I really couldn’t remember when was the last time I had salt baked chicken so when the husband and I were at Parkway Parade and we saw Lam’s Salt Baked Chicken at Food Republic, we just had to order something to share even though we already had a Subway 6″ each for dinner.
Salt Baked Chicken is one notable dish of Hakka cuisine. The chicken is first marinated for hours and then wrapped in a few layers of wax paper before it is placed in a wok and covered by layers of coarse sea salt. End result is a tender and juicy chicken with moisture and flavours all locked in.
Sounds tempting, doesn’t it?
The menu is pretty straightforward. There are 3 carb options available to complement the chicken (a) white rice – $6.50 (b) mixed rice – $7.00 and (c) spaghetti – $7.50 which is served with a whole chicken leg & thigh each. Alternatively if you just want the chicken itself, every bird is priced at $22.
We ordered the salt baked chicken with spaghetti set that came with a soup and an additional salt baked egg plant ($1.50) as a side.
The egg plant was very tender and naturally sweet flavoured. I liked the extra topping of sauteed garlic paste that gave it a nice savoury fragrance to the otherwise unexciting egg plant.
I was happy that they served chicken leg (dark meat) instead of the breast or other parts. It was a good sized chicken leg but the portion of spaghetti was miserable, so little that one could just finish everything in a few mouthfuls. As this was considered our after-dinner snack for sharing, we didn’t mind as we just wanted to try the chicken but if we were to get this for a proper meal, then it would definitely not be enough.
The jus or meat juices from the chicken was used to flavour the spaghetti and it tasted like a rich, flavoursome and concentrated chicken broth with a good balance of saltiness.
The chicken leg meat was incredibly moist and succulent. So tender that it was effortless to break apart the meat from the bone. The golden brown chicken skin was equally divine. As most of the chicken fats had already been rendered during the baking process, the skin wasn’t fatty at all which was good.
The humble looking cloudy-like soup was a full-bodied chicken broth. Lovely taste but just a tad too oily for my liking.
Lam’s Salt Baked Chicken may be expensive in food court terms but is packed with flavour worth returning for. Highly recommended indeed!
Lam’s Salt Baked Chicken
Food Republic @ Parkway Parade
80 Marine Parade Road