Ha, I have just realized that quite a few of my food posts are related to Asian or Latin American food (Nomo, Ramen Ya-Hiro etc.). And guess what? This post is about a place that offers both cuisines. Last Monday, we discovered Hawker 45 and its street food in Barcelona.
Ze place!
My food partner in crime and myself discovered Hawker 45 while walking in Carrer Casp. We are both experienced travellers and the restaurant’s name, Hawker 45, immediately called our attention. It reminded us of the hawker centres or the food courts in Singapore. I used to find there different food stalls offering dishes that were relatively cheap and delicious.
The restaurant has an outside tiny terrace with plants that gave it a tropical air. The drawings on the wall reminded me of street art in Malaysia. Intrigued and interested, I put this place on my restaurants to go to list in Barcelona.
Hawker 45, street food in Barcelona
And then last Monday, we came for dinner. Hawker 45 is all about… street food. Their menu displays dishes from Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Peru or Mexico. I have visited most of these countries, so I like this place already. The inside of the restaurant is simple, with an open kitchen so you can see the chef cook. The terrace is cuter if you’d ask me. But although the decor is part of any experience for me, I never took it as an indicator of how good the food is. So I won’t judge the place on this.
Hawker 45 proposes revisited street food dishes. The first dish on the menu is called “pho bombs” (potato croquette, beef cheeks, pho reduction, aioli, sriracha emulsion). An allusion to Barcelona’s bombas? Everything on the menu sounds appealing. We made our choice: Korean chicken wings, sambal from Singapore, Thai salad, and Kalbi short ribs. If we still have room, we will go for a dessert later.
Our experience
The dishes are medium-sized. Good, we can try more dishes if still hungry. The presentation is clean, elegant and appetizing. The wine menu is extensive, and the selection looks great. That night, we only drank filtered water, no alcohol, so we won’t find out about the eco wine or any other wine. Another time…
I really loved the wakame salad, an equal star with the chicken wings in the chicken wings with wakame salad dish. I also loved the Kalbi short ribs, which were beef short ribs Korean style. They were falling off the bones. We ordered the mango salad. I grew up eating all sorts of mango salad so I have high expectations. Ours arrived with its bed of lettuce. The verdict is positive. It was tasty, with a nice acidic dressing. The accompanying prawn dumplings were really flavoursome too. But our favourite dish was the sambal with its nicely cooked fish.
All the dishes were so different from one another but equally tasty. To finish the dinner off, we shared a dirty ice-cream, from the Philippines: street ice cream sandwich, brioche, salted caramel, coconut ice cream and chicharrón (crackling). Quite an unusual mix. Like “what? fried pork cracklings with coconut ice cream??” but it works. The brioche is more like a fried doughnut, with a neutral taste, then some saltiness with the salted caramel, then some sweetness with the ice cream and somewhere in the middle, bits of chicharrón. It was fun to eat and delicious.
We paid 49 euros for 5 dishes. To conclude, it was a lovely and fun food evening with top-notch revisited street food. In addition, the staff was very friendly. I recommend it!
UPDATE APRIL 2022: Hawker 45 is now closed.
,We