Hawker’s Delight - Vancouver

We’ve always wanted to try this place out which is known to be a  hidden gem by many food bloggers.  It serves Malaysian style food.  We finally had a chance on a Saturday afternoon.  We knew it might be busy seeing the pictures of the small establishment with only a few tables available.

Hawker’s Delight is around the Main and King Edward neighbourhood so parking is not that great.  As usual, we circled around the residential areas for a free parking spot as long as you don’t mind walking a bit.

There were 3 of us and all the tables were already occupied so we opted to sit on the counter.  It was a hot Saturday and this place has no air conditioning so be prepared to be extra warm if you are going to get something spicy.

The menus are not overly complex.  It is simple with detailed descriptions.  The main popular dishes have a picture over the cashier. You basically order your food and pay first. Then someone brings you the food.

We ordered the Laksa.  It was quite a generous serving with the typical fried tofu, fish balls, sprouts, shrimp and an egg with lots of yellow ‘oil’ noodles.

It was not overly spicy and the flavour was fair.  We would have preferred extra coconut flavor.

We also ordered 3 pieces of roti canai.  It is a pan fried flat bread.  It was not too oily and came with some spicy curry dip on the side.

This is curry chicken withe rice   It comes with a quarter chicken (drumstick and thigh) and delicious curry.  The curry is not the thick and creamy type like Mui Garden’s,  but still had the right touch of coconut and spiciness to it.

Hawker’s Delight is not a place you want to stick around to chat with friends.  It’s a very fast food like joint where you eat and run so you can give up your table to others waiting.  The food is very reasonably priced and the portions are generous for the price you pay.

We’ll be coming back to try their other dishes very soon.

SFDD gives 4.25 out of 5 Delights.

IPOH Asian House - Vancouver

There are a couple of restaurants along Hastings just between Victoria and Nanaimo that has been coming and going in terms of ownership over the years. 

IPOH converted from Hong Kong style food to Chinese food to now Asian - Malay style food.  The previous changes did not include any renos so it always seemed to look the same inside.  The owners of IPOH however appear to have done a rather significant makeover making it a bit more modern.

We went at about 11:00am on Sunday morning just after it opened for the lunch so there were plenty of tables available.  There lunch menu was focussed on Malay-Singapore style Asian food.

The first thing I noticed was that the pricing was rather inexpensive when compared to places like Thai House or Tropika.  There was quite a bit to choose from including a lunch special section where a drink was included.  Usually the lunch specials are smaller, so when I ordered, I specifically pointed to the regular priced section thinking we would get a bigger portion to share amongst the three of us.  The waitress told us it is the same size as the special price so that is what we ordered from.

We wanted to start with the special appetizer platter.  There is a special where you can choose 3 appetizer items from the list to make your platter.  We chose the beef and chicken kebab, chicken wings and Malay pancake.  Unfortunately, the appetizer came last.  In fact it came quite late in the game when we were already halfway through our main dishes.

Anyhow, this was a good value platter.  The Chicken and beef however was a bit too bland. The chicken wings were juicy and was also a bit on the bland side but was passable.  If there was more flavour in the curry sauce then that would have made up for it but it was also bland as well without much spicy curry kick as one would expect.

The Pad Thai came first and was a reasonable size for the price.

This had the right amount of sweet/sour/spicyness to it.  The noodle component was also well prepared and was not mushy despite the amount of sauce it was made with.

Next came the Thai fried rice.  It had a variety of items inside including shrimp, chicken, cucumber and veggies.  This would have been better if it had more spicyness to it.  Overall it was OK as it was fresh off the wok and the rice had the right texture to it.

The drinks were typical and nothing special so we won’t write anything about it.  I would have preferred to opt out on the drink to get a bigger portion but that was not available as an option. 

Overall, the service was good and the food came fast.  My only gripe was the appetizers coming last and the blandness of the meat and curry sauce on the appetizer platter.  Prices are very good for what you get.

In the evening they have Chinese style dinner so we will blog about that later as we had a chance to try that too.

SFDD gives 3.25 out of 4 Delights.