The nice folks at Hem 27 in Flemington (shop 27, 320-380 Epsom Road) have let me know they are sporting a revamped menu.

So I’m here to check it out.

Actually, I’m here mostly for lunch, new menu or not, and certainly have no ideas about doing a story.

Until this fabulous dish happens to me.

Com ga Kam Ty ($12.80), is, I’m told, named after a mid-Vietnam city of the same name.

It has shredded chicken, onion and ginger fish sauce.

Sounds like a Viet version of Hainan chicken rice, hey?

Nope – not even close, apart from the main ingredients.

Looks like a rice-accompanied Viet version of a Thai salad?

Yep – that’s a good deal closer.

The sauce, for draping over both poultry and rice, is a gingery chilli delight of which I use every last drop.

The rice is half regular and half sticky, so is sticky – and it, too, is ginger infused.

The chook?

Ah, the chook.

This is NOT chicken – this is your old, big, gnarly stewing hen.

It’s boiled and then the meat is shredded and marinated overnight with Vietnamese coriander, pepper, lemon juice and onion slices, the latter of which take on a translucent, al-dente texture, all the bitterness gone.

As for the shredded hen pieces, there’s no namby-pamby white breast or thigh meat here.

Some of the hen pieces are light or dark grey. There’s gristle and skin.

Some if it as tough as an old boot.

But that’s precisely how this particularly zesty and awesome take on chicken ‘n’ rice is meant to be.

Because every shred and morsel is fabulously chewy, life-enhancing and packed with flavour.

This is chook for which the word rustic was invented.

Call me an easily pleased fool, but this dish makes me ridiculously happy.