Cereal Chicken Rice Hadn’t really visited The Rice Bowl at Sim Lim Square for quite a while — a lesser used option for lunch around the office these days somehow, but kinda disappointed how the Cereal Chicken Rice didn’t really age well after a change of ownership.
Prior to the revamp of the space into the brightly coloured establishment that it is now and when wok-fried rice dishes are served on ordinary plates than in a mini-wok atop a basket, the Cereal Chicken Rice is one of my favourite dishes to order here — generous sprinklings of crisp cereal flakes that is buttery and sweet that has been wok-fried with the chicken chunks; came with crisp wok-fried curry leaves and chili padi for a slight heat to tingle the taste buds. The Cereal Chicken Rice now comes with fried bits of egg white; not a bad addition though these are a little difficult to nail down well with their tendency to soak up grease and turn soggy after being left there for a while, not to mention the reduction of the portion of wok-fried cereal to just mere clumps of over-fried, sugary clumps of crunch that felt not only odd, but barely integrated with the entire dish. Thankfully the curry leaves and chili padi still pretty much retained the texture and flavours that it was supposed to, while the sunny side-up was a little inconsistent with another order coming with a runny yolk, though this one came with a fully-cooked yolk. That being said, it’s of a very different breed from the Cereal Chicken Rice that I was used to having here — not really something I would settle for gastronomic value.