Penang Chicken Rice 檳城雞飯

Excellent Cafe's Chicken Rice (9 September 2012)


The Penang Chicken Rice (檳城雞飯) is a popular rice meal of Hainanese origin. Although chicken rice has taken root as a popular street food in Malaysia, each state has its own variation. While chicken rice is usually sold by Chinese hawkers, Malay hawkers have also adopted the dish, creating nasi ayam. In Ipoh, chicken is served with flat rice noodles and bean sprouts while in Malacca, it is served with rice balls. Neither is the norm in Penang.

The chicken rice sold in Penang is usually served over a bed of sliced cucumber, sprinkled with chopped spring onion and drenched in oily soy sauce. Both roasted as well as steamed chicken are available. The rice is cooked in chicken stock, which makes it oily and gives it a mouth-watering aroma.

Penang Chicken Rice is one of the most popular food in Penang coffee shops. In the early days (over forty years ago), chicken rice was considered "rich man's food", which only the wealthy could afford to it.

Braised and roast chicken of Penang Chicken Rice (1 May 2008)


Some chicken rice stalls also sell charsiew (barbecued pork), siew bak (roasted pork), labcheung (pork sausage) as well as roasted duck. If the stall advertises itself as an "Ipoh Chicken Rice" stall, then the chicken is prepared the Ipoh style, which means it is likely to be served with bean sprouts. Unlike in Ipoh, where the chicken is served with hor fun (flat rice pasta), in Penang, it is almost always served with rice. Also, unlike Malacca, there are no chicken rice stall in Penang (that I know of) that serves the rice in the form of rice balls.

Ingredients of Chicken Rice:

Where to find chicken rice in Penang? My food map below makes it incredibly easy for you to locate a stall nearest to you. Every stall I have come across is pinpointed and numbered on the map. They correspond to the list of stalls below.

Where to find Chicken Rice Stalls in Penang

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

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