Kok Sen Restaurant

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.