Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice’s first flagship restaurant at Jewel Changi Airport has its official grand opening today, 22 August.
The 98-seater is the brand’s sixth outlet and its biggest yet. It sits at #B2-243 and 244, beside Food Republic, and is open daily from 10am to 10pm.
You do not need a boarding pass. The restaurant is landside.
88 free packets today and tomorrow
To mark the launch, Tian Tian is giving away 88 takeaway packets of its signature chicken rice on 22 and 23 August, while stocks last.
If you are going mainly for the free packets, go early. 88 is not a lot of chicken rice once Jewel weekend crowds show up.
One thing that is not happening today: the 20% discount. That was only for the soft-opening period from 11 to 17 August. From the grand opening, you pay full price.
There is also a limited-edition blind box with one of four plushie designs: a chopping board, a chicken, a chilli bowl or a chicken rice plate. It costs S$10.80 when you spend S$30 in-store.
Why Jewel, and what is different
Second-generation owner Loi Mui Yin, 53, told The Straits Times that the Jewel outlet should take some pressure off the original Maxwell Food Centre stall.
Maxwell still gets very long queues. When the chicken sells out, tourists who are flying off the same day sometimes leave disappointed. Jewel is meant to catch some of that last-meal-before-the-flight crowd.
The menu here is not a carbon copy of Maxwell.
Jewel-only items include the Tian Tian Heritage Platter at S$25.80++, which is meant to feed two to three people and comes with ngoh hiang, Hainanese pork chop, Thai-style fried tofu, tiger-prawn beancurd rolls and fried salad prawns.
There is also founder Madam Foo Kui Lian’s steamed chicken curry at S$13.80++, served with chicken rice, white rice, yellow noodle, thick vermicelli or a baguette.
Other Jewel-only dishes include Nanyang golden chicken at S$12.80++, marinated in turmeric and curry leaves then fried, and boneless crystal chicken feet at S$9.80++. The chicken feet used to be sold at Maxwell in the 1980s before they were taken off the menu because they were too troublesome to prepare.
Time Out Singapore tried the new outlet ahead of the official opening. An individual chicken set at Jewel is S$11 for rice, chicken and soup, with an extra 80 cents if you want half steamed and half roasted. A medium plate at Maxwell is about S$6.
Time Out said the Jewel chicken rice still tastes like Maxwell: soft rice, silky steamed chicken, and a thicker, sweeter sauce. You are just paying airport prices for it.
The original Maxwell stall has been on the Michelin Bib Gourmand list every year since 2016. Tian Tian started there in 1986.
If you want Tian Tian on a Monday, or after 8pm, Jewel is currently the only outlet that is open daily and that late.
