Goh Thew Chik Hainan Chicken Rice

Lunch today was at Chulia Street’s stalwart Hainanese chicken rice spots: Goh Thew Chik Hainan Chicken Rice, so named after the founder, Goh Thew Chik, a Hainanese emigrant from Wenchang, Hainan Island, who came to Penang after World War II, to escape the ravages of the Chinese civil war between Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Kuomintang forces and Mao Tse-Tung's Communist People's Liberation Army.

Hainanese chicken rice is our local derivative of Wenchang chicken rice from Hainan Island. One of the most popular lunch options in George Town, it's a dish with a 400-year-old history. Goh Thew Chik started as an itinerant road-side peddler, but progressed to having his chicken rice stall in a coffeeshop owned by his Hainanese brethren who dominate the kopitiam industry in George Town since the 1940s.

Upon Goh Thew Chik's passing, the family's business was taken on by his son, Goh Ching Ting, who continued his father's legacy. Today, the business is run by the third-generation of the Goh family: Goh Ching Ting's older son, Goh See Yong, who still prepares the poached chicken, chicken rice and condiments according to the family's old recipes, and second son, Goh See Wah, who does most of the chopping and serving upfront.

A standard order of Hainanese chicken rice: poached chicken, chicken-flavoured rice, chicken soup, and the all-important chili sauce.

Hainanese-style poached chicken with chicken liver.

Chicken rice is prepared using raw rice grains which have been sauteed in chicken fat, then cooked in chicken-flavoured stock, with ginger and spring onions.

The all-important chili sauce, a blend of red chilis, garlic, ginger, vinegar (some places use calamansi lime juice) and chicken stock.

A light chicken soup to accompany the chicken rice.

Goh Thew Chik Hainan Chicken Rice is Select listed under the Michelin Guide Kuala Lumpur & Penang 2024.