Chicken rice. It’s no secret that chicken rice is a culinary symbol of our national pride, and neither is the fierce competition to take the crown of Singapore’s best chicken rice. We could go on and on about who deserves the title here, but one thing’s for sure of the names that come to mind: one of the top contenders is Chatterbox!
Opening its doors to the public more than 50 years ago, Chatterbox is considered one of the earliest hotel restaurants in Singapore to serve local cuisine. Widely regarded as having the most internationally known chicken rice in Singapore, Chatterbox’s chicken rice recipe is reportedly privy to only six chefs.
From the close-guarded secrecy of their recipe to their timeless legacy, I’ve been captivated by Chatterbox’s story, yet the steep price has kept this culinary legend just out of reach… Until now. The chance to dine at Chatterbox finally landed in the palm of my hand, and you best believe I grabbed it without hesitation!
It was over twenty years ago that my parents first stepped through Chatterbox’s doors for a taste of their famed chicken rice. Now, it’s my turn to put myself in their shoes. I was curious as to why a restaurant like Chatterbox has remained beloved even after all these years and why it’s remained firmly in its roots of elevated hawker fare, so this was my chance to find out.
About Chatterbox
Where do you go to get local cuisine for yourself? Typically, such simple local fare is enjoyed in the vibrant chaos of hawker centres. But Chatterbox is found in the Hilton Singapore Orchard, so the opulent dining atmosphere only serves to transform your mealtime into a luxurious culinary experience!
You can enter the restaurant via the Mandarin Gallery or the Hilton Singapore Orchard’s grand entrance. While the Mandarin Gallery is more direct, as it’s just an escalator away from Chatterbox’s entrance, the Hilton Singapore Orchard path is much more scenic—you should give it a try!
Painted in a light green, nature-themed palette, the short walkway felt like a gateway to a secret garden. Just before you reach the entrance, you’ll be greeted by a seating area decorated with displays and photos that encapsulate Chatterbox’s identity. From their iconic tableware stuck to one wall to pictures of famous faces who have patronised Chatterbox displayed on the other, this is where you can feel the long-lasting legacy of the restaurant.
The restaurant interior’s design is all about tradition meeting modernity. Chatterbox’s space is stylish, with indoor plants and wooden furnishings. Still, touches of familiarity can be found throughout, such as ventilation blocks, which remind me of our local HDB void decks.
This delicate balance of nostalgia and modern design makes the restaurant feel like a timeless dining destination. Eating such humble local dishes at a prestigious hotel and restaurant feels both familiar and unfamiliar. But that’s where the price tag attached to Chatterbox’s menu makes sense, so my expectations naturally shot through the roof.
Will eating some of the nation’s most beloved cuisines in such a sophisticated setting make the food taste better? What makes Chatterbox’s chicken rice and their local dishes a cut above the rest, aside from its price and status? These were the questions swirling around in my head. Eating is the only way to find out, so here are our thoughts on what we had!
The Food
Grilled Satay
Chatterbox has been serving elevated hawker cuisine since 1971, so of course, we will also try their interpretations of other local dishes.
Our first non-chicken rice dish was the Grilled Satay (S$17). Normally, satay is my go-to supper at East Coast Park, where the casual, breezy atmosphere complements the smoky, char-grilled skewers seamlessly. So having what I consider a casual, light supper dish in an elegant dining room brought a complete 180 feel environment-wise. It was an intriguing shift, to say the least.
Chatterbox’s version doesn’t come in a styrofoam plate like I’m used to at East Coast Park’s hawker centre. However, there’s still some familiarity with how the 6 satay skewers were speared with wooden sticks, even on a much fancier plate.
Served with onions, cucumber, ketupah (Rice cooked inside a pouch made from woven palm leaves), and the must-have peanut sauce on the side, you can choose between chicken or beef skewers that are binchōtan grilled.
The skewers were incredibly meaty and tender (but there’s still something familiar about the charred taste from a simple hawker). So, even though there were only six skewers, I still felt satisfied with the generous meat portions. The peanut sauce comes with pineapple puree. Together, they make for a perfect blend of sweet, savoury, and nutty.
All in all, I appreciated how much of a delightful culinary divergence eating a simple yet high-quality dish in a restaurant setting was.
Chatterbox Rojak
Rojak, a salad made with mixed vegetables and fruits and drizzled with a sweet and sour sauce, tends to be divisive; either you love it or hate it. I haven’t had much rojak, but I’m no rojak hater, so I was mostly curious as to how Chatterbox could elevate an already densely packed dish.
No matter which rojak stall you try from, every chef has their own interpretation of the dish, which could involve variations of fruits and vegetables that might differ from one stall to another. For Chatterbox Rojak (S$15), they’ve included a little extra pizzazz and some more unique fruits.
