ROOST – Strut your way into the New Future of Chicken Rice

You may have walked past ROOST located at the basement of Centrepoint, but have you taken a closer look at those silver robot-looking machines? Because hey, this ain’t your typical chicken rice restaurant. Teleport into the future with ROOST’s modern Hainanese-style Chicken cooked with Singapore’s patented poultry-cooker, iKook. You’re probably curious about how do these compare to the hand cooked chickens served in our favourite hawker stalls? So were we.

Wings up if you simply love chicken rice balls. Now, take those chicken rice balls, coat it with breadcrumbs and deep-fry it. You get CRISPY CHICKEN RICE BALLS ($4.90 for 4). Ooohhh yes, that’s what were talking about. It was our favourite dish of the afternoon. Rice – moist, aromatic and loaded with chicken flavours enclaved in a crispy, golden brown shell. Furthermore, dip those delicious balls in the zesty chili sauce for an extra kick that enhances the flavour. Chicken rice balls, get in the fryer now, then my mouth please.

ROOST has decided to experiment with the idea of Chicken Sushi ($4.90 for 4) as a starter. Slices of their signature soya chicken were rested atop a block of chicken rice, glazed with Teriyaki sauce. Although this fusion dish is not new in the industry, we have to comment that it was a good effort. There is definitely room for improvement such as the inconsistencies in the texture of the grains, most likely due to the unevenness in the cooking. Nevertheless, we believe that the dish has potential to grow into a crowd pleaser, and for the lazy bums out there, this mouthful of rice and chicken is your calling.

Last but not least, how could we miss out on their signature Yin Yang Chicken Rice ($8.90)? As the name suggests, you will be presented with a platter of poached chicken and soya sauce chicken, together with a bowl of classic chicken rice. This dish left us disappointed, as there actually seemed to be more misses than hits. Despite the appealing soya sauce marinate, the pinkish chicken meat was a little undercooked for us. In addition, the chicken rice itself was lacking in the fragrance and deep flavours that we were looking for. However, ROOST nailed their condiments with the ginger sauce once again.

The rice in the starters were extra moist and fluffy due to the fact that ROOST actually mixes in some Japanese rice as the staff kindly shared. The actual star of the restaurant unfortunately failed to impress, but the starters are definitely worth your buck. Perhaps, some might not agree with the idea of machine-prepared chickens and I would say definitely still go for the hawker style chickens if you’re more comfortable with them. However, for those who are open to new ideas, this may very well become your favourite coop in town.

MissTamChiak.com made anonymous visit and paid its own meal at the stall featured here.

Let’s build a food community that helps to update the food news in Singapore! Simply comment below if there’s any changes or additional info to ROOST. We will verify and update from our side. Thanks in advance!