Tuesday 4 January 2022

Flight 2 Dessert Club x Potluck Hawker's Eatery

My friends have been raving about Potluck Hawker's Eatery and it was about time I tried it for myself. Pastry Chef extraordinaire, Sam Shem of The Dessert Club, is collaborating with various chefs and restaurants across Metro Vancouver for his Will Travel for Food series. Flight 2 takes us to Thailand and the Philippines! The Flight 2 collaboration between The Dessert Club and Chefs Justin Cheung and Raymond Reyes of Potluck Hawker's Eatery was a 2-day event. 

Since it was a limited event, tickets had to be purchased in advance. It was $55 per person which included a snack, beverage (alcoholic or non-alcoholic), main and dessert. 

  • House-made bar snacks
  • Choice of beverage (alcoholic and non alcoholic options available)
  • Choice of main: Khao Soi Gai (Chiang Mai style curry chicken noodles) or Sisig Sizzle Rice (Filipino minced pig head cast iron rice plate)
  • Choice of dessert: Thai Tea Ice cream cake, Halo Halo or Turon with Chocolate Pot de Crème
Dinner started with house-made bar snacks. A basket full of salty, sweet and tangy mix of various textures and flavours. I cannot list off all of the components, but there was a packet of Monster Noodle Snacks, cheese puffs, fried chickpeas and fried crackers of some sort. My fingers kept reaching for more because the bar snacks were addictive. 

To quench our thirst, we shared a Milo Dinosaur. A giant cup of malted chocolate milk arrived at the table with a heaping mound of Milo powder on top. Essentially chocolate milk, but 100x better!

For the main, there were two options: Khao Soi Gai and Sisig Sizzle Rice. The Khao Soi Gai is a Chiang Mai style chicken curry with noodles. The curry was delightful with rich savoury notes and a sensational aroma. The chicken leg was juicy and tender with the meat practically falling off the bone. Under all the broth were long chewy noodles just waiting to be slurped up. The Khao Soi Gai was served with a type of vegetable pickle, beans sprouts and a mound of crispy fried noodle that added a great texture to the dish. 

The Sisig Sizzle Rice is a Filipino rice dish made with pork cheek meat and vegetables served in a sizzling hot cast iron pan. It was served with a raw egg cracked on top that diners can mix in with the rice, coating the grains of rice in creamy eggy goodness that cooks from the hot pan that it is served in. 

For my main, I went with the Khao Soi Gai - Chiang Mai style curry chicken noodles. The curry broth was phenomenal. The chicken was so tender that it practically fell off the bone and into the curry. The thick long stranded noodles soaked up the savoury curry. The dish was served with a heaping pile of fried noodles, bean sprouts, pickles and red onions. I do hope Potluck Hawker's adds this dish into their rotation because I keep thinking about it. 

Sam from Dessert Club created three desserts for the event. The Halo Halo and Turon with Pot de Crème both hail from the Philippines. For his third dessert, Sam looked to Thailand for his Thai Tea Ice Cream Cake. 

Halo Halo is a cold dessert of various textures, flavours and colours. Beautiful purple hued ube ice cream alongside a scoop of vanilla ice cream sat on a mountain of shaved ice and jellys. There was also a slice of caramel flan, red bean, more brightly coloured jellies, banana and a cookie straw and plenty of condensed milk. My guest for the night polished off the entire Halo Halo practