Is Hainan Laoba worth it?

Despite being a Hainanese, I’m not all too familiar with Hainanese cuisine so when I chanced upon this Hainanese restaurant filled with patrons, I told myself I had to give this a try someday!

Fast forward a few months later, it was actually empty due to the grand opening of the Taiwan Street Food downstairs and I decided to give HNLB a try this time.

We ordered their specialty salt baked chicken. It was decent, meat was firm yet not dry. It was also lightly salted (unlike some of the others I’ve had before that were just soo salty). Overall, nothing to shout about but not a bad dish. 6/10

We also ordered a garlic pea sprout dish which was lightly salted. Out of the three, I would say this was my favourite dish! 7/10

Finally, we got the 水煮鱼 which is kind of a like a sichuan boiled fish. We found it kind of odd for a sichuan dish to be in a hainan restaurant but oh wells! We still ordered just to try. Fish was extremely extremely soft - to the point where I couldn’t even pick it up with my chopsticks. Not sure if that’s how the fish is supposed to be but I would have preferred it just a tad bit firmer. Like every Sichuan boiled fish dish, the soup was very oily and in general not meant to be drank directly. It was not too spicy and still good to pair it with rice. 6.5/10

oh! And the staff was rly friendly and patient :) Overall, food wasn’t bad but a little steep in terms of pricing (we paid almost $60 for the three dishes + 2 bowls of rice) so don’t think I’ll be back too soon.

If you’ve tried HNLB before, keen to hear your thoughts on their other dishes too

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