Hawker's delight: A Hidden Gem on Main Street

So I am taking 3 week off in May to travel to South East Asia! I am embarrassed to say this but I am extremely unfamiliar with South East Asian cuisine.  I think I only started eating it maybe a year ago and I tried laksa for the FIRST time this year #foodiefail.. but as we say.. better late than never! To enhance my South East Asian cuisine experience, my travel buddies decided to meet at Hawker's delight to discuss our travel plans. 

I've never heard of this place until Aldi suggested it. It is apparently a Singaporean style restaurant but for some reason when he said a Singaporean restaurant on Main St. I imagined a large scale restaurant similar to a dim sum place. My boyfriend and I took the public transit and we almost missed the place because it was very small. It is not a fancy looking restaurant in any way but it does have a nice, cozy feel to it. It reminded me of local, unknown but delicious restaurants that are hidden inside the streets of Seoul.

The restaurant was fast-paced with people ordering take outs and also eating and leaving in less than 15-20 minutes. I think the restaurant can probably fit up to ~15 people.

I let Aldi do all the ordering as he is more familiar with the cuisine. We ended up ordering spring rolls (0.85 each), roti (I can't recall the price), mee rubus ($6.50), nasi goreng ($6.50) and laksa ($7.15).

Nasi goreng (basically means fried rice in Indonesian/Malay) was good but there wasn't anything to rave about. It felt like comfort food which is never a bad experience. From what Aldi told me, nasi goreng is cooked differently than Chinese fried rice. It seems to be spiced differently as well with sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) which gives it the "nasi goreng" taste. 

These spring rolls were gigantic. It may not seem like it in the photo but they were almost as big as my fist. The best part was that they were only 0.85 cents each! (WHAT?!). I really liked these spring rolls because they were crunchy on the outside and the vegetables were seasoned perfectly inside. I could've had all four of them. As you can see in the photo, it was definitely greasy but I didn't complain.

It was my first time trying mee robus. The consistency of the sauce was like a curry but it was made from a spicy sweet potato sauce. Unfortunately, it wasn't spicy at all and it was mostly sweet. I personally didn't love this dish. It was too sweet for me and I was weirded out by the consistency of the sauce and the noodle together. I think with the thick consistency of the sauce, I may have enjoyed it more with rice.

The roti. Let me tell you about the roti. They were basically grease pancakes but I loved every bite of it. It was soft and oily and it just melted in my mouth. I really enjoyed the curry that came with it too. I wanted to order more so I had to strongly refrain from doing so... Maybe next time!

The laksa had so much stuff in it. It had chicken, seafood, tofu, eggs, and the soup was rich. I really enjoyed it but to my surprise, it wasn't spicy at all. I do love spicy food so it would've been nice to have a bit of a kick. I think it was comparable or even better to the laksa I had at Laksa king.

Overall, it was a pleasant experience. The food was quite cheap and affordable. If I ever want a delicious south east asian meal without breaking my wallet, this would be definitely one of my top choices.

We weren't very productive at discussing our travel plans because we were too busy stuffing our faces with delicious food. We ended up going to a cafe nearby instead. I will keep everyone posted on my travel plans soon!

Rei