Chicken rice isn't unique to Singapore though. It's pretty much the same in Malaysia and the Thai version is quite close as well.

Katong laksa on the other hand (which is in the article) is probably the famous hawker dish that is most uniquely Singapore.

Incidentally, the Katong laksa at Cassia in Santa Monica is probably as close to the real deal as you can get outside of Asia. But be prepared for sticker shock.

> Chicken rice isn't unique to Singapore though. It's pretty much the same in Malaysia and the Thai version is quite close as well.

Funny enough, many of the chicken rice vendors in Singapore sell a Cantonese-influenced version (though many places continue to label their chicken rice as "Hainanese chicken rice").

From what I understand, the Cantonese-style steamed chicken gets dunked in ice to keep the gelatin in the skin. The rice also tends to be slightly wetter and more flavourful.

The chicken rice I've had in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and in some other "Malaysian" restaurants around the world, tend to be dryer and yellower.

My experience in the US is that Thai restaurants are the best bet for Hainanese chicken rice. It’s not on the usual Thai restaurant menu so any place offering it is probably doing so because they have a passion for the dish and/or their Thai clientele demand it. Greatly missed chicken rice until I figured this out.

Hainanese chicken rice in a thai place may be serviceable, but I've yet to have a good one. I live in NYC, and even here, with thousands of asian fusion restaurants, there are only 3 or 4 that serve chicken rice that compares well to Singapore.

Hainan was part of Guangdong province until the late 1980s – so I think the dish is Cantonese to begin with. My understanding is that it spread to other places from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainanese_chicken_rice

Agreed on Cassia's rendition of the katong laksa

Right!? How is chicken rice not on here? It’s the single most common dish in the city so far as I saw. Kaya toast makes sense, never seen that anywhere else even Malaysia, clearly the toast is directly British.

I had a great tasting chicken rice, but it lost a couple points for having a head and spine laid across the side of the plate. Fine, just wasn’t expecting that!

Chicken rice isn't uniquely Singaporean, though, or Singaporean in origin. You can find it in pretty much any place with a significant Chinese diaspora.