Hawkers, an Orlando, FL Asian-Street-Food-Themed Central Kitchen with Outlets in Bethesda Row and Ballston Exchange

[chinarider]

I wanted to like this place. At least, I love southeast Asian street food. But when I saw the menu I knew it wasn’t going to be great. A mishmash of Korean, Singaporean, Japanese Chinese etc. No rendang

as feared, everything was a dumbed-down version. Papaya salad with no kick, terrible (inedible) Szechuan wontons...skewers were fine, as were summer rolls. But, as feared, if you want good Asian food you still need to pay top dollar at Q, or head on up to Rockville...

[pras]

On 7/28/2021 at 9:39 PM, chinarider said:

I wanted to like this place. At least, I love southeast Asian street food. But when I saw the menu I knew it wasn’t going to be great. A mishmash of Korean, Singaporean, Japanese Chinese etc. No rendang

as feared, everything was a dumbed-down version. Papaya salad with no kick, terrible (inedible) Szechuan wontons...skewers were fine, as were summer rolls. But, as feared, if you want good Asian food you still need to pay top dollar at Q, or head on up to Rockville...

I agree with your assessment.  Mediocre at best.

[brr]

This place is terrible. Overpriced, glacial service, got my order wrong, offered to "make it right" but never did anything / refund me. Avoid! 

[NolaCaine]

Went today. Everything tasted familiar. Chinese Bao was very good but it tasted familiar. My 9 year old proclaimed that Trader Joe's soup dumplings were superior to Hawkers'. I liked the wonton soup but again, that broth must be sold at Good Fortune b/c it too was familiar. And a spring roll is a spring roll, I get that one was my fault. 

[reedm]

On the surface, Hawkers is an interesting concept. However, as someone who has been fortunate enough to visit Singapore a few times, Hawkers is the antithesis of Singapore hawker stands. I took a quick look at the Hawkers menu, and most items are $10+. In Singapore, a $10 item at a hawker stand is rare.

Coincidentally, I was there last week, and I will tell you the quality and variety of hawker stand food writ large is amazing. 

I realize it is extremely difficult to replicate indigenous foods in the US (it goes both ways, of course), but the price point appears to be very high in relation to quality.

[noamb]

Who cares how much you’d pay in Singapore? It’s _much_ cheaper if you include the price of the plane ticket and hotel.

It sucks, fine, I’m not surprised. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to compare prices to another drastically different country.

[DonRocks]

18 hours ago, noamb said:

Who cares how much you’d pay in Singapore? It’s _much_ cheaper if you include the price of the plane ticket and hotel.

It sucks, fine, I’m not surprised. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to compare prices to another drastically different country.

Okay, but reedm also mentioned "quality" and "variety."

If a commissary in Orlando is going to truck their cosplay nationwide, to be sold under the guise of a Singapore Hawker Stand (complete with "dope atmosphere," according to their website), is it reasonable to compare anything with the real article, or is all this just Pretendville?

[noamb]

Compare the food on any eating dimension (quality, quantity, variety) sure. Say whether the food is worth the price that’s being asked for here, sure. But compare absolute price to a different country with different economic conditions and requiring a trans-pacific flight?  That doesn’t mean anything to me.

[DonRocks]

14 hours ago, noamb said:

Compare the food on any eating dimension (quality, quantity, variety) sure. Say whether the food is worth the price that’s being asked for here, sure. But compare absolute price to a different country with different economic conditions and requiring no a trans-pacific flight?  That doesn’t mean anything to me.

Fair. I can’t imagine many would criticize you for this perfectly reasonable line of thinking.

But to be honest, I can see reedm's viewpoint also. 

Cheers, noamb,
Rocks

(I do appreciate reed’s just having been to Singapore, and would be interested in reading his thoughts in another thread, perhaps in The Intrepid Traveler.) 

[hopsing]

I visited the Ballston location soon after it opened. Although I was hoping for Peter Chang quality, I found the food to be more like PF Chang’s. The food was not particularly fresh or tasty. The only good thing was that I could donate my old tea cannisters to them since they use them to store chopsticks on each table.

[noamb]

By the way, I wanted to make it clear that I do really appreciate the information about the restaurant and the food itself. It’s definitely the sort of place I would have liked if it were good.  The whole pricing thing just hit my pet peeve.

[Ericandblueboy]

I’ve hit Urban Hawker in NYC 3 times already.  The place is legit.  I’ve had the laksa, chili crab and Hainan chicken so far.