Hai Onn Chicken Chop at Burma Road

Running low on budget while planning for your year-end getaway?  With a budget of RM8 or lower per person, indulge in some serious value at this Hainanese Restaurant with some oriental style chicken chop!
Disclaimer: Pictures aren’t ours as we were focused more on taking videos, but the review is legit as it gets with each and every dishes were tasted by our own tongues.

Hai Onn Chicken Chop @ Jalan Burma

Hainanese Chinese were among the last to make their way to British Malaya, beginning in the late 1800s and continuing into the early 20th century. The story goes that during the British colonial era, there were many Hainanese cooks who ended up fusing the Western and Asian style of cooking into a modern one resulting in chicken chop smothered with Asian styled gravy with the taste of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce pulling through as an example. 70 years of sustaining and still making it happen in a restaurant with decades worth of history and authenticity.

Known to be one of the very few authentic Hanainese Restaurant in the island still running, this gem located at Burma road is truly the place that instills its presence in many childhoods and is currently an oldies spot that takes us back before social media and being punctual was a thing.  Google says they open at 12.30pm. It’s a lie. 1.45 pm it is.

Dig in Session

First, the cutleries make their way followed by two small sauces which are tomato sauce & the other would be ketchup with mustard sauce. Tangy would be the word. and you wait. If you didn’t know, the chicken chop here costs about RM5.50. With all due respect, we wait!

Approximately 20 minutes later, the chicken chop arrives accompanied by toasted bread on the side. To scoop all that gravy of course! Given its price, comprising a small sized chicken chop topped with a fried egg, onions, potatoes, green beans and tomato, this plate represented warmth and comfort!

With the egg thoroughly fried, it soaked in all the gravy that will be savored once put in the mouth.  The brown sauce was light in texture, savory and oriental in flavor. Personally, with a strong sense of taste, gravy was found to be slightly plain. Western style of chicken chop varies with their technique and taste so one way to enjoy this is to dive in with an open mind and if that still isn’t the case, a little bit of pepper and salt should do it.  Be sure to have a forkful of each component at one go, something to thank me later!

If you didn’t know what Roti Babi was, this place certainly does justice to it. Coated generously with an egg batter similar to traditional French toast, yet thicker as it is stuffed with fillings made up of minced pork and onions cooked with spices such as coriander seeds, nutmeg, and galangal, Roti Babi is an ultimate comfort food for the Asian tastebuds. Hands down a favorite dish in this antique restaurant.

Final Say

Besides Roti Babi and chicken they also serve pork and fish chop upon request. With senior citizen working here to past their time, serving y’all a reminder to be maximizing your patience level when visiting as they do go by their pace. With urbanization comes, destruction occurs and visiting this restaurant was a reminder to cherish the days before today and of course, the prices of the meals would certainly bring us back during rainy days!

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