Hawker Fare

I’m a huge fan of this place because it tastes the closest to the food that my mom made at home, and my wife definitely agrees! As far as Thai food goes in and around the city, Hawker Fare is probably one of my favorite restaurants.
The Moo Yang (grilled pork with a spicy dipping sauce), Gai Tod (fried chicken with a kick), Khao Mun Gai (chicken over rice cooked in chicken fat) and sticky rice are our all-​time favorite items. Note that these items are meant to be shared and preferably over rice! The BBQ pork needed to be cut up to share properly, but Jesus the flavor was good. The spicy dipping sauce is tart, spicy, a tad sweet, and is full of flavor. I originally thought the Seen Ping (grilled beef with spicy dipping sauce) had the best dipping sauce, but the Moo Yang’s sauce is way, way better. The beef’s sauce is more pasty while the pork’s is more liquidy.
HF’s fried chicken appetizer is a feat way to get started and I’m bummed that I haven’t had it enough. I’m also particularly fond of the Khao Mun Gai because of how rich it feels in your mouth when you get a bite of the fat rice, chicken, and dipping sauce all in one go. A great thing is that you can order a side of this fat rice in addition to your meal.
There’s lots of space inside and the place has an interesting (and tasty) variety of cocktails. Highly recommended!

Very odd that this place has so few reviews but was soo packed. Great drinks great food try the
Chicken fat rice it taste like Cuban food

Came here for a birthday dinner, we got stuck at the window trying to surprise the birthday boy but other than that the food was great and the ambiance is sweet. Ive eaten at other thai spots like osha, king of thai, lers ros etc, but this ones the best so far. The workers were cool, but parkings a bitch. Id def go back.

Best laab I’ve ever had — also get the fish curry (no coconut milk) but all so tasty! Cherimoya cocktail with rum was refreshing!

Everything was SOOOOOO spicy, a little pricey (too be expected in SF), and pretty salty. I was not too impressed unfortunately.
Green beans and the chicken apps were good.
The chicken entrée was good

I was pretty excited to try this place as I’ve read alot about the Oakland location and saw that it finally opened here! Got around to finally trying this place as I was in the Mission a couple of months ago, and sad to say I was left underwhelmed with the food.
Food was meh — we tried 3 things between us (I forgot what dishes) — but they were all nondistinct as I can’t even recall anymore, I just remember that it was quite pricey for the amount of food we were getting. Hey man, I guess we’re spoiled with great cheap Thai food in the city.
Décor & ambiance was cute though, I think it’s a greatdate spot as it’s dimly lit (but not DARK) and it’s quite colorful; it lives up to the name of ‘hawker fare’ as it’s reminiscent of a Thai market with the metal stools and small tables with plastic flowery table setting. It got me. It’s just that since it’s a stool, I had no where to put my purse or jacket. awkward??! They should make a coat rack or somewhere so you can put your stuff down.
Service, décor, ambiance is all great. Just the food was underwhelming and overpriced.

We finally made it to Hawker Fare this week. We walked down from 15^th and Valencia, and our first impression was that the restaurant was ¾ empty when we arrived. This seemed very strange, as most of the places we walked by on Valencia were packed that night. Hawker Fare did get more full as the evening went on, but seems it as not as popular as many places on the street and perhaps our experience there indicates why.
We’re not familiar with the Isaan cuisine they’re serving, so we asked our server for recommendations. I surmise from many reviews here that the dishes we ordered were three of the standards — the green beans with pork belly, the fried chicken appetizer, and the fried egg salad.
The good: the spicy fried chicken nuggets were fresh and tasty. I’d order them again.
The ordinary: the green beans and the fried egg salad were not noteworthy. The salad was unusual (to me), but filled with out of season tomatoes and on the bland side. The green beans were a disappointment, well prepared but not very flavorful.
The bad: the prices are too high at Hawker Fare. Mains run in the $ 25 range, salads $ 15 and up. I don’t mind paying high prices for Thai food, but it’s gotta be something special. This was not.
The atmosphere is pleasant and informal, reminded me of something out of Thailand, but a little out of whack with the menu pricing.
Service was fine.
We have a little Thai place out by us and it’s pretty good at half the price. It’s not Isaan cuisine, so I guess if you know and love that style of cooking and have a craving for it, Hawker Fare might do the trick. It’s not awful, just OK and overpriced.

