Today I will share with you about one quite newly opened food stall inside One Punggol Hawker Centre selling Nasi Kandar named The Coco Rice @ Punggol.
What is Nasi Kandar? Nasi Kandar is a popular Northern Malaysian dish which was originated from Penang. It’s started out in the 19th century as a wholesome breakfast meal and lunch for immigrants labourers and coolies who worked at the port of Penang.
The rice peddler would be shouldering a long pole with big pot on each end. One pot with plain white rice and the other filled with curry dish. The idea was a quick one dish plate with some meat or fish that was rested on the shoulder.
A long the way, Nasi Kandar has been evolved and served luxuriously with fried chicken, curry fish or squid and a side dish like lady finger and salted egg. They also poured the mixture of curry sauce until it was covered a whole plate.
The Coco Rice @ Punggol claimed that they were selling authentic version of Nasi Kandar.
They were selling five different toppings of Nasi Kandar: Nasi Kandar Vegetarian Set, Nasi Kandar Fried Chicken with Herbs & Spices, Nasi Kandar Curry Fish Steak, Nasi Kandar Onion Prawn and Nasi Kandar Curry Squid.
I ordered Nasi Kandar Fried Chicken with Herbs & Spices ($7.90). This dish contained pipping hot steamed rice with one piece of lady finger, cabbages, half salted egg, fresh cucumbers, fried chicken and kuah banjir (mixed of different in-house curry gravy and sauces).
From the visual appearance, Nasi Kandar Fried Chicken with Herbs & Spices looked really appealing, but I was a little sad because they gave me one piece fried drumsticks while they gave other people the other bigger part of fried chicken.
Honestly for $7.90, they should not giving me drumstick. Even though the drumstick looked bigger than normal drumstick, it looked bigger because the bone was also bigger.
I couldn’t deny the Kuah Banjir taste was really delicious and rich of few combinations of flavours (sweet, sour and spicy).
The salted egg’s egg yolk was a bit watery but I still could compromised.
The way they served lady finger was quite unique because they serves a whole piece without cutting it.
Overall I really like the taste of steamed rice mixed with kuah banjir. The chicken was crispy, but I did hope that they could give bigger part of chicken and the salted egg would be better if the watery one was not served.
Details
Name: The Coco Rice @ Punggol
Address: 1 Punggol Dr., #02-06 One Punggol Hawker Centre, Singapore 828629
Opening Hours: Daily 11:00AM – 08:00PM.
Nearest MRT: Punggol MRT