Chicken rice with "gà xối mỡ"

Again chicken rice!
But this time we have a special chicken, not steamed, not boiled, not deep fried - and in Vietnamese it sounds nicely funny! It's difficult to translate into English within one word and the dish is so popular among foodies - cơm gà xối mỡ!  
Gà xối mỡ should be another version of Chinese chicken rice, it has been localized to the local taste for many many years. I'm not a real big fan for this tasty dish but some of my friend and my nephews - yes! They know where the best, where just so so!

Gà xối mỡ or literally means "chicken poured by oil", and the oil should be animal's natural one! We don't dip chicken in the oil, instead of that we "shower" them on the rack with the boiling natural oil! Spoon by spoon, one after another, until the chicken's skin becomes golden crispy and it's just cooked but still a little bit bloody pink near the bone! Any difference between deep-fried or poured-by-oil or not? To me probably no, but to the chef or some picky foodies - maybe a big yes!

I did mention previously about the chicken quality, it's extremely important - chicken should be a "garden" one (i.e purely "domestic"breed not mixed or imported one from the industrial farms!). Our chicken is smaller in size but much better in meat quality! And it should be a young hen (female chicken), not laid over three eggs (!?), this kind of hen (probably we call "gà mái tơ!), giving the best meat!

About the rice, not only cooked with chicken broth but also mixed with chicken fat, so chicken rice is not only tasty but quite rich in fat!
Good thing that "gà xối mỡ" is widely served in the streets, almost at night and curiously more popular in Chinatown. Probably too hot to "pour oil on chicken" in the cramped tiny kitchen, so they prefer doing right on the sidewalk? Not really, as we still can find many "indoor" places!

So, where is the best Gà Xối Mỡ ? Different people, different ideas...but one of the most popular spots could be in Trần Phú street, Lão Hương Thân, used to be at the corner of Ngô Quyền and Trần Hưng Đạo, but now moved to the new address - 402 Trần Phú, district 5!  Give it a try!