Located at one end of Kulai Old Street, at the road intersection between Jalan Ibrahim and Jalan Ismail, is a standalone restaurant by the name Heng Heng Hainanese Chicken Rice (兴兴烧腊海南鸡饭). The popular restaurant used to be a stall in the coffee shop just across Jalan Ibrahim, which is now occupied by Jie Di Char Kway Teow (古来老街姐弟炒粿条).
Heng Heng Hainanese Chicken Rice, established since 1977, is a favourite restaurant among locals for its Hainanese chicken and charcoal-roasted delights. It has a branch stall in another coffee shop in Taman Kulai Utama, near Lian Pang Cake & Confectionery (联邦蛋糕西点).
Heng Heng offers Hainanese poached chicken, as its signature, as well as charcoal-roasted delights such as roasted chicken, crispy roasted meat and honey barbecue pork to go with rice. It has installed a hawker stall inside its own restaurant to keep the meats warm and that gives a casual dining atmosphere and it charges coffee shop prices.
I had a Roasted Chicken Rice (烧鸡饭) and added-on some Crispy-Skin Roasted Pork (脆皮烧肉) on my first visit. The portion of the roasted chicken is quite generous. The chicken-stock-flavoured rice is aromatic with just-nice flavour.
The roasted chicken, said to be charcoal-roasted-then-fried, has very tender meat with crispy, slight-chewy skin, which has a nice flavour too. The roasted pork has nice crispy skin, well-balanced soft fats and tender meat and surprisingly low in saltiness level — it is one of few roasted meat that I have tried that is not too salty. Their homemade ginger-chilli sauce has well-balanced, sourish-spicy flavours and pairs well with the meats and rice. They are delicious indeed.
In a bigger group on the second visit, we had a platter of half a roasted chicken, a serving of honey barbecue pork and some left-over roasted pork (consolation) — both the poached chicken and roasted pork were sold out before 1pm on a weekday. We added a black bean soup on recommendation — most of the tables had it too.
The half roasted chicken is deboned and we get to try the tenderer chicken thigh meat in addition to the breast meat. And there are more skin this time to go with the meat.
The Honey Barbecue Pork (蜜汁叉烧) is served in small cuts of the meat with similar balance in fat and lean parts. The meat is coated with smooth, caramelised sauce on its outer surface with a nice sweet flavour. And similar to the roasted pork, the fatter part is soft and the leaner part is slightly firmer, tender and juicy. This is delicious too.
The boiled Black Bean Soup (黑豆汤) appears blackish but it is pretty clear when using a spoon. Inside the savoury soup are lots of black beans and mix of lean pork and pork belly meat. The black beans are fully-cooked through, tender and creamy with its characteristic flavour. The meats are soft and tender too. Seriously, don’t miss it!
After two visits, I can understand why Heng Heng Hainanese Chicken Rice is so well-regarded by locals. I will need to plan another trip to Kulai Old Street to try their Hainanese chicken rice — before lunch!
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Address:
S1, Jalan Ibrahim, Taman Kulai, 81000 Kulai, Johor, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
7am to 3pm | Closed on Friday
How to Get There:
From JB Sentral, take BAS.MY J30 to Taman Kulai. Read: JB Bus / Train: To Kulai District in Johor (柔佛.古来).
Nearby:
More Eats @ Kulai:
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