Week in Reviews

After a little vacation Jonathan Gold is back this week to discuss, none other than, chicken and rice. The first half of his article is dedicated to explaining which foods he is and isn't willing to argue about, but apparently "nobody has stronger opinions than partisans of Hainan chicken rice," a dish popular in Southeast Asia which is the subject of today's review. There are two places to go for this such dish, both in the San Gabriel Valley. The chicken rice at Dong Nguyen is okay but not great. Its "overcooked to the point of mushiness, lacking any degree of ginger punch but chickeny, definitely chickeny." Locale number two, Savoy Kitchen, puts forth another version that JG cites as "marked with ginger, served with the requisite three sauces, the miscellaneous slivers of bone-on boiled chicken — you have to pay two dollars extra for all dark meat — slack and slightly undercooked. Not bad, really. Undoubtedly, a taste of home." [LAW]