Ho Jiak Haymarket is one of four locations under the Ho Jiak name, with this one known as Amah’s Kitchen and Sydney’s first Malaysian Nyonga grill house that is inspired by homestyle and street food dishes. We’ve always seen a decent queue lining up each time we’ve walked past, so with the NSW Government’s $25 Dine & Discover voucher in hand, and Ho Jiak’s Monday-Wednesday double value deal – where they double the value of your voucher – we set our sights for a Monday night post-work Malaysian feed.

Location: 92 Hay St, Haymarket NSW 2000
Price: $98 in total. We got $50 off from Dine & Discover Voucher + Ho Jiak’s weekday deal (doubles the voucher value)
Website: https://www.hojiak.com.au/haymarket/
Social: https://www.instagram.com/hojiak.haymarket/?hl=en

James: 4 out of 5 – Great tasting street-inspired Malaysian food but without the street food price tag.

While the comment on my rating sounded almost like a backhanded compliment, let’s not take away from the food taste and quality at Ho Jiak. Overall I really enjoyed the food, which combined Chinese Malaysian flavours into modern dishes that left a kick from the spice in each dish. But with recipes passed down generations and perfected over time, comes hefty price tags you don’t often see in your typical (or at least for me) Asian restaurant.

Starting from the top we got the Milo Godzilla to drink, which was an iced milo drink with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I really enjoyed this! As simple as it sounds it was refreshing and the ideal way to quench the thirst and spice from the food. A decent size but will set you back $9 and something that can be easily replicated at home. Next up we got the Kolo Mee, which was dry egg noodles tossed in shallot oil and served with minced pork & cured mushrooms. A decent dish which is not meant to wow but while the noodles were enjoyable, most of the minced pork was cold which I found a bit odd and unpleasant at times.

Onto the main attraction and my favourite dish by a mile, the KFC Crispy Rendang (pictured above) – Malaysian curry chicken made with Colonel’s original recipe (or their version of it). It’s just as it sounds, fried chicken in a curry, what’s not to love – and it certainly met all of my expectations. The chicken tasted legit, very similar to KFC and was tender but crispy despite sitting in the lovely curry. The curry itself had all the flavours of a typical Asian curry, salty, sweet, spicy and went perfectly with the chicken and fried batter goodness. Eat it together with a neutral dish like rice or noodles and you’re in for a good time. Highly recommend trying it, worth the $39 (voucher covers half of it 😉).

To top it all off we had to get a vege dish to fill up on our greens. As a fan of long beans, the Chye Tau Char Bak Chui was the right pick. Wok fried long beans with minced pork, dried chilli & dried shrimp, great tasting flavours combined with a hint of spice to really solidify the dish. The crispy pork skin pieces were a great touch and although it looks a bit small, portion size is a bit deceiving and best be shared with 3 or more people.

In conclusion, Ho Jiak was a very enjoyable experience, good food – and who doesn’t like milo right? And while they were slow or forgot our KFC Rendang dish, the food taste and quality made up for it with service being an afterthought once we were done eating. So why the emphasis on price? Well at a full price menu with no voucher or discount, I’m not sure I’d be visitng any time soon unless it was to share more dishes & with more people to reduce the total cost. But hey, I’m just stingy so if you do enjoy your Malaysian food definitely give Ho Jiak a try and take advantage of the deal – Monday to Fridays only and you have to book a table!