanon, there’s an amazing shrine, with an enormous 16 metre high statue, one of the largest of its kind in the world. It depicts the warlike Guan Yu, famed for his virtue. It was commissioned by the descendants of the Hainan Chinese who settled on the island over a hundred years ago. They brought with them entire houses that they’d carefully de-constructed so that they could build them here in a new land. They also brought with them all their culture, and that of course included their culinary skills and recipes. The person responsible for the shrine, Khun Virach Pongchababnapa, also one of the original descendants, provided the recipe for the dish that you can eat at today’s restaurant. Both the restaurant and the dish are simply called Hainanese Chicken Rice.

If coming by car, look out for the enormous statue as you drive into Ban Hua Thanon from Lamai – you can’t fail to see it. Hainanese Chicken Rice is just adjacent to the Guan Yu shrine, along with a handy car park.

You can expect a friendly welcome from the owners, along with attentive service. And it’s cheap too! Eating here will set you back 50 baht for the basic dish, which is what most people here will be eating. You can also have fried chicken, but that’s another story.

Fresh, local ingredients are all used, making the dishes highly tasty. Back in the days when these recipes were first put together, nothing in the way of mass-produced food existed; everything was made from natural ingredients. And that’s still the way the dishes are made here today.

Unlike many Thai chicken recipes, this Hainanese dish is really quite bland. However, it can easily be spiced up; along with the dish comes a spicy sauce in a small dish and then there’s another, which has chopped chillies and small cubes of ginger. Most people won’t manage to finish both the small dishes – the chicken would become way too fiery. Some however like it like this, and will tell you it’s just one more acquired taste.

This type of chicken is very moreish, it has to be said – probably why it’s to be found all over Samui. Or maybe it’s because, as Khun Virach points out, if 100% of the Chinese descendants can trace their roots back to Hainan, then a further 80% of these can pinpoint Wenchang as their place of origin – the very epicentre of this kind of chicken. The recipe that Khun Virach’s family used would have been handed down through generations, presumably changing little along the way. But whatever, it’s engagingly tasty, more so than most dishes of this kind. The chicken is first poached at sub-boiling temperatures. The resulting stock is then removed and some of this liquid, along with ginger and garlic, is used in the cooking of the rice, giving it a distinctive flavour. The chicken itself is then cut and simply laid on top of the rice. It all sounds disarmingly simple, but to get really good results, as the restaurant here does, takes practice – and of course a great recipe to begin with.

Hainanese Chicken Rice is open from 7:00 am until 4:00 pm (or until the chicken is all sold, which can happen round 3:00 pm some days). The restaurant is open daily, apart from the first and third Wednesdays of every month.

While you’re here, take the chance to look around the shrine itself. It’s a work in progress and will probably not be finished for a few years. There’s always something going on here and it’s a place for the Hainanese descendants to meet up. You’ll often find some of them in the restaurant itself, if not Khun Virach himself. If you come on Wednesday evenings, it’s a chance to take in the area’s weekly night market or ‘walking street’, and every evening there are stalls here in the car park selling food.

Highly recommended, Hainanese Chicken Rice is definitely on Samui’s culinary map when it comes to traditional fare. And there are few places to eat which have such dramatic surroundings.

 

Dimitri Waring