There are only four things on the menu, and three of them are the same chicken.
Hen soft opened in early August at 15 West Broadway, in the Mount Pleasant unit Best Burrito left behind.
I went in anonymously on a scorching afternoon and ordered the Mix with a cold Thai iced tea.
The dish is khao man gai, which is the Thai version of chicken rice, and it is worth being clear that it is not Hainanese.
The window vinyl spells it out in Thai, Chinese, Japanese and English, which tells you how many different sets of expectations walk through that door.
The brand is not new, it is just new here.
Hen runs two rooms in the Boston area, one on Commonwealth Avenue and one on Union Square in Somerville, and Vancouver is its first address outside Massachusetts.
Their own line for it is “Khao Man Gai just like we grew up eating.”
The soft opening menu is four numbered plates.
The Original is poached chicken thigh with ginger rice and soybean sauce, The Crispy swaps in fried boneless chicken with their sriracha, The Heat is that one with the spice turned up, and The Mix gives you both chickens and both sauces for $15.95.
The Mix is the right order if you are going once.
Doused in the hen sriracha and the soybean sauce it was genuinely satisfying, the poached thigh slippery and mild against crispy pieces that stay loud under the sauce, with fried shallots on top doing the rest.
The rice and chicken deliver on the taste.
Now the part people are going to argue about.
The chicken portion is TINY next to the Hainanese counters I have been eating at for years, and if you walk in benchmarking against those plates you will finish this one wanting more.
That is not a knock on the cooking, it is a heads up on the size for big backs.
The room itself is as simple as it can be.
It is a plain space with maybe fifteen seats, a Coca-Cola fridge, an Order Here sign and a Pick Up Here sign, and you clear your own table.
Cafeteria energy, which is fair for a shop built around one dish.
Worth noting that the Boston rooms run a full cocktail bar and a wider Thai menu, and none of that has landed on West Broadway yet.
For now, the Vancouver bet is narrow on purpose: one dish, four ways, in a city that already has strong opinions about chicken and rice.
Hen joins other recently opened Vancouver spots including French Creek Pub, Bevel, and Dao Field.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: 15 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC
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