Favorite KopiTiam, Kheng Pin Café – Penang

One of my favorite KopiTiam in Penang is Kheng Pin Café, I like it because there are lots of good food in that shop. You can find different types of hawker food there like Char Koay Teow, Loh Bak, Yu Sang Kai Chok (Porridge), Chicken rice and others. Kheng Pin Café is located in Penang city center, just a few minutes walk from Cititel Hotel. This Café is situated at the junction of Penang Road and Sri Bahari Road. Kheng Pin café is an old style café where you will still find those old fashioned marble tables and wooden chairs.

Kheng Pin café only opens during breakfast and lunch. During lunch time the café will be crowded, this is because of the nice hawker food there. The Loh Bak over there is very famous and most people dining here will order it. According to a friend of mine, the Loh Bak stall will only open for business 9 months in a year. The remaining 3 months, the stall owner will be invited to one of the hotels in Singapore to serve Loh Bak over there. I don’t know how true that is, but after trying the Loh Bak, I am inclined to believe it because it was really very nice. Today, I will not introduce all the hawker food available in Kheng Pin café, I will only introduce those that I find really nice and interesting. Things that I like in that café are Loh Bak, Wan Tan Mee and Chicken rice.

Loh Bak is a traditional Chinese delicacy that you can easily find in Penang. Loh Bak is actually a Hokkien word, it is made from mince pork marinated with spice and wrapped in soya skin then deep fried. Besides the Loh Bak, the stall also serves Fried Prawn Cracker (Heh Chi), Deep fried Fish, deep fried squid and others. As you can see from the picture, Loh Bak is served together with two types of sauces. One of them is chili sauce and the other is black in color and is called “Loh”, “Loh” is made of starch. To eat, take a Loh Bak and deep in the "Loh" then into the chili and eat it, it tasted wonderful. I really like the Loh Bak and Heh Chi serve over here, all of them were deep fried to crispy and together with the sauces it is really tasty.

Another thing that tastes good in Kheng Pin Café is the Wan Tan Mee. The Wan Tan Mee here is special because the noodle used are handmade noodles. Unlike other stalls that uses machine made noodles, this stall uses handmade noodles and all noodles served here were handmade by the stall owner. The Wan Tan (dumplings) is also nice and the best part of the Wan Tan Mee is the Chinese mushrooms. Try it and you will know.

The last thing that I would like to introduce from this cafe is the Chicken Rice. I really like the chicken rice over here and I'm still missing it while writing this post. Damn, let me quickly finish writing this and after that I will head over there to eat the chicken rice. Unlike other chicken rice stalls, this stall serves only steamed Chicken (Pak Cham Kai), there is no Siew Kai (Roasted Chicken), Char Siew (BBQ Pork), Siew Yuk (Roasted Pork) or Duck in served at this stall. The Chicken is steamed to perfection where the meat and the skin were so juicy and the thin layer of fat underneath the skin was still there. As you can see from the picture, the meat was tender enough and tasted really delicious. I can say that this is the best steamed chicken that I ever had. Although there are only 2 of us eating, I ordered a half chicken because it tasted really nice. I would recommend those chicken rice lovers to try this stall, it is a must.

Overall, I would say that Kheng Pin café has lots of good food, if you have time try it and I would guarantee that you would go back again once you had tried. Loh Bak is a nice side dish or appetizer if you go there and trust, the steam chicken rice is a must!!! I would individually rate the chicken rice 8.99999 out of 10.

Makan King's ratings = 8.5 out of 10

Cheers,
-Wasabi King-