[Review] Possibly the Best Hainan Chicken at Mei Mei, London Borough Market

Borough Market is constantly developing and evolving with more and more eateries with the rapidly changing food trends.
There is a new area at Borough Market which houses small joints like Mei Mei.
Mei Mei caught my eyes because of those old green tiles found in the East.

Mei Mei is a Singaporean kopitiam inspired joint headed by Elizabeth Haigh who competed on MasterChef in 2011, and went on to win a Michelin star at the Hackney based restaurant Pidgin.
If you like this type of decor there is another one called Bun House which is HK in the 1960s.

How could I not try Mei Mei because UK has relatively better and fresh ingredients than Hong Kong so I tried their Hainan Chicken!

I was really lucky that day as Elizabeth was there as she had a shoot.

The menu is simple, Hainan Chicken, Fried chicken, Curry and even Congee!

 They even had my favourite soda flavoured with my favourite pandan so that was another bonus!

The soda turned out quite small but it tasted amazing, it was not too sweet with a fragrant pandan taste.

As for the hainan chicken, it was definitely the best!

Why? because they use good chicken from ginger pig Yorkshire chickens and the chef slices it properly giving patrons chicken and not rubbish like Hong Kong's randomly chopped chicken laced with dangerous bone fragments.
Clearly the chef will give you the best and not serve if there is not enough chicken whereas HK will give you wings and extra bony bits which should be thrown away.
Visually the chicken is not bruised or grey.
The most impressive thing was the breast meat was silky soft and moist.
I am so glad I tried this.

Will definitely be coming back for the congee and fried chicken!

Fried [Hainan Style chicken] at KFC 肯德基

In Hong Kong, KFC has a totally different recipe for the chicken coating so I rarely get KFC unless the flavour is interesting.
The KFC meals comes with waffle fries and not chips as served in UK which is another thing I don't like.

Anyway, the new Fried [Hainan Style chicken] captivated me because I love Scallion Oil.

The set comes with rice and a drink and you can also order two extra Hainan Style chicken wings.
Unfortunately, they gave me the wrong ones because they were spicy and tasted totally different from the star of the show.

As I said, the chicken wings were just spicy.

The star of the show was really tasty and you could taste spring onions in the coating.
The sauce that comes with this is chili and lime which really matches the chicken and gives a slight Thai kick to it.

It was good that it came with rice because I am not fond of Waffle fries.

Overall, the Fried [Hainan Style chicken] was impressive but not impressive because the chicken wings given were the wrong ones.

Hainan style chicken @ Jordan's Pak Don

To be honest I came in here because there were not many people dining in here!

Sometimes this is how I choose my restaurants because when there are fewer people, the restaurant will be more patient at taking orders and the quality is slightly better because it is not rushed.

 

 

 

 

Ordered the rice with chicken medium which does not come with soup.
If you order the large set it comes with golden pumpkin soup for $4X.

As I have not tried this place before I ordered the medium size because I actually wanted to eat at Hoi Kee's next door but needed something as a filler first.
Although I did not order the soup, I caught a glimpse of the golden orange soup which reminded me of Hainan chicken place at Sai King located in the narrow lane.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Hainan style chicken:

 

The rice was a little too soft but it was greased by chicken oil which made it easy to eat and swallow.
The chicken was quite nice because I was given decent white meat, there was only two pieces which was the bony end of the chicken wingette which I could not eat and can be seen placed on the side of the plate along with chicken skin.
The sauces given were sweet dark soy sauce, chili sauce and ginger puree (green).

 

My favourite was the ginger puree which was not even salty.
The chili sauce was too watery and sweet for my liking and the soy sauce was the sweet syrupy type.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

Victorious chicken rice and thai pork knuckles

This restaurant has been around for ages and because it seems to be there all the time I end up trying other restaurants first.

When you walk past this restaurant they have lots of cooked chicken hanging by the windows so their chicken is probably quite good.

I finally tried it because the one I wanted to try was closed.

Ordered the chicken rice with flavoured rice and the pork knuckles with rice set which comes with coke.

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Soup:

 

The soup came with the chicken rice set. Although it was Chinese soup and not Thai wintermelon and chicken soup it still tasted nice.
There was no msg in it.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Hainan style chicken with rice:

 

The rice was a little too soft but the colour was lovely and yellow, the taste of the rice was aromatic and not too greasy even though it had chicken oil.
The chicken was good as well, there were no bones and after removing the chicken skin there was clean chicken meat left! As for the chicken it tasted fresh and tender.
Although this may not be authentic chicken rice but least I got chicken meat and not fat and bones.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Roast pork knuckle with rice:

 

The rice had lots of marinade sauce over it so it went a bit soft. The pork knuckle skin was extremely soft and stickly and the pork knuckle meat was nice and tender.
The pork knuckle was boneless too.
There was generous pickles on top to balance out the heavyness of the pork knuckles.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Sauces:

 

There was soy sauce and Thai chili sauce for the chicken and the Thai chili sauce was quite nice because there was lime juice and herbs in it.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Satays:

 

 

On the way out the satays on the mini griller looked appetizing as well as their sauces.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★