Kok Beng Chicken Rice @ Taiping, Perak
August 29, 2009 | 6,864 viewsPurpotedly one of the Top 10 BEST Chicken Rice in Malaysia (featured exclusively on a ntv7 and Guang Ming Daily’s joint hunt for the best in Malaysia, back in 2007), Kok Beng Chicken Rice has been gracing the grounds and gourmet scene in Taiping for a good 16 years.
Sinful, caramelized goodness on the hangers
Previously operating from another lot, Kok Beng has since relocated to this new outlet on Jalan Kota in Taiping in 2000, and has been doing rather brisk business on a daily basis.
Ong Kok Beng is the proprietor of the chicken rice, a friendly chap probably in his late 30′s, or 40′s. An estimation of course, but given his cheerful demeanour and approachable aura, he could well be in his 50′s without people realising it. 
Prove of their worth – Kok Beng being featured on several media portalsA simple coffee shop without much glitz nor glamour, Kok Beng is easily noticable from the streets, thanks to its bright orange-yellow coloured signboard with a chicken as its mascot. The place can easily seat a capacity of 50 or so customers, though the time we were there, most preferred the take-away option.
The traditional, homemade blended chilli sauce with ginger and garlicServing poached chicken, roasted chicken and barbecued marinated pork (Char Siew) with rice and soup of the day, one never needs a menu at Kok Beng’s.
The roasted chicken, the smooth poached chicken and Char Siew, and the chicken riceThe fluffy grains of rice had a mild hint of oil from the chicken (not that gross, trust me), not too oily and suits those healthy-minded ones. The chilli sauce deserves a mention, for staying true to its Hainanese moniker, using only fresh chillies, and ginger, grinded to a pulp-ish yet smooth concoction, with a slightly spicier kick than the usual watered-down version from the bottles.
The poached chicken was a little disappointing in my opinion, though firm and tender, but not the pleasantly smooth type. Of course, I’m not suggesting that one must go all out for raw, smooth and slithering down one’s throat version sometimes served by some of the big names in Ipoh (Lou Wong comes to mind).
The roasted chicken fared better, though the skin was not of the crispy kind. But the star of the show was undoubtedly, and surprisingly, the Char Siew. The homemade variety, without the artificial reddish hues, and served with a sweet and salty caramelized dark sauce.
The chicken rice is priced at RM3 per plate, though ours which came in a combination of two meats came to about RM5 per plate. A meal for two including drinks and soup came to RM12.80.
Location : Kedai Kopi Kok Beng Chicken Rice @ 38, Jalan Kota, 34000 Taiping, Perak.
Tel No : 6012-505 6697 or 6012-522 6697.
Opens daily from about 11am until 2 or 3pm, or until the food’s finished for the day.
Closed on every other Monday, hence call in advance before arriving.
Want some other views on Kok Beng Chicken Rice? Here goes :
cynthia‘s a gal who had been frequenting the shop since her younger days.
foodbuddy.net loved the Char Siew as much as we did.
the list of the Top 10 Chicken Rice in M’sia from tourmalaysia.com.
it must be a superb one as they are up on media.
errr… mayb the poached chicken only they prepared that day was not up to their standard?
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it must be a superb one as they are up on media.
errr… mayb the poached chicken only they prepared that day was not up to their standard?
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yum yum…. i love chicken rice
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Wah lau . the chili looks shiok! And the char siu …. one word. Juicy !
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The chilli sauce is my favourite kind – hearty fresh super pungent! The only type that self-respecting chicken rice seller will use!
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The chickens look quite dark because of being caramelized but no doubt, it must be very delicious.
Wow… look at the blended chili! yum!
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wow chicken rice shop!
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Wow! So yummy! Wish I can taste it! : )
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There is a awfully lots of roasted stuffed on the rack. I am sure the locals like this place!
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ai wei : not to say the poached chicken ain't good, for I actually like my poached chicken cooked, firm and tender, rather than bloody. but the char siew and the roasted version of the chicken kinda stole the limelight.
fufu : you sure you can settle for mere chicken rice after halfway around the world? haha …
timothy : yup, a little lean, which suited my eating companion. though i like mine slightly fatter.
550ml : yup! pungent with lots and lots of ginger!!!
Selba : the char siew looks dark, not so much the chickens IMO.
BBO : chicken rice shop? or The Chicken Rice Shop?
foongpc : no problem, go north and multiply. i meant, chomp your way …
worldwindows : indeed. they're almost a legend in the small town of Taiping.
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The chicken rice will be on my next stop during the journey drive home to Penang.
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email2me : stopping by in Taiping for some chicken rice then?
not bad. go for cendol, and the whole shebangs as well.
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I went to this place today. I was there because Dongguai duck rice at M&M was closed for no reason, perhaps it’s their day off. Anyway I was feeling a little adventurous, and I remembered the big publicity splash I saw on the wall of your Kok Beng place as I passed by this shop for innumerable times.
First, let me preface this by stating: I’m not a chicken rice person. (You know the type: die-die must eat chicken everyday, and when they see the sign reading ???? their eyes light up like lines of Taiping Christmas lights that dot Kota Road.) I do know my chicken rice places, from the damned to the damned fine. For the damned fine, I’ve been to many. Most of which tend to overdose on MSG, but we’re not here to critique the food seller’s ethics. We’re here to talk about how succulent and ginger-flavorful the chicken is.
