Hawker Chan, Melbourne CBD

Hawker Chan, situated in Melbourne, is a part of the Hawker Cinematic Universe with the first (and most well-known film) to call Singapore home. It gained fame when it was voted the cheapest Michelin restaurant in the world with its famous soya sauce chicken served with rice for $1.50 Singapore Dollars (AUD 1.62).

I recently went to an ad-hoc shop to look at what I could purchase for $1.62

1x $1 Scratchie

1x sloppy bottle of water with no label (at least, I believe it’s water)

1.5x Snickers bars that had an expiry date of two weeks in the past.

This is my wacky method to say”that Hawker Chan is a premium brand, but is it also of good quality?

I think I’m required to clarify things a bit for the six people following the food blogs I wrote in 2019. (Hi, Mum, Sis, Suze, and my dedicated Russian group of three.) The soya sauce chicken doesn’t cost $1.62 at the Melbourne store, but it’s still a financially responsible $6.80. That’s cheap!

You will receive a generous quarter of chicken with soya sauce as well as a small amount of peanuts and rice, along with a piece of cucumber to top the meal off.

It’s time to start with the chicken, right? This made the owner of a tiny hawker shop in Singapore to the center of the culinary world.

I now understand. The sauce that covers the chicken provides the perfect mix of sweet, savory, and umami, which enhances the original flavor of the chicken. I was served breast meat that was a bit dry, but my dinner companions were served drums and thighs that were deliciously tender.

The sauce is a great complement to rice up to the point that it’s a pleasure to eat the rice on its own without any accompaniments. The sauce is also great, along with noodles (which Hawker Chan offers as well).

I love pork. Good gosh, I REALLY love pork.

Roast pork can be laid out nicely with the lean meat on the bottom with that fat halfway up and the crucial crackling on top.

…to be completely transparent, I’m not interested in slim meat. I am concerned about that fat as well as the skin that is on top the most. Hawker Chan was able to pass with flying colors.

Its BBQ pork (char siu to my Cantonese friends) was a great choice. The sweet, charred flavor and the right balance of lean and fat-laden meat make this barbecue pork from Hawker Chan in the same league as the best food I’ve ever tasted.

Did I mention I love pork?

Chicken is my favorite, and I eat it often. However, it’s due to the fact that I’m still not mastered making pork as of yet (my forthcoming cookbook contains virtually no pork recipes, with the exception of a few things that include bacon, but I’ll get to the subject in the future).

I was quite pleasantly surprised by the ribs cooked to me by Hawker Chan. I wasn’t too impressed by the quality (which was the case at this point; I was hoping for greatness), but I didn’t anticipate the ribs to be kicking the side. It’s like when you’re a boxer with a pal, and suddenly, the mother of the fighter hits you in the face because she’s hitting her infant.

The ribs are soft, spicy, saucy, and sweet. They are delicious with noodles. It’s hard to find better than that.

Even if you got punched in the eye by your friend’s mother.