Brilliant prawn noodles, supple chicken rice, and deep-fried milk at Hey Hawker

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It was a clear black night, a clear white moon. My friend Matt and I were on the streets, trying to consume … some protein and carbohydrates, stat.

Because when two 40-somethings go to a boxing gym and try to keep up with the youngsters, eating after training – and eating very soon after training – becomes very, very important.

In my mind there are two main reasons for this.

One: bodies need refuelling after exercising. And two: when your metabolism is firing and you’ve worked up a sweat, you get given this tiny window where you can eat – and perhaps even drink – with a little more freedom than if you hadn’t been exercising. As someone that eats out a little more often than most, this
window is one I like looking through.

But back to the clear black night: Matt and I decided to regroup at Hey Hawker, a cosy restaurant in the low-profile suburb of St James. Hey Hawker is one of a handful of shops and restaurants on the suburb’s main artery Chapman Road and, in a bad stroke of luck for owners Ava Law and Jacky Teo, opened right before Covid in 2020.

Law and Teo aren’t the first people to have run a restaurant in the space. Prior to their arrival, this address belonged to Wang’s Asian Cuisine. The word “Chinese Restaurant” is spray-painted on many of the parking spaces outside of the shop, although I can’t be sure if that was the doing of the Wang’s crew or someone before them.

While Hey Hawker does serve dishes that fit the description for “Chinese”, the menu concerns itself largely – although not exclusively – with the food of Melaka: a coastal Malaysian state that’s been shaped by European and Asian influences. Melaka is also the home state of Teo, a chef that’s leaned over searing woks at Asian, predominantly Chinese-influenced restaurants across Perth.

When Teo and his Hong Kong-born wife Law opened Hey Hawker in 2020, it marked the couple’s first tilt at restaurant ownership.

My first visit at Hey Hawker was Sunday lunch during Year One and the joint was absolutely heaving. On a brisk Tuesday night four years later, it continues to pull a crowd. We hadn’t counted on there being a small queue waiting outside to sit down.

I truly believe Perth is home to the best hawker food and southeast Asian cooking in Australia.

One reason for this mid-week crush is the simple truth that Hey Hawker is small. There’s space for about 40 eaters inside with most of the tables set for fours and twos. If you’re coming with a group larger than a barbershop quartet, booking ahead would be wise. The other reason for Hey Hawker’s popularity, I think, is another simple truth: Teo cooks some very delicious things.

I haven’t eaten everything here. Like many southern Asian restaurants, Hey Hawker’s repertoire is vast and the combination of multiple sauces plus numerous proteins equals many dish permutations and an exponentially increasing risk of being paralysed by choice.

Hey Hawker gently ups the FOMO factor by running two menus: one features rice and noodle dishes that are designed for one, while another main dish menu stars bigger items that you might order and share with a group, banquet style.

Helpfully, both menus use a green thumb (on the single diner dishes) and a red star (on the main menu) to denote house signatures: always a good way to navigate deep menus.

Having said that: on those occasions where the body wants marmite chicken ($18.90), sweet and sour whatever ($18.90) or any other Lazy Susan favourites – and I say this as an unashamed fan of all these deep-fried pleasures – sometimes you just want the reassuring crunch, salt and sweetness of the familiar.

Considering the restaurant’s name, we should begin with some of the classics you’d hope to find at any hawker centre or food court in southeast Asia. If you’re a fan of Hainan chicken rice ($11.90), Hey Hawker’s version here needs to be on your radar. The poached chicken is silky where it ought to be; the rice has bite and a nice garlic buzz; plus a healthy measure of white vinegar gives the chilli sauce brightness.

Why is the chicken rice billed as Melaka chicken rice on the menu you ask?

Because once upon a time, Hey Hawker served its chicken rice with Melaka’s famous onigiri-esque balls of chicken rice. Sadly, Teo and his crew don’t have the bandwidth to shape rice balls anymore, so the fluffy rice is bowled onto plates.

Hawker food, as you might know, is tied to the movement of southern Chinese migrants throughout Asia and their search for work. Much of this work revolved around manual labour around the seaports: work that called for calorific dishes that were fast and economical to prepare. Dishes such as char kway teow ($14.90), a jumble of fat rice noodles stir-fried with meat, seafood, bean sprout and perhaps a little (or a lot) of fat. The key to elite char kway teow is a screaming hot wok and quickly working the ingredients in the pan so that they sear and caramelise rather than stew.

In Chinese cooking, this all-important smokiness is known as “wok hey” and Hey Hawker’s char kway teow has no shortage of scorch.

Other noodle highlights include a deeply savoury prawn noodle soup ($16) with a wildly oceanic broth that’s also pumped up with chicken stock and anchovies. There’s also the sang mee ($16): a brick of wiry, deep-fried noodles doused with a glossy, loose egg sauce of seafood, silky chicken and greens. The dish starts like a plate of noodles then slowly morphs into something a little more soup-like.

Luscious house-made egg tofu ($21.50) – whether you get it dressed with a porky sauce or dry and accessorised with dried shrimp – is an excellent idea, although you’ll want to split it between two.

I’ve also discovered some gems among the – at least for me, a Singaporean-born, Medan-raised eater – not-so-commonly seen dishes. Offal fanciers should go directly to the pig organ soup ($16.90): a wonderland of porcine textures that plays nicely with the yam rice, a Malay specialty featuring rice studded with chunks of fried taro. Equally intriguing is the deep-fried milk curd ($8.90 for six pieces) on the appetizers section: cubes of reduced milk curd that are battered, fried then dressed with sweet condensed milk.

Don’t tell anyone else, but the dish is actually a dessert and Hong Kongese in origin. It was something that Law loved so much, her husband couldn’t help but learn how to make it and put it on the menu.

But because there’s no dessert section per se, the couple found a home for it at the top of the menu. Brilliant. And, I think, an example of the kind of quirk that makes exploring Perth’s hawker food options such a joy.

I know it might sound outlandish, but I truly believe Perth is home to the best hawker food and southeast Asian cooking in Australia. For decades, families in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia sent their kids to high schools and universities in Perth, largely because we were the closest Australian capital. This influx of students didn’t just create a demand for familiar flavours from home, but a student workforce for these restaurants.

As is the case with so many hospitality professionals, some of those university jobs became a little more permanent and a new generation of restaurateurs have emerged.

While Asian students and ex-pat families will always be the major customer base of places like Hey Hawker, it’s always encouraging to see different crowds eating at these sorts of establishments. Food, as they say, is culture. And when you share culture and share it around, it doesn’t become weaker, but it becomes stronger.

Here’s to food – and neighbourhood restaurants like Hey Hawker – making our communities a little more multicultural and that little bit stronger.