If you heard about a restaurant serving hawker-style Singaporean chicken rice, you probably wouldn’t think it would attract esteemed guests around the world, from presidents to celebrities.
But this is no ordinary chicken and rice dish, and soon Perth diners will have the chance to taste what the fuss is all about, when Chatterbox Executive Chef Liew Tian Heong takes up residency at Silks at Crown Perth this month.
Chatterbox has been serving up its uniquely elevated take on local hawker food in Singapore since 1971, and remains popular to this day. Now Chef Liew, who has been with Chatterbox for 30 years and isn’t afraid of a challenge, is attempting to recreate some of the culinary magic here in Perth.
“We cannot expect everything [to be] the same but we will try to get as many of the ingredients as possible from Singapore. But certain things we can bring in from Singapore and certain things we need to [source] from Australia,” Liew explains.
That means—thanks to Australia’s strict customs rules—the meat will have to be sourced locally. For Liew this is a big deal, as the chickens used at Chatterbox in Singapore are carefully selected, using only free-range birds with minimal fat, that weigh around two kilos each and are specially reared for 60 days, which is around 15 extra days than usual, to ensure plumper, juicier and more flavourful meat.
Mandarin Chicken Rice
“We have low-fat chicken in Singapore so the skin is very thin. We build the size of the chicken [for the first 60 days] then the next 30 days we start building the muscle of the chicken, so the meat is very tasty and tender,” Liew says. “[In Perth] they will be almost the same size but the meat is just slightly different. I will choose [chickens] as nearest to Chatterbox standards.”
What also differentiates Chatterbox’s chicken rice dish is the chicken is served separately from, rather than on top of, the rice, with a bowl of chicken broth and individual serves of three sauces on the side.
To maintain the stringent standards of the Mandarin Chicken Rice dish, Liew personally trains and guides all chefs at Chatterbox in Singapore through the meticulous, step-by-step preparation of the dish. But he says he has recently changed some of the cooking process of this iconic dish.
“We are now moving on and no longer boiling the chicken, [instead we are] steaming the chicken. Then, for the rice, we will not cook a very big pot. We will try to reduce the cooking rice into a smaller portion, so the rice will be more fragrant, tastier and softer.”
The specially-procured aged Jasmine rice is cooked with a trinity of chicken fat, shallots and pandan leaves and the dish also comes with a punchy proprietary chilli sauce, grated ginger, dark soy sauce and a bowl of chicken broth.
Lobster Laksa
Chef Liew won’t be recreating the full Chatterbox menu at Silks, for that he says he would need to bring his entire team over, but Perth diners will also get to try his iconic Lobster Laksa, which is served with prawns, quail eggs, fish cake, thick vermicelli noodles and dried beancurd, in a coconut broth of spices and fresh coconut milk.
Perth diners will also get to try other classic Chatterbox dishes such as the decadent beef hor fun (a stir fry noodle dish), bak kut teh (pork ribs), rojak (a tangy salad with a sweet prawn paste and prawn fritters) and crispy salted chicken wings.
Chef Liew will also be bringing his signature coconut shake to Silks, a creation that came about in the pandemic, made with chin chow (a mint-like jelly) and azuki red bean, which also involved sourcing the right ingredients in Perth.
When Liew tries to explain what’s behind Chatterbox’s enduring popularity, he puts it down to its unique take on high-low dining—serving elevated dishes that have humble origins as hawker foods in a luxury five-star hotel environment.
“We are using only premium ingredients in our local food.”
“There’s no other hotel doing what Chatterbox does in Singapore. There’s no other hotel serving strictly local Singaporean food in a [luxury five-star] hotel. We don’t do buffet and we don’t do Western food. So we attract people coming in to enjoy our local food in a good environment, with good presentation.”
To see what the fuss is all about, you can catch Chef Liew serving up Chatterbox’s signature dishes at Silks at Crown Perth from 12-23 March, for both lunch and dinner.
Want to explore Perth’s Chinese dining scene? Check out our guide to The Best Chinese Restaurants in Perth and Western Australia
