Savoy Kitchen — Restaurant in Alhambra

Rating Savoy's alone for the Hainan Chicken rice, one of my favorite dishes and ways to eat chicken and rice, and I'll admit I've only tried it once last year. I have been spending some time trying to find great versions of it outside Asia, ultimately with no success. Most versions lack any proper resemblance to the iconic South East Asian dish that it truly is, simply served as boiled chicken and white rice with some soy sauce and ginger or garlic mixed in on the side.

So I finally decided to get to Savoy's after hearing so much. Usually I don't rate food too strictly, but since I've grown up with this dish in China, I can't grade it on a curve. In all honesty, I feel that Savoy's version is at best a solid 7/10, since it's not so bastardized. The chicken prepared isn't that flavorful or juicy, coming off slightly overdone, and not presented well, as you can see the sprawled, pale chicken skin in the picture. You do have the traditional three sauce spread of ginger oil, hot chili sauce, and a slightly sweet dark soy that is a tad too thin in viscosity. Perhaps most importantly, the flavored chicken fat rice isn't fragrant and aromatic enough, coming off as white rice with a very mild chicken broth taste.

Is it tasty? It's pretty decent, but I definitely wouldn't say it's amazing, especially if you have to take long trek depending how far you live. But I will say if you are a big HCR fan like myself, go at least once to try and compare. Perhaps it will always have it's place in SGV lore. However, since then I have had the chance to try Cluck2go, which does a solid job for an even cheaper price AND they take card, no wait or lines too. Surprisingly, Mee and Greet in Palms has a nice version, which is a slightly more modern take albeit a bit pricier but it is located on the Westside. I'd much rather go the distance for Cluck2go and am glad Mee+Greet is close by for me. Also I have yet to try Sidechick in Alhambra.

I think the key thing for such a dish is taking the time to do the little things required and using quality ingredients to extract as much of the pure flavors as possible and letting them shine. Which Savoy does an alright job of, not excellent though. However, to their credit, Hainanese Chicken Rice is a simple looking chicken and rice dish that can actually be notoriously...

Savoy is an iconic restaurant to the locals. It is a small little joint where if you don’t come early enough or come at the right time, seating will take a while to find. You can either togo some of the food or try to wait to find a seat. On the left hand side you’ll see a small outdoors seating area. While on the right hand side you’ll see you can order stuff togo inside. Came here during a hot summer day. The seats do have canopy in general to cover you from the sun but it is outside. Once seated, you order normally and then the food comes out through the little hole that gets delivered to you. Got the hainan chicken with beef curry. The hainan chicken was moist and tender. The sauces were okay. You get a salted ginger oil (salted ground ginger in oil), creamier? Sambal sauce, house soy sauce?. I ended up using the middle sauce which was their own version of a sambal sauce. The beef curry wasn’t like that of your typical Indian or Japanese style curry, slightly different. It was more on the savory side and not that sweet. Definitely on the heavier savory side. Now the highlight of this place is definitely their escargot. They first bring out pieces of these fluffy warm bread pieces. You can eat some right away or save it to dip it in their fluffy airy herb salted butter. The escargot was amazing. The way they prepared it almost made it seemed like you were eating a mushroom. Flavor and texture really gets you to think it’s a mushroom. The salted butter as well had a light airy herb like feel to it. Overall the best thing I’ve had here and would come back if I was in the area was their escargot. I would say for the price it’s pretty worth it, not too expensive and portions are on point. They also changed it so you can...

Savoy was an easy 5-starer from me for ages and ages. Yummy food with friendly service. My recent trip had the same yummy food with friendly service, but something happened...the chicken shrank!

Check out all the pictures of the Hainen Chicken, then look at the recent ones. It's almost 50% less chicken.

I frequented this place for lunch and never been for dinner. You can expect a wait at this place as much as 30 minutes during heavy lunch hours. I hear that every single dish is yummy, but I have yet to convince my stomach to try something other than the Hainen Chicken.

-=- Hainen Chicken -=- Simple, yet consistently tasty. I can't have the popular ginger sauce due to allergies, but I request heaping double doses of the spicy sauce, and even ask for more beyond that. My friends always warn the waitress about my allergy since my last major attack was at this very spot. The rice is covered in the chicken juices which makes it one of the tastiest rices that is not fried rice.

-=-Lemon Tea -=- Those syrup jugs that they drop off at your table are not for pancakes (do they even have pancakes here?). They are filled with sugar syrup to sweeten your lemon tea. Ask for a lemon tea, add like 1 second worth of syrup (more if your pancreas dares) and you'll have a refreshing sweet lemon tea that is perfect for warm...