Hawker Hall – Windsor – same owner as Chin Chin with a decent all-round Asian menu

I’d admit that I was skeptical about whether this was going to be a good experience or not. Many months ago, I visited Chin Chin and wasn’t as thrilled with the food and the atmosphere as I had hope, given how many people rave about how good it is. Hawker Hall is in the same family as Chin Chin but based in Windsor in Melbourne’s south east on the famous Chapel Street. While Chin Chin didn’t impress, I was at least impressed with a few dishes at Hawker Hall.

For starters, we visited Hawker Hall for a celebration. We were taken to our smallish table but were surprised to see how packed and lively the whole restaurant was for a Sunday evening. One of the main attractions in the restaurant is the vast array of alcohol. Now, I tend to stir away from alcohol for non-religious reasons like costs and mood, etc, so I ordered their Mango and Lime Soda for $7.50. The soda was a pleasant concoction with a refreshing lemonade.

Our meals were served in three tranches, the first tranche was the Five Spice Salt and Pepper Squid and the Murtabak with Curry Sauce. I was pretty excited to order these two dishes. The squid was cooked really well and was addictive. The murtabak was exciting with the lamb mince filling and the whole thing roti and filling could be dipped into the curry sauce for that extra excitement.

The second tranche was my favourite. It was the Economy Vegetarian Noodles with Sambal and the Tangy Sweet and Sour Fish with Charred Pineapple. The noodles were a real treat with lots of interesting flavours. Probably my favourite dish of the night was their Tangy Sweet and Sour Fish with Charred Pineapple. The dish came with large chucks of deep fried and battered fish with their special honey glaze. I highly recommend ordering this dish if you visit Hawker Hall.

Everything was fantastic, until we got to third tranche were we ordered the Chicken Curry (which surprisingly came with rice) and the XO Prawn and Crispy Pork Fried Rice. The curry tasted okay with the rice, but the curry lacked a lot of flavor or anything distinctive to make it appealing. Plus the rice was soaking up all the sauce. The sad thing was that rice wasn’t even mentioned in the menu and it made up half the dish. I’d avoid this dish next time. The Crispy Pork Fried Rice came with king prawns which were succulent and delicious, but the crispy pork was lacking and dry and the XO sauce was pretty weak. We probably could have done without the third tranche and could have ended on a high with the Tangy Sweet and Sour Fish with Charred Pineapple.

Overall, we paid around $120 for two people. It was a nice venue, though car parking was slightly hard to find unless you get lucky with street parking (which is free parking after 6 pm).

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