Hawker, Sydney

EDIT: CLOSED

I freaking love Malaysian desserts, from the multi coloured Kuihs to shaved ice with random fruits and fillings. But if I ever see freshly made Apam Balik I am over the moon with happiness and so when I heard Mamak had opened a new restaurant, Hawker (345 Sussex St, Sydney) with a focus on Malaysian-Chinese dishes and my beloved Apam Balik I knew I had to get there immediately. Below are dishes from my 3 visits 😀


We start off with drinks. Barley Ping ($4) is my fave drink because the iced barley drink helps negate the burning whenever I eat spicy foods. Noods orders the Kat Chai Suen Mui ($4) which is calamansi lime and preserved sour plum with ice- it’s ok but he laments that the drink isn’t sour enough for him.


Food comes out in no particular order but it does arrive quite quickly thankfully because I was bordering on hangry. While standing in line we’d been impressed watching the cooks make the popiah skins from scratch, so we definitely had to order the Popiah ($8) which came packed full of yambean (jicama), shredded omelette, minced tofu, cucumber and crispy shallots. Growing up in Aus, the mothership would let us diy our popiah and would deep fry pork fat to shove into the popiah and I would always see how stuffed I could make mine without making it explode. Hawker’s Popiah is pretty tasty but ah how I wish there was pork fat 😛


The Or Chien ($16) is a fried omelette studded with plump Sydney rock oysters. I loved the gooey starchy innards but would’ve liked more of a char and more crispy edges to be just like the omelettes from proper hawker street stalls in KL. I’d totally order this again though as it was deeeeelicious especially with the briny and creamy oysters!


I was looking forward to the KL Hokkien Mee ($14), stir fried hokkien noodles in a rich aromatic black sauce, with prawns, cabbage, pork slices and crispy pork fat. Yes purely because I heart pork fat. But alas! We found maybe 2 itty bitty pieces of pork fat noooo the sads! I’ve seen pics on Instagram where there was heaps of pork fat so maybe we just lucked out.


The Char Koay Teow ($14) was pretty good, the wok hei game could be better but overall it was a decent CKT. There was a whole bunch of prawns, lap cheong sausage, fresh bean sprouts AND COCKLES!!! It’s been ages since I’ve seen a CKT with cockles!


The Ikan Bakar ($16) was under the Snacks section but this portion of the grilled stingray was extremely generous! There was heaps of juicy, sweet flesh with a good amount of smokiness.


Noods loved the Assam Laksa ($12) which had bucketloads of flavour. The thick rice noodles had the perfect bite and bounce and we couldn’t get enough of the spicy, sour fish based soup with shredded fish, cucumber, lettuce, pineapple and mint. Definitely one of our fave Assam Laksas in Syd.


The Curry Laksa ($12) was spicy but not oh-god-farewell-tastebuds-spicy with curry chicken, snake beans and tofu puffs in a spicy coconut milk based soup. I’m not keen on the mix of both egg noodles and vermicelli but I have issues haha


Dessert time! Apam Balik ($6/2 pieces) is a crispy pancake with crushed peanuts, butter and creamed corn and it is all kinds of AMAZING! I could eat this every day! Aaaand most likely will 😛


Innards shot!


Goreng Durian ($8), deep fried Musang King durian fritter served with vanilla ice cream. This was the bomb!!! The durian was ripe and still retained its texture after being fried and wasn’t just a lump of mush. It was pungent and fragrant but definitely one for the durian lovers. There’s also Goreng Pisang ($8) aka fried banana too.


The restaurant does get quite loud so we’ve started eating there only before or after the rush period because I am turning into a cranky nut.


The waiters are a bit hit and miss, not quite up to the multi-tasking stage but always super friendly and genuinely wanted to know our feedback on our meal. We’ll definitely be back, especially for desserts! Hawker has been packed all 3 times I’ve visited these past coupla weeks and I reckon it’s only a matter of time before the queues stretch down the street Mamak style.

Hawker
345 Sussex St,
Sydney
NSW

Trading Hours:
Mon – Sun: 11:30am – 2:30pm, 5:30pm – 10pm