Hawker Hall

Does it come as a surprise to anyone that a hawker market is the theme of Chris Lucas' new restaurant? It shouldn't. Once he struck gold with Chin Chin, he took the formula, changed a few plot details and rolled out a series of blockbuster hits across the city, in keeping with the latest trend. Baby pizzeria arrived in the Italian boom, Kong arrived during our Japanese/Korean/barbecue obsession, and now there's Hawker Hall, just when everything is a "hawker" something.

The pitch this time is Singaporean/Malaysian hawker market. You're learning Mandarin from the language tapes in the toilet, Instagramming a sign that says Forever Independent and staring down the barrel of 70 dishes that take in yum cha classics, stir-fried noodles and north Indian curries at party end of Chapel Street.

It's a typical hot mess of activity from the second they fling open doors. Parking in this part of Windsor is officially a thing of the past. At 6.05pm we walk straight in and score a table. On another night, we come at 9pm and wait for an hour and a half. Arrive at lunch, and you may be fighting for seats against school kids. The coconut slushies are big with them.

But forget the queues. How's dinner?

This is exec chef Benjamin Cooper's most ambitious menu to date. The list is big.

You can see the appeal. Who doesn't like the idea of a kind of high-end buffet where you can order a salty fried chicken and quick-pickle salad, fried roti and char siu pork – especially when you've pre-gamed dinner with up to two hours of wait-time drinking.

In practice? Unlike actual street hawkers, who might have been cooking one dish every day for 30 years, this is a crew of 10 kitchen hands plating 70 creations from multiple cultures at speeds that make you sweat.

Malaysian pros will likely comment on the lack of cockles and thinness of rice noodles in the char kwai teow. Yum cha fanatics will be unimpressed by the thick-skinned prawn dumplings and the bland pan-fried version filled with shredded oxtail.

But this isn't an indie restaurant going for critical acclaim – it's a summer blockbuster, built to provide two hours of flashy fun.

And it does when you order a properly sour kaffir lime margarita to start, with a growler of their in-house fruity lager for the table.

Perhaps chased with calamari sheets impaled over skewers like little sails, charred and slathered in belachan with a decent shrimpy, chilli funk. And the economy noodles – dinner highlight – a dish of all the leftover egg and rice noodles from the previous shift chucked together then wok-tossed with beansprouts and egg. It's a $9 dinner, built for frosty beer, exactly what this whole place is meant to be about.

Spice balance isn't a forte. See the hefty amount of five spice in the mayo accompanying a potato cake with an extra layer of mash. And the should-be-refreshing cucumber and mint salad can be made heavy by cumin in the yoghurt dressing.

But then there's the oyster omelette, served still sizzling, golden and fluffy and drenched in Sriracha with just a tiny fishy edge and beansprouts for crunch. And a fried rice dish made interesting with nutty brown rice and pippies.

Roti has more chew than the tissue paper-fine packages at Mamak, but it's a flexi, crisp, buttery bread all the same. Get yours with the satay style sauce (roti canai) over the eggplant sambal that needs more punch.

Staff do a really impressive job in the face of the daily locust plague of punters, and, despite the hungry hordes waiting outside, there's surprisingly little push to get you out once you've sat down and they keep the beers coming.

Over three sessions and half the menu we've missed as much as we've hit. Sriracha chicken buns taste of little but the sauce. Chinese barbecue pork can be lukewarm and chewy. But then the Milo Dinosaur sundae with scoops of salty coconut sorbet and malty ice-cream topped with a glossy sauce of our national treasure and crumble is a satiny plate of nostalgia.

My main advice is don't come with a critic's hat on. Can you find these dishes executed with a little more precision at a cheaper price at your local specialist? Probably. But they won't be Hawker Hall.

THE LOWDOWN
Pro tip Jungle Boy cocktail bar is next door for negronis while you wait.
Go-to dish The $9 Economy Noodle kind of sums it up the best.
Like this? Get your fix of Malaysian and buzz at Mamak. 366 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

How we score
Of 20 points, 10 are awarded for food, five for service, three for ambience, two for wow factor.  
12 Reasonable 13 Solid and satisfactory 14 Good 15 Very good 16 Seriously good 17 Great 18 Excellent 19 Outstanding 20 The best of the best