Ashley M.
Yelp
After hearing so much about Hawkers the past few years, I've been pretty excited to hear of a location opening so close to me. I met a couple of girlfriends here for Happy Hour and from my experience, I struggle between a 2.5 and 3 stars for this place.
My girlfriends and I met on a Wednesday after work. We decided to meet at 5pm to accommodate their happy hour that ends at 6pm. First, it's important to note there are no happy hour drink specials at this location - the happy hour specials are for food only. Womp womp.
Hawkers is sexy, trendy, fun. There's lots of loud art all over the interior, the tables are fun and even their menu is bright and inviting.
For my drink, I ordered:
- Five-spice Old Fashioned: Warm and classic. Suntory Toki whisky,
five-spice simple, Angostura and orange bitters.
As far as an old fashioned goes, this was pretty delicious. The five spice seasoning was light and not overwhelming and added a good balance. The two critiques I have are that the drink was very sweet and it was very, very small for an old fashioned.
- Spring Rolls: Crisp wrap, shredded veggies. Vietnamese vinaigrette dipping sauce.
- Hawkers Wings: sweet thai chili
- Five-Spice Green Beans: Lightly battered, fried to a crisp, tossed in our signature five-spice seasoning.
- Japanese Fried Chicken: Crispy Karaage chicken thighs with Kewpie mayo and fresh lemon.
- C.K.T. : Wok-fired shrimp, chicken, lap cheong, egg, veggies and fresh wide rice noodles in a simple soy and pork sauce. A founders' favorite and Malaysian street classic.
As far as the food, this is where my disappointment is the greatest - the only good dish we had was probably the five-spice green beans, but it's very hard to mess up fried green beans. The karaage would probably come in second, but then again, it's hard to mess up fried chicken. Everything else was average except for the C.K.T., which I ordered based on the server's recommendation and was incredibly disappointing. If you're not used to C.K.T. as its prepared in traditional Asian restaurants than this could probably pass your standards, but everything about this dish - flavor, consistency of noodles, overcooked meat, seasoning - was lacking.
Service was attentive. One of the other servers found out we were celebrating birthdays and sent complimentary desserts our way.
Overall, this is turned out to be a comparably pricey Asian food experience. Obviously there are much better and cheaper Asian food options nearby if that's what you're searching for - come for the ambiance, the cocktails, and perhaps a couple of appetizers but save your wallet and your tastebuds for authenticity down the street.