Swee Kee Chicken Rice

[The_King]

Swee Kee Chicken Rice which operated from the 1950s to 1990s played a huge role in popularising Hainanese chicken rice in Singapore and in our region. This row of shophouses at Middle Road was demolished in the 1990s and completely rebuilt. Swee Kee never reopened but its legacy lives on in the thousand chicken rice stalls and restaurants in Singapore. (Image courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.)

 

the landmark of Middle Road was, of course, Swee Kee chicken rice. Though not the first Hainanese to sell chicken rice, Swee Kee probably did the most to popularise the dish among Singaporeans and even regional tourists from as far as Hong Kong. 

 

Swee Kee chicken rice restaurant at 51 Middle Road was a destination for locals and tourists before it closed in 1996 for renovations but sadly never reopened.

 

 

Legend has it that back in Swee Kee's heyday, the chicken rice restaurant kept their live birds in this back lane between Purvis Street and Middle Road. In the morning, a lorry load of live chicken will come to this back lane where boss Mok Lee Swee would personally hand pick the live birds one at a time. The chosen birds were stored in cages here for up to a week. The chicken were slaughtered as the cooked birds were sold, thus ensuring that customers get only the freshest chicken.

 

Mok Lee Swee was actually the helper / apprentice of Wong Yi Guan, the man credited with pioneering Hainanese chicken rice as a hawker dish in Singapore. After the Second World War, jobs were scarce. Hainanese cooks were also displaced in Peranakan and colonial homes by female domestic workers known as Ma Jie from Shunde, Guangzhou. So, many Hainanese men had to look for alternative employment. Some became two-basket street hawkers. One of them was Wong Yi Guan - he took a dish eaten in Hainanese homes to sell in the streets. Naturally, Wong Yi Guan plied his Hainanese chicken rice first in the Hainanese enclave, mainly along Middle Road.

 

 

Purvis Street Hainan Second Street

 

Soon, Wong Yi Guan was invited to set up a hawker stall inside a coffee shop at Purvis Street. It was very popular and inspired other Hainanese to set up chicken rice stalls and restaurants here.

 

One of them was Yet Con chicken rice restaurant at 25, Purvis Street established in 1947. Yet Con was operating until 2020 when it closed after the second generation owner passed on.

 

 

Chin Chin Eating House at 19, Purvis Street opened in 1934 as a Hainanese kopitiam serving Nanyang kopi (coffee) and kaya toast, etc. In 1959, Chin Chin Eating House also jumped on the Hainanese chicken rice bandwagon. Chin Chin closed briefly in the 1990s when the owners migrated to Australia. They returned to Singapore two years later and re-opened Chin Chin Eating House. Chin Chin Eating House is, hence, the oldest Hainanese restaurant still operating in Singapore, except for the two year break in the 1990s.

 

 

 

 

[chamfer]

My late maternal grandmother knew the owner of swee kee.  She was involved in coffeeshop business.

[XianGe]

Neber heard of it