Potluck Hawker Eatery: Casual Malaysian restaurant in Vancouver
Potluck Hawker Eatery is a Malaysian restaurant offering classic Southeast Asian dishes in the Mount Pleasant area. We have tried takeout and in-person dining so far.
Interior
The interior of the restaurant is super colourful and fun. It gives off a casual and almost beachy vibe and I love all the Malaysian products they display on the shelves.
Most tables seat 2-4 with a few larger tables that can seat 5-6. For smaller tables, you will find more comfortable booth seating, but for larger tables, you might get seated at bar-heigh tables with stools that have no back support.
Drinks
They serve non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages.
Thai iced tea ($5)
I love me a good Thai iced tea so we had to get one. Funny enough, they also offer a 1L serving of this for $12 lol. The iced tea was sweet and refreshing!
Food
We order appetizers to share and we each order a main. This is everything we ordered for 3 people:
Roti canai ($10)
Roti is probably one of our favourite appetizers to order at Thai restaurants. Potluck Hawker Eatery’s roti canai includes 2 pieces of Malysian style flaky hand-stretched pastry served with curry sauce. These 2 pieces are very large and enough to share with 3 people. The roti is indeed stretchy and has a great texture – did not feel too oily and it was also crispy! Curry sauce was sweet and tasted good with the roti dipped in.
Chicken wings ($14)
When you order their chicken wings, you get 1 lb of them and can select between 3 flavours: fish sauce caramel, OG spice or salted egg yolk. We opted for the salted egg yolk.
The wings were crispy and fried really well! The salted egg yolk gave it a savoury and sweet taste – highly recommend for unique wings!
Soft shell crab sando ($21)
My boyfriend ordered the soft shell crab sando with fries because he is a sucker for soft shell crabs. It is also coated and fried with salted egg yolk so it has a similar flavour to the chicken wings from earlier. They also add Burmese chili chutney, pickled mustard green tartare, lettuce and a milk bun to hold it all together.
I found this burger to lack a little in structural integrity since it fell apart very easily while eating and it looked kind of smushed on the plate. We had ordered this burger before too for takeout and found it kinda mushed as well but thought it was due to the takeout and delivery process. We expected the burger to stand a little better when dining-in.
Note that we visited Potluck Hawker Eatery back in May, and as I write this review in June, the soft shell crab sando is no longer on their menu. They do, however, still have their signature salted egg yolk chicken sando ($15), which I think would be yummier and more worth it than this soft shell crab one.
The fries were super yummy, they have this seasoning of galangal and toasted rice powder, fried shallots, and curry leaf.
Holy basil beef on rice ($18)
Our friend ordered this so I didn’t really taste much of it because I was so full on my own main. But essentially this dish features hand-chopped two river’s beef, wok fried in garlic, with chili, basil and beans, and served with steamed coconut rice + topped with a sunny side fried egg.
Char kway teow ($19)
For my main, I order the char kway teow, which is a pan-fried noodle stirfry. They use rice sheet noodles and cook them in a wok with prawns, fish cake, Chinese sausage, egg and bean sprouts. The sauce/seasoning is sambal with a house soy blend.
I really liked this dish because it is very similar to a Hong Kong dish that I like called gon chow ngau ho (beef chow fun). I really liked the Chinese sausage, fish cake and how chewy the rice noodles are.
Kaya toast ($10)
We are all really full but we still order dessert because we are indulgers and not disciplined folks. We were really interested in trying the kaya toast. Kaya is a type of coconut jam, very popular in Southeast Asia. I was surprised at the vibrant green colour of the jam but it was certainly pretty and eye catching!
The bread is fried really well so it is crunchy and tastes great with the sweet jam.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: โญโญโญโญ
We were really full after our dinner at Potluck Hawker Eatery. A friendly reminder again that we always end up over-ordering because our mentality is “we should review all the items!” You definitely should not be ordering as much food as we did for 3 people here lol.
Out of everything we ate, I would say must-orders are the chicken wings, char kway teow, and the salted egg yolk chicken sando. I think for sure you need to order something in salted egg yolk because it is one of their signature flavours. I really did like everything we ordered though, so I also recommend the roti (even though it is a little pricey) and the kaya toast!
The food has a lot of flavour, colour and uniqueness and I think there is something for everyone from rice dishes to burgers to noodles. We will be sure to return again to try more of their menu!
Sincerely, Loewe