I don’t understand why this place only has 3 stars. A group of us went for dinner and it was great! We ordered A LOT of food. My favorites were the papaya salad, grilled mushrooms with herbs, beef short ribs, and grilled sticky rice. It’s hard to find Isaan food outside of Thailand so it’s lucky to have this option nearby! It tends to be salty and spicy and a bit heavy so you have to be in the mood for that. Sticky rice and booze are essential.
It’s a perfect place to meet your friends and get lots of dishes to share. The prices were reasonable and the service was above average. A solid 4 stars.

Yummy food… though most dishes are quite salty. I recommend getting rice with just about anything you order to soak up all the flavors and level out the salt factor.
My favorites are the pork belly and mussels in coconut milk (so tender and delicious!)
It is a little pricey, but I think the flavors are phenomenal and unique compared to your typical Thai spot. Great for groups so you can try lots of dishes.

After eating a chocolate kouign amann wasn’t hungry, but I still wanted to have lunch. I was thinking Mau, but last minute decided to try Hawker Fare on Valencia.
I was deciding on Goong Pao or Khao Mung Gai and the waiter said the chicken was good so I picked that. Khao Mun Gai — poached chicken, ginger & fermented bean sauce, fresh cucumber, clinatro & chicken fat rice $ 14. It’s just 8 small chunks of white chicken meat with some skin, 4 small slices of cucumbers, some salty dipping sauce and some cilantro with a small scoop of the chicken fat rice. Glad I wasn’t hungry or I’d be more pissed at the tiny serving. Food tasted ok, not really special.
Many unisex bathrooms and the sinks are outside.
Not sure if I’ll go back, overpriced for what it is. Charged it.

I’ve been to Hawker Fare in Oakland a few times and had always loved it. However, the experience at the SF location was Meh.
There were 9 of us and we were able to try most things on the menu, green beans, fried chicken, poached chicken, grilled chicken, the pork belly special, a few salads — mushroom, fried egg…, short ribs, cat fish curry, sausage, and pork shoulder chops.
The only thing i would order again are the green beans. the poached chicken itself was still good, but the fermented bean sauce was not. Every dish was missing something, either the sauce was good, and the rest was not, or vice versa.
The other issue was the price… we probably had about 10 – 15 beers, and the total was close to $ 500…for thai food?
PS there is a semi hidden cool bar upstairs!

This place must be doing something right. But what are they doing right? It’s certainly not that they are serving authentic food like you’d get from a street market in Thailand. The stuff they serve is California Asian fusion. Nothing authentic about it.
Ahh… I know. It’s the sugar. Everything in the place is overloaded with it. It’s all super sweet. And gringos like sweet, right? You like sweet fake Thai food, don’t you?
I don’t. Two stars is actually fairly generous!
P. S. If you want actual real authentic Thai food, it’s only a couple of blocks away at Lers Ros on 16^th and Guerrero.

What an awesome décor this restaurant have, but the food is a bit hit and miss.
The blistered green beans is pretty good and the larb salad has a good balance. However the other dishes tend to be either too spicy and salty or tasteless. The poached chicken (or chicken rice) is pretty tasteless, but the sauce is really spicy and salty. The pork shoulder has a very intense sauce too, which is weird since the pork shoulder already have a strong flavor.
I wish their dishes have more flavors other than spicy and salty.

Dinner review.
Blistered green beans with bacon — ³⁄₅
Gai Thot, Rice flour fried chicken — ³⁄₅
Seen ping, beef brisket — ²⁄₅
Sai oua, spiced sausage with braised pig skin — ¹⁄₅
Satay neur, beef short ribs — ³⁄₅
Overall, «A-​OK.»

The focus of Hawker Fare is Isaan (Northern Thai) food and it’s supposed to be authentic but… It’s the Mission. HF is on Valencia so of course it comes off more fusiony to me than anything. Although allegedly authentic, it was slightly watered down Isaan to me. Where were the salty umami in your face bomb flavors?
I was really disappointed with the nam prik, so sad. It was watery and sort of salty, but not really? Kind of bland when it came to nam prik.
I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the khao mun gai. The chicken was poached very well so it was tender and juicy.
HF might be a good gateway to Isaan but it just didn’t do it for me.

I tried the om pak (cabbage, eggplant, pumpking) and the gaeng pa (jungle curry with tofu). Both dishes tasted terrible. The seasoning was ridiculous. Om pak was mostly dill and nothing else. The gaeng pa consisted of nearly inedible, maroon-​colored lakes of grease with a few sad tofu cubes floating around. I ended up filling up on rice. We were all so hungry that we went elsewhere to eat afterwards.
Service was also poor.