So here we are. Chicken Rice a la Kok Beng. On first sight, there are boatload of people inside. Not much noise, which is always a welcoming thing to people who are fed up with pasar-style commotion. We have too many of those places, one of them being Prima from just across the street. (Which is why I avoid that place now except in the wee morning.)
So I go in, order chicken rice for one, and secure a cooler table by the staircase. There is no air-conditioning, so everywhere is supposed to be hot at this hour. So mind you, this is already a strong contrast to M&M, where they also have another chicken rice stall, because M&M is air-conditioned. Note here: Taiping is in no shortage for chicken rice outlets. If several terrorist bombs were to go off town-wide, I believe we’d still have enough chicken rice suppliers to feed this town, and then the next one too.
Not long enough to warm up my seat, the maid already pops up to take my drink order. I ask for milk tea, as is the norm for all chicken rice places; iced milk tea + chicken rice = combo set totaling RM5 or less. The girl’s reply is, “Tak ade teh susu,” but they have “Teh China and Leng Teh saja”. What the hell. Chinese tea then. Strike one.
One thing to be said about this place, the service is prompt. The chicken and rice arrives in under 10 minutes. Here I’ll take a pause while you re-read that last sentence.
“Chicken and rice”. Everytime you mention this to any budget minded Taiping diner, they’d say, no no no. Get the chicken in with the plate of rice! The usual fare for something like this should be no more than 3.50. Chicken rice being seperated from the rice plate, and that could easily get up to 4 ringgit or more. A simple Hainanese chicken rice would then be blown up to the price of halal chicken in Nasi Kandar places. Sweet goddess of mercy, we wouldn’t want that.
Getting back to the plate of rice. So the maid comes, setting the plate down before me, and I am reeling back in awe and disgust. What I ordered before, which is a plain dish of chicken rice, has turned into a 2 course meal. For there is not only chicken, but also char-siew. At that my mouth was forming OMG. This is the Hainanese and the Cantonese belting out a Peking opera. Sensory overload aside, there is the problem with paying. And I hate paying. So I make haste to the boss lady, and ask for them to mercifully cut out the crap that is char siew, and make the chicken smaller size, like how an average guy would normally have his chicken. As in, you know, the usual Taiping affair: stingy and pathetic.
(Don’t laugh. If you laugh, you’re not from here, or you’re not old enough to earn a living in this town.)
So anyway, the food comes back. The portion looks alright now. Just like what you’d get from across the street. Now for the taste test. The soup tastes almost exactly like what you’d get from a pack of Maggie mee sachet. Only the sachet contains mondo amount of black pepper. “Ooo. Not very nice taste, this one,” British guy on Astro would tell you. Nope. Did not like it one bit.
Soup: FAIL.
Perhaps the chicken then? Surely you can’t fail at ginger boiled chicken? So, the chicken tastes fine. A little too chewy perhaps, but it tastes ok. The sauce OTOH, is anything but ok. There is no sweetness in it that my tastebud can discern. For a whole minute I try to “grow into” this chilli paste, you know how some things, such as nicotine, needs for you to warm up to it? Well this one, I’m trying and I’m trying, and there’s no end to the trying. “Hearty fresh super pungent”? Hmm. Let me see. I’ll get back to you on that. Here I’m just going to say, if you sucker punch someone in the nose, that is plenty “hearty fresh super pungent” too.
So the sauce, I’m afraid I have to vote: Didn’t work for me. Works for you? You are ho-liao! Salute!
I didn’t try the dark chicken. What do you want me to do, order a Hainanese dark chicken rice? There is no “dark” in Hainanese chicken rice. And if I want my chicken dark, I’d sooner go home and roast it myself. I’d even do it the Kenny Rogers’ way too.
So, with all that disaster, I’m already looking forward to get out. Which comes the next, even graver problem. The total comes up to 5.80*.
Am I still in Taiping? The last time I looked, this is still Taiping. So how come the cost of a simple poor man’s food, a plate of chicken rice suddenly becomes something even more expensive than a plate of duck rice in JB? Mind you, I wouldn’t mind paying 4.50 for a good plate of duck rice. Hell, I’d even put up a good 6 ringgit for extra portion. Just not this almost-but-not-quite chicken rice in unpalatable sauce, ok? What have we Taiping people become, if we allow this kind of bullshit charade to go on?
[Later, to verify the going rate for a single plate of chicken rice with meat served seperately, I went over to 2 other chicken rice stalls. Both places quoted me 3.80. Which means I've been cheated off 1.20.]
*Inclusive of my extra purchase of tissue papers, for I need it to cry home.
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The ???? above is actually the four Mandarin characters for Hainanese Chicken Rice. For some reason the text got screwed up as I copied the text from my Notepad.
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i m totally agree with Bad Cyborg as i had tasted once Kok Beng’s chicken rice..the taste is totally terrible.not only that the price is so damn expensive as my family and i which consist of 4 person ate almost RM50 just for chicken rice…i had never eat so expensive chicken rice…i wonder if i had taken the meat that made from gold or platinum that cost me so much…with the price that charged, the food should have tasted enough nice and tasty and delicious BUT it seems to be vice versa..in Taiping there are more delicious and cheaper chicken rice stall compare to KOK BENG…
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J2Kfm Reply:
February 8th, 2011 at 11:47 pm
A little harsh now, jenny?
Yeah, I can’t deny that the chicken rice at Kok Beng was so-so; nothing that jumped at you and render you breathless.
But then again, there has to be something magical about theirs since they got voted as one of the BEST chicken rice in Malaysia?
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can i known the rate of this food
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