Among the many high end restaurants and bars located around the area, lies this inconspicuous zi char restaurant that was really pretty decent, while being relatively affordable!
Their Fish Meat Soup ($20 for medium) is one worth commenting on. The soup itself is light, not multidimensional but still decent. What's good is their fish chunks which were huge and fresh! Many pieces were given as well. Love how meaty and flaky the pieces were!
Their Yang Zhou Fried Rice ($15 for medium) came generous and I loved how fluffy the rice was. This has loads of wok hei and charred bits which flavoured the rice well.
The Claypot Bringal with Minced Pork ($18 for medium) was also another dish we liked. Loved how the dish had so much umami flavours and that the bringal was really soft! Best paired with rice.
Prawn Paste Chicken ($15 for medium) was unexpectedly good. Honestly, the colour of the fry was pale and we didn't expect it to be delicious. However, the outer crust was so crispy, and so full of umami flavours! The chicken was well marinated, as the seasoning penetrated the chicken well. Darn addictive!
The Poached Chinese Spinach ($21) is a good vegetable option, as it not only came with salted egg and century egg, it came with flowy poached eggs too 😍 Flavourful but not too salty, this is a good break from all the rich meat dishes.
I wouldn't say that the dishes were particularly mind-blowing, but they were definitely comforting. A zi char restaurant I will come back again for!
Kam heong chicken is a Malaysian Chinese dish packed with so many flavours. The sauce creates a very complex flavour of spiciness, sourness, sweetness and brilliantly savouriness in this dish. This is ideal to go along with rice and the chicken is tender, well marinated and chopstick-licking good 》$10/small
This is definitely the star on the entire menu. Hor fun drenched in thick gooey seafood gravy bursting with umami along with hints of spiciness. The big prawns were fresh and the portion was good with the right amount of wok-hei. It's legit good! 👍 》$19/small
We ordered another of Kok Sen's signature dish, the claypot Yong Tau foo, as we saw this at many tables. While the dish comes with taupok, capsicum and Brinjal, these are not your run-of-the-mill ingredients as they are all stuffed with fish and sotong paste! The paste was firm and slightly bouncy and it didn't come with an overly fishy taste.
The gravy was also great and it was brimming with flavour reminiscent of seafood. It is definitely great to drizzle it over your rice although we preferred the hor fun gravy for it's strong wok hey flavour!
One downside was the small serving size for the $15 that we paid for the dish. It is enough to be shared between 2 pax (and maybe 3 pax), but you are better off getting a larger size if you are visiting in a bigger group.
We are back at Kok Sen for their unique tze char dishes and this time, we decided to try out the Golden Dragon Chicken, which was a signature item on their menu. Don't be deceived by the name of this item though, because this item is really roasted chicken skin stuffed with fish paste! The roasted chicken skin was really crispy and the fish paste was prepared well as it wasn't overly fishy. 😋
However, the dish cost a whopping $32 and even though the serving size was decent, we don't think it was very worth the price paid since the filling was all fish paste. Unlikely that we will order this dish again next time!
We visited Kok Sen for lunch on a Saturday and the restaurant was nearly full. Hence, we highly encourage you to make a reservation before heading down! 😁
First time trying this out and it was absolutely delicious. Didn’t have to queue here on a rainy Sunday night at 8pm. Prawns were huge, service was prompt and the wok hei was on point.
The only downside, if any, is the price tag of $20 for a one pax portion of hor fun.
We thought that having white rice alone would be boring and hence, we decided to order the beef fried rice as well! The fried rice was really fragrant and came with a decent amount of wok hey, which gave the dish a slightly smoky flavour. We also liked that the rice was not overly wet/clumpy, unlike some of the fried rice sold at eateries outside. The beef was diced into small pieces and coated with black pepper sauce, hence there is no need to be afraid of the gamey taste and it will be concealed by the sauce. The sauce went pretty well with the fried rice, I must say!
This is the small portion, which is around enough for 3 persons to have one bowl of rice each! For $8, we think it is fairly reasonable. Kok Sen was thankfully not very crowded when we reached at 7.30 pm on a weekday evening and we were able to get a table fairly quickly; however, we can imagine that they will be pretty crowded on weekends and given that they do not take reservations, you have to be prepared to queue!