So this is what too legit to quit tastes like! I don’t quite understand why Hawker Fare is only three stars because it’s phenomenal! I put one of my counterparts in charge of ordering since he’s recently traveled to SE Asia and I like surprises. He ordered so many dishes that when they started coming out of the kitchen I gave up trying to identify each one and threw myself into simply enjoying the experience.
I’ve always loved Thai food but Hawker Fare is different on another level. I feel like I’ve been eating American-​style Thai cuisine my entire life and now I’ve gotten the real deal. And guess what? I LOVE the real deal and am forever ruined! I earnestly wanted to go back in the kitchen to see if someone’s Grandma was running the show. The restaurant itself isn’t the most beautiful but I’d rather a business focus on the end product rather than the window dressing. I don’t life in SF but will definitely be returning on my next visit back to the bay area!

Why no love for Hawker Fare at three stars? After reading Michael Bauer’s review of both the SF establishment and their OG spot in Oakland, I put Hawker Fare on my must-​try list. A Thai restaurant that doesn’t have the overplayed Pad Thai or Pad See Ew on its menu? Count me in. I love originality and the idea of trying new things, and Hawker Fare definitely came through. In coming here with a friend who was equally excited about the place, we went with sharing four dishes based on what we had read up on the interwebz:
— Blistered green beans: Easily the best thing we had out of all the dishes. The beans were braised and then tossed with some bacon to give it that little extra flavor kick. I loved the beans by itself, but having it with the bacon definitely gave it another dimension!
— Som Tum Thai: I had read about this and since it was super nice and warm in the Mission, having something fresh and light was definitely welcome! While I have a low threshold for spicy food, the spiciness factor in this was reasonably tolerable and not overwhelming!
— Gai Yang: This was the grilled chicken, and while the chicken itself was delicious and cooked wonderfully, at the end of the day, without the sweet/​sour sauce that comes with it, it’s just grilled chicken. Perfect if you’re needing a healthier option (we also asked for no rice to lower the carb count for the evening)! If you’re looking for something a little more interesting, this probably isn’t the dish to go with.
— Satay Neur: Unlike the Gai Yang, the Satay Neur, or beef shortribs drowned in coconut milk and lemongrass, came highly recommended by the internet and it absolutely did not disappoint. I loved the fresh cucumber and red onion salad that came with it, and the sauce that went with the beef was delicious!
Four dishes (without the rice) left me comfortable without the feeling like I had overeaten. I’m sure if there was more put in front of me that I would have happily eaten it, but this was definitely enough to say that I had reasonably portioned dinner. The pricing for everything was also reasonable and service was good, so I’d say that it was a pretty good experience. I’d love to come back again with more people and have the ability to try more options. Hawker Fare definitely has potential for a large group and it seems to invite big parties since there were a ton of them in the dining area when I left.

Why only 3-​stars, San Francisco? Across the Bay, everyone raves about Hawker Fare. I liked it!
Their Bloody Mary is intense, but delicious. If you are lucky enough to order one during brunch, make sure you’ve got a glass of water handy to quench the flames. It’s spicy, tangy and a little bit fishy (in a good way). It’s also fun to «double up» with a beer.
As far as food is concerned, I had a pork/​basil dish that was well balanced and came with a side of perfectly cooked jasmine rice. No complaints here.
Since we arrived right in between brunch and dinner, it was quiet and the menu pretty limited. But that being said, our group of four had a perfectly nice late afternoon meal. And we’re excited to come back for cocktails.

I want to love Hawker Fare, I really do, and maybe one I will truly love it. The service was wonderful, it wasn’t too busy despite it being a beautiful Thursday afternoon after my friend and I arrived for lunch at noon without any reservations.
We decided to sit outside, despite the chaos of the neighborhood that passed us by. I do love that Hawker Fare (based on a successful concept in the Uptown area of Oakland) built it’s second location here in the Über trendy Mission District. Deep down inside I wish they had kept the original concept of Thai Street noodles and soups that I heard so much about at the original locale.
Overall I was impressed with our two dishes. We got the pork shoulder which came with a dipping sauce and white rice as well as the delicious fried egg salad which consisted of two sunny side up fried eggs topped with fresh tomatoes and parsley. I loved the egg dish, I was something completely unexpected and I couldn’t believe this unique and tasty dish is even considered Thai food. The pork shoulder was fine, if somewhat unremarkable. I felt there was a little too much fat on the two pieces, and for the price of that dish I was expecting a little something more.
I do love the energy and vibe of the place, and I think it fits right in with the area it’s located in. The interior ambiance fits in with the Thai Street Food scene and the service was clearly top notch. The reason for three stars instead of four only reflects on the choices for lunch. I guess I have to go back for dinner to see what the crowd is like when Valencia Street is buzzing and give Hawker Fare a second review. The things I have to do!