‘The excitement I used to feel when queuing for a club’: Our critic can’t resist this food hall

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Here we go again. I’m in the city, faintly hungry, and my feet start walking to EatAlley. I can’t stop and, let’s be frank, I don’t want to. Whether I’m by myself, towing a tribe or looking for a place to meet people, I know this new multi-outlet eatery in QV will hit right.

All the Malaysian delights are here: crunchy buttered toast and frothy tea, rice gleaming with chicken fat, noodles slick with dark soy and so, so much more. At busy times, I’ll be lining up outside, perusing the menu, alert with the kind of excitement I used to feel when queuing for a nightclub. The wait here is never too long, though, and the pay-off is much better: I’d rather dance through this menu than a sweaty mosh pit.

EatAlley is the hawker market as concept store, a curated collection of 10 exemplars, brought from Malaysia as an edible showcase of the country’s best street food. Some are transplants of existing stores, others use recipes preserved after stalls have shut down.

QR-code ordering is via an aggregated online menu: if she wants braised duck (from Kam Heong Braised Duck, first established in 1976 and still cooking in Petaling Jaya), he wants bak kut teh (a herbal soup made to a 30-year-old recipe from Klang Siong Huat in Port Klang) and you want nasi lemak (coconut rice with garnishes from Nasi Lemak Fatty in Kuala Lumpur), it’s no problem.

Let’s talk more about this nasi lemak, a key Malaysian dish of coconut rice, peanuts, dried anchovies, cucumber, egg and sambal often served with fried chicken. The version here nails all the right notes: spicy, comforting, refreshing and especially satisfying for its rempah, a coconutty, lemongrassy, gingery spice paste that’s slowly cooked to a dark, crisp rubble. Like every Malaysian dish, nasi lemak comes in as many versions as there are aunties and uncles who make it: this one won’t soothe everyone’s fierce, nostalgic pangs but it’s a very fine rendition.

I’m a repeat visitor for the Hainanese chicken rice, plump and silky with subtle ginger notes and bang-on seasoning. Fat rendered from the chicken is used to cook the rice that accompanies it: glossy and rich, it’s scented with pandan leaves that add gentle tropical headiness.

Hokkien mee is a late-night staple of thick yellow egg noodles wok-tossed with dark soy, pork slices, prawns and nibblets of lard. Get the “midnight” version with a raw egg yolk for mixing in yourself. It’s worth mentioning that the pork stock splashed into these noodles is different from that used for the pork noodle soup from another trader, Uncle Beh. This attention to detail speaks to a pleasing level of care.

Not everything is strictly authentic. The kaya butter toast is made with fluffy Japanese-style shokupan instead of standard sliced-white (I’m all for it) and the robust kopi with sweetened condensed milk is brewed in a claypot, reducing bitterness and adding earthy notes.

I can’t stop sneaking into EatAlley, but there’s no getting around the corporate nature of this restaurant. Local hospitality outfit ST Group owns this concept and other brands including grocer Maita, tea outlet Gong Cha, Thai dessert shop Homm and another EatAlley in Singapore.

As street-foodie as the dishes here might be, the experience is safe and sanitised, without the sense of discovery of a KL or Penang market crawl. Of course, you also avoid the drawbacks that can go with that – real hawkers often sell out, keep odd hours and serve noodles on the street with a side order of scooter fumes. And here we are, in Melbourne, hungry for rice, toast and noodles. Short of buying a ticket to Malaysia, this eatery could be right up your alley.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.