For example, green apples and jambu (a type of guava) are mixed into the salad. And like the cherry on top, deep-fried cucur udang (prawn fritters) cover the rojak.
I don’t know about you, but eating rojak tastes like what opening a blind box feels like. Regardless of where you stab your fork into the salad, you’ll always be hit with a medley of varying flavours, so you’re always in for a pleasant surprise!
I enjoyed how the different ingredients brought out contrasting flavours and textures. From the crunchy, sour green apple to the juicy, sweet pineapple and the crispy, savoury concur undang, this dish was pretty addictive, especially for my colleague, who kept returning for seconds.
Mackerel & Crab Otah-Otah
This next dish was something I had yet to try before coming to Chatterbox, so this would be an exciting first! I often see my parents pairing otah-otah with their nasi lemak, so I was a little thrown into a loop as it was served on its own.
If you don’t already know what otah-otah is, it’s a Southeast Asian fish cake made of ground fish mixed with spices and wrapped in leaf parcels. The dish is typically steamed or grilled and served on the leaf parcel is cooked in.
In Chatterbox, you’ll find that theirs comes as a Mackerel & Crab Otah-Otah (S$17). In their version, spicy mackerel is mixed with hand-picked, snow crab, and a mix of traditional Malay spices like lemongrass, shallots, and coconut milk.
This otah-otah is very much an elevated version of the dish owing to the crab, and I honestly don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to accept regular otah-otah after this. Chunky, juicy, and simply tasty are what I would use to describe this dish. Additionally, they truly didn’t skimp on servings as the meat was thick, and we could even share it!
With the spices melded into the meat, I know this is perfect for those who can take more heat! It’s a little too hot for me, but the meat was so tasty, I couldn’t stop taking bite after bite, and till now, I still crave it.
Lobster Laksa
When Chatterbox first opened, they offered three dishes: laksa, char kway teow, and chicken rice. Today, it still serves laksa, and we were lucky enough to try it!
Entitled Lobster Laksa (S$38), this crowd-pleaser comes with a whole Boston lobster in a bowl of flavoursome coconut broth of spices and fresh coconut milk. Aside from the two essential ingredients, the dish comes with quail eggs, fish cake, thick vermicelli noodles, and dried beancurd.
According to my online findings, the laksa broth uses a seafood base cooked overnight with prawn heads and shells. The next day, fried aromatics are added before simmering for another three hours.
The only question is whether these great efforts translate into the dish’s taste, and I’m glad to say they did! The laksa was an umami bomb that felt comforting to the soul. Even though by then, my stomach was about to burst from the dishes we had consumed, I still couldn’t stop myself from sinking my teeth into the juicy lobsters, the smooth rice vermicelli, and the rich gravy.
Although the dish’s price took me aback (it was the most expensive item on the given menu), I could understand why it was priced as such, so I made sure to savour this precious experience. I probably won’t relive it anytime soon.
Mandarin Chicken Rice
Of course, the grand finale before dessert has to be the star of the show, what started it all for Chatterbox — their Mandarin Chicken Rice (S$25). This dish had me rubbing my hands together in anticipation the most because, one, it was listed at the very top of the menu, meaning they must take great pride in their most famed dish, and two, chicken rice is my favourite local dish of all time!
After having scoured our little red dot for the best chicken rice, finally trying Chatterbox’s version feels like stepping into the big leagues. Trust me when I say that I have done my homework, so I carried with me into the restaurant everything I learnt about their chicken rice.
Firstly, we have to talk about the dish presentation. Chatterbox is believed to have popularised eating chicken rice as an individual dish rather than one shared amongst many. This is evident in how the dish came in a wooden tray fit for one, with a bowl of rice and soup each along with the quintessential plate of chicken as well as three accompanying sauces, mainly dark soy sauce, chilli sauce, and ginger paste.
My eyes were first drawn to just how plentiful the chicken portions were. With the many thick pieces of chicken filling up the plate, it looks as though there’s more than enough for one, and it’s most certainly more generous than what I usually get, a singular, short row of paper-thin chicken slices.
I’ll start with the rice since many claim that rice is the most essential part of the dish that makes or breaks it. After all, given the dish’s uncomplicated nature, poor-tasting rice will only make it stand out even more. It’s safe to say that Chatterbox’s rice was quite decent!
While the menu did state that they can’t tell us all their secrets, it’s been said that the rice used is aged jasmine rice, cooked in a fragrant chicken stock with ginger, garlic, and pandan leaves. This means a much cleaner taste which I can attest to.