The big prawn hor fun is one of the signature dishes at Kok Sen and although the hor fun tasted pretty ordinary, the gravy was not! It was full of wok hey, which imbued the dish with a slightly smoky and charred taste. We also liked that it was slightly sweet, probably because it was cooked with a decent amount of prawns! The prawns were also great and they were really huge - each piece you see in the picture is HALF a giant prawn! Kok Sen was nice to help us split each prawn into half so that it would be easier to eat the prawns without us having to use our hands! 😁
Overall, this is a pretty great dish and it is unique to this tze char eatery - hence we would strongly encourage everyone to give it a shot even though $18 for the small portion may seem a little steep! For us, we will probably try out the big prawn bee hoon soup next time as it is also a signature dish that receives rave reviews!
Sambal Kang Kong is a must-try dish at any tze char restaurant for us and given that we had 3 pax, we decided to go with the medium portion today! The Kang Kong was great - it was served piping hot and the serving size was pretty generous. We also liked the sambal chilli as it was decently spicy and because it was sufficiently tossed with dried prawns before serving, we thought it gave quite a bit of fragrance to the vegetables!
The medium portion cost $14++, which is quite expensive for a vegetable dish even by most tze char standards. Given that Kok Sen is on the Michelin bib gourmand, prices there are definitely above that in your average tze char restaurant and that is something you may wish to take note of before dining there.
$32
This isn’t a flattened chicken - it’s fish paste / fish cake and covered with the crispy fried chicken skin.
Kok Sen is closed for 2 weeks from 1 March 2021 for renovations. So we braved the Friday dinner crowd for its Tze char fare. This claypot dish was one of their signatures, and we saw it on every table around us! They use fish/sotong paste to fill their vegetables (chilli, capsicum and brinjal) and stuff their tau pok. Being a more Hakka YTF kinda guy, it lacked the meaty bite of minced pork for me. The 汁sorta compensates as it definitely adds to the umami! Overall Kok Sen is the cheapest thing to eat along Keong Saik, but it‘s a little pricier for Tze Char.
Made the mistake of coming here on 元宵节. We queued a whopping 1.5hrs long as they didn’t take reservations! 😭 The food was good, but not great enough to repeat the long wait. This crispy roast chicken comes with pepper salt and homemade chilli 🌶 a real blast to the Chinese wedding dinners of yonder years. Skin’s crisp but not oily, meat’s tender but not too dry. Better than your usual chicken rice fare.
Surprised that they open at first day of CNY and still have an empty table. So change mind in a split second 🤣.
I ordered 4 dishes, and From 4 of them, I enjoyed the Big Prawn Hor Fun the most.
The hor fun gravy was tasty from prawn broth base , the prawns fresh and big and it has wok hei.
💰$20 /small.
📍Kok Sen Restaurant.
8.5/10
Intense prawn flavour with good wok hei. A bit in the salty side but in a good way.
Another must order is the Yong tai foo. Goes well with rice.
The prawn paste chicken is average at best. There are better dishes to order here.
Ordered via oddle eats as usual nicely packed and on time delivery. Food still hot when received. I find the big prawn bee hoon soup too heavy and spicy. Not to my liking. Still prefer the traditional prawn mee soup. I liked the gravy of the claypot yong tau foo. Accompany with a bowl of white rice, good ～😋
If there is one dish I will be back for, it will definitely be their big prawn hor fun.
I loved the intense smokey wokhei of their horfun and the delicious and flavourful gravy which accompanies it.
A visit to Kok Sen will never be complete without a bowl of their fiery looking prawn noodles.
I really enjoyed the intense wholesome prawn broth during my 1st visit there nearly 5 years ago. However, the standards seemed to have slipped a little as the soup broth was more spicy and briney than tasty. Likewise, the prawns were also rather meeeeh considering what you have paid.
Got their yam ring to try! Generous topping although a little pricey ($25) but we all agreed the toppings was much more compared to other zhi char places. Yam Ring itself tasted pretty good and there were a good number of prawns too
This dish tasted rather normal, we would prefer to try something else the next time we are back!
The wok hey taste and smell was just nice, not too much. The sauce was so good we had to order a bowl of rice to go with it haha
