Johor Bahru Eat: The Chicken Rice Shop @ JB City Square

24 March 2026

The Chicken Rice Shop (TCRS) is a restaurant chain that offers Hainanese-style chicken rice in whole of Malaysia, including in Johor Bahru. There are several outlets in major shopping malls across Johor Bahru and the nearest to Singapore is located in JB City Square Shopping Centre. The brand is known for its generous portions of food, including its signature chicken rice which uses a recipe passed down through generations.

Other than steamed chicken, the restaurant also offers roasted chicken, soy sauce chicken, honey barbecued chicken as its other signatures. There is also new-launched ayam bakar (grilled chicken) to go with rice. Other than chicken rice dishes, several types of chicken noodle dishes, including curry noodle, are available too.

The Single Combo Meal with Roasted Chicken is a chicken rice set with soup and dipping sauces of ginger and citrusy-spicy chilli. The rice is subtlely flavoured with yellowish turmeric. The roasted chicken has nice roasty aroma, tender, savoury and pretty meaty. It is a nice and affordable set meal.

Aside from single combo meals, there are Chicken Combi Set Meals with choices for 2 types of chicken out of the 4 signatures — I opted for Steamed Chicken and Prime Honey BBQ Chicken — to go with rice and soup. The Hainanese-style Steamed Chicken, soft and tender with smooth skin, is added with savoury soy sauce and fried shallot to enhance flavours. The Prime Honey BBQ Chicken is nicely barbecued with crispy skin, firmer meat texture and mild-sweet from its reddish sauce. They are delicious too and pretty hearty when paired with rice.

I have a Rice Lunch Combo Set with 1 Add-On on one visit — opted for Soy Sauce Chicken this time with rice and soup, added-on a side dish of Penang Rojak and had Cendolcino to go along.

The Soy Sauce Chicken, dribbled with a light savoury sauce, is tender with mellow flavour of soy sauce on its skin. The viscous sauce adds more flavour to the meat. The Penang Rojak is a tasty treat comprising cuts of fruit (pineapple, green papaya), turnip and cucumber added-on with fermented shrimp paste and minced peanuts. Some crackers add crispiness.

The iced Cendolcino is kopi combined with cendol, making it both a coffee and dessert. It has mellow bitterness of coffee, mild-sweet and infused with flavours of cendol (coconut palm sugar, coconut milk and green rice jellies). The beverage is nice and unique.