Chu Yi Jia 厨艺家 (KINEX)

Chu Yi Jia 厨艺家 is one of those small kiosk-style eateries with a dine-in space that we had been wanting to try for quite a while. Located in the middle of the basement of the entire mall, the space of which it takes up is slightly different from all of the kiosk-style stalls that exist with the communal dining area commonly shared by them — in fact, Chu Yi Jia does have their own exclusive dine-in area where diners are only allowed to consume Chu Yi Jia’s food; this also makes them somewhat sectioned away from the other F&B establishments that are operating within that same area that it is situated in. Having been in operation for a while, Chu Yi Jia seems to have streamlined its operations by removing some of the items that they used to serve in their menu — that being said, the food items served up by Chu Yi Jia can be broadly classified into categories such as fish / seafood soup, individually-portion zi-char style dishes and side dishes. Some examples of the side dishes that Chu Yi Jia has to offer includes items like the Prawn Paste Chicken Wings, Homemade Fried Pork Belly, Spicy Lala and Stir-Fried Baby Kai-Lan. Beverages available at Chu Yi Jia largely comprises of canned beverages that are stocked up in the chiller beside the counter.

We had been eyeing on giving Chu Yi Jia for quite some time since we had been coming across posters that mentions about their Salted Egg Chicken Rice; the dish itself being something the we often crave for from time to time. Chu Yi Jia adopts a self-service approach here; patrons make their orders at the counter — an electronic buzzer will be issued to patron after payment, and the said electronic buzzer would be paged to inform the patron to collect their order at the counter once it has been prepared. Interestingly, while Chu Yi Jia uses proper dine-in bowls for their soup dishes, they do use disposable paper bowls for their individually-sized zichar dishes. Collecting the order at the counter, the Salted Egg Chicken Rice does look pretty appealing — pretty much why we would expert out of a Salted Egg Chicken Rice dish considering how it comes with stir-fried chunks of chicken that are coated with a golden salted egg yolk sauce on the exterior, and that comes accompanied with a portion of rice and a sunny side-up that comes with the dish by default. Also served in the plate would be the lettuce leaf that would also be found from similar dishes served at such establishments as well.

Digging into the dish, we found the Salted Egg Chicken Rice here to be generally well-executed in terms of flavours — in fact, we found that this version comes closest to our favourite rendition from 3 Meals a Day 一日三餐 at Sim Lim Square, though this one carried a balance of sweetness, creaminess and saltiness that isn’t quite as heavy-handed as the one from 3 Meals a Day. This also makes it fairly easy to eat as well without being overly rich. One can also find the inclusion of chili padi and curry leaves in the making of the sauce here; the chili padi felt like it was more for the aromatics than an actual punch of spiciness, while the curry leaves weren’t quite memorable in this rendition. Some may find the stir-fried chunks of chicken requiring a little bit of effort to be chewed on, though one thing we appreciated was how the chunks of chicken were appropriately-sized to be had together with a decent portion of rice. The sunny side-up does come with a molten yolk, though it is slightly marred by the use of oil that isn’t as fresh as what we would have expected — evidenced by the speckles of black bits which wasn’t the most pleasant; the same also can be said about the stir-fried chicken chunks as well. Considering how their rendition of the Salted Egg Chicken Rice was, it does come a little bit of a shame on the part of the slightly used oil considering this is one variant we are most likely to see return visits to have again — the price also being a bit on the higher side at $8.90 though folks working in the Central Business District would be used to such prices for a meals; and especially in an air-conditioned environment. Chu Yi Jia does seem more of a fuss-free eatery at best; probably only a spot to hit if one particularly likes their offerings or curious about what they have to offer. Despite so, they do offer food that is of a slightly higher quality than what one would typically expect from eateries in such an environment; a decent dining option to consider when around KINEX, though definitely with some room for improvement.

Featuring one of the signature dishes…

Fresh seafood and packed with a strong wok hei! Definitely worth trying 😄