Additionally, executive chef Liew Tien Heong previously stated that they made the rice less oily for health reasons, and I can once again back this fact up. I prefer my rice to be less oily, so this was a win for me, but for fans of an oilier version, this might be a sore point. One minor flaw was that it felt like the rice could be more flavourful, but the fluffiness and less oily nature made up for it.
Next up was the chicken. As we were informed, the chicken used is delivered fresh daily from a Malaysian farm. Specially reared for 60 days, these chickens are reared 15 days longer than usual to ensure the chickens are plumper, juicier, and more flavourful. Does this fact hold any truth? Well, if my excited ramblings about the hearty portions are any indication, then yes, the extra time put into the rearing made a tremendous difference!
Taste-wise, this had to be one of the silkiest and most tender chickens I’ve had. Flavourful without being too overpowering, the meat was almost melt-in-your-mouth in texture and alongside the jelly-like skin, it glided down the throat smoothly.
Finally, we have the final crucial point of the dish—the sauces. How did the sauces fare? I usually stick to dipping into dark soy sauce, and unfortunately, Chatterbox’s dark soy sauce tastes just like any other dark soy sauce; there isn’t a magically different recipe for it, I’m afraid. As for the other sauces, they gave the right amount of kick to the dish, so I have no complaints!
Overall, while I can’t say whether the chicken rice I tried today has remained consistent in quality and taste as over 50 years ago as this was my first time trying, I can see why both locals and tourists would recommend Chatterbox as a starting point to try this iconic dish.
And from reading online reviews and hearing how loyal diners come back two to three times a week, it’s clear that Chatterbox’s impressive legacy has never left.
Signature Coconut Ice Cream
The icing on the cake is undoubtedly the dessert! Made just for the local palette, Chatterbox has a star dessert we were recommended to try: the Signature Coconut Ice Cream (S$15).
Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of coconut, but this dessert has significantly reduced my contempt towards the fruit! Presented in a tall coconut shell, you’ll find two scoops of ice cream encased within the shell, topped with chocolate, tropical fruits, and walnuts decorating the piece.
Named a “sweet signature of 51 years and counting”, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but one bite and I was won over. The ice cream was the perfect creamy, just slightly soft consistency. The coconut and swirls of chocolate melded together nicely. Tropical fruits like longan stuffed with pineapple heightened the sweetness, and the walnuts provided a crunchy, nutty contrast.
I didn’t expect myself to enjoy a coconut-based dessert this much, but I did! So if you ever want to win a fellow coconut skeptic, this dessert is the perfect choice.
The Drinks
Surely, you wouldn’t pass up a drink or two at such a fine establishment, right? When we were presented with the drink menu, we noticed a uniquely named drink at the top.
That drink is Signature Chatterbox’s Punch (S$17). The cocktail consists of gin infused with chilli, vanilla, cinnamon, lemon, and banana, served with a house tonic poured into the glass by a server in front of us.
As a drinking novice, this was my first time trying a cocktail, so the concoction’s ingredients threw me off, and I couldn’t imagine what it would taste like mixed together. From a couple of sips, the drink tasted of a blend of sweet and spicy, giving a kick that tingles and cleanses your palette.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a drink I would return to, but it was still an intriguing, first-time experience.
We also have another non-alcoholic drink that pays homage to one of Singapore’s favourite fruits: the Coconut Shake (S$9). Not only does it contain the quintessential coconut flavour, but it also has elements of chin chow (herb or leaf jelly) and adzuki red bean.
In recent years, coconut-based drinks and shakes have risen in popularity thanks to brands like Mr. Coconut, so this was my first time hopping on and understanding the trend. Again, I’m not the biggest coconut enjoyer, but Chatterbox might bring me closer to becoming a convert.
Densely packed with generous amounts of chin chow and red beans, the drink tasted more like a dessert to have separately rather than accompany a meal. My colleague and I enjoyed how fresh it tasted, and yes, I had to pull out the ultimate Asian compliment: it’s “not too sweet”!
Chatterbox Details
Stepping through Chatterbox’s doors as a “generational” diner, I could understand why it’s one of Singapore’s longest-standing restaurant establishments. Despite culinary trends that come and go, they’ve stayed true to their roots as pioneers of elevated hawker cuisine and continue to be well-loved both locally and internationally.
So to book your reservations, you can do so on Chatterbox’s official website. For more information, head over to Chatterbox’s socials on Facebook and Instagram.
📍Location: 333 Orchard Rd, #05-03 Hilton, Singapore 238867
⏰Opening Hours:
- Monday to Thursday, 11.30am to 4.30pm and 5.30pm to 10.30pm
- Friday to Sunday, 11.30am to 4.30pm and 5.30pm to 11pm
Photos by Pauline Caoile of the DANAMIC Team.
