A reader by the name of Li contacted me over a year ago now (sorry it took so long, Li) urging me to try the chicken rice from Fo Lai Ping, a stand-alone 100% vegetarian eatery, located just outside from Braddell MRT. The eatery is pretty quiet during the lunch time period, with a inconspicuous bunch of senior uncles vegetating together on the nearby seats. I exclaimed ''ah jek, wa a sai chiam ka jit hoon?'' and joined them for a quick bite to eat...
Fo Lai Ping Vegetarian
Location: Blk 107, Toa Payoh Lor 1Contact: 63580107Opening Hours: Daily 7.00am - 9.00pm Fo Lai Ping has a list of daily specials. As you can see, the chicken rice is only available on Fridays. The chicken rice is available in both white fleshed (steamed chicken) and fried chicken varieties, which I will go into more detail on below. As well as these daily specials, there are 10-15 other dishes that are available on a regular basis, in additional, also, to economic brown or white rice dishes.
Starting first with the regular
Chicken Rice, I was a little perplexed as to the inclusion of ladyfingers in this dish. Traditionally, chicken rice should be served with uncooked cucumber and tomato. The ladyfingers tasted good, but felt out of place. The mock chicken was crunchy and flavourful, but the texture felt a little flat and tough for my liking. The rice and soup were both commendable, but the rice needed the black soy sauce, which was inexplicably absent. Overall an average dish, lets see if the second version of chicken rice was better...
Price: $3.00. 6/10I am calling this dish
White Chicken Rice, as I usually refer to it as bai ji fan 白鸡饭 when ordering. It is, in fact, a variant of chicken rice that is meant to replicate steamed chicken -
Li Wei in Serangoon do a superb version of it. Fo Lai Ping's version overall disappointed me. Yet again, there was no black soy sauce in this dish. Moreover, the mock chicken was extremely soggy and almost disintegrated upon consumption. The texture and flavour of the rice was the high point, but the other elements of the dish really let it down.
Price: $3.00. 6/10Conclusion - Well, the chicken rice was not even close to the best that I have tried. I maintain once more, if you wish for truly sensational chicken rice, then there is only really one choice - Li Wei Vegetarian. With that being said, it is nice to find out about another vegetarian eatery, and perhaps the other dishes they have on offer are of a higher standard compared with the chicken rice.Overall RatingFood - 6/10Ambiance- 6/10 Service - 7/10 Value - 5/10
