Hakka Passion Rice Wine Chicken

Chiefeater VK’s fav local Hakka offering, Hakka Passion in Puchong, holds true. Bold favours any Hakka would approve. Most of the dishes were well above average - just a call out for the ginger rice wine chicken. This is an art - much like any Hakka family recipe. I found it on the sourish side - 6/10 for me. This dish I’ve had and made countless times - so again, subjective. The ginger rice wine, every Hakka family used to make their own version in the past - an obsolescence surely. But it’s what goes into the month of ginger infused meals made by midwives for mothers of newborns. You can imagine how each Hakka family would have their own secret sauce, literally.

The ginger, if you wanted it fancy, was the ‘sand ginger’ or ‘sar giong’ in Hakka. I’m still trying to find a pic of this ginger variant - but for now just take it it has a pungent payload 2x the normal ginger were used to. That’s how I would make my own steamed salted chicken - but I suspect most restaurants would refrain from using this more exotic aromatic.

Special mention of my fav vegetable HK doumiao. My only advice is to Chiefeaters is to eat as much of this seasonable vegetable as you can. When I see them in wet markets - I literally buy up everything I can. They’re not available all year round, but nothing can describe a well fried plate of garlic doumiao.

The Yongtaufoo was great, packing an umami punch. way above its weight. 7.5/10

Hakka Passion’s ginger wine chicken was a 7.5/10 - it was perfectly balanced for me. I braved a deluge and parking lot level traffic and was 2.5 hours late for dinner - but it was worth every bite, and of course we had 2x the tipples to wash everything down.

The stewed chicken with mushrooms was good too - we saw the chef on the way out and I almost wanted to ask if he’d be willing to level up this dish using duck (ginger duck is another Hakka fav). The dish as is already 7/10.

Hakka Passion is a place I can imagine myself sharing and honing timeless recipes with like minded individuals. Thanks Chiefeater VK for showing us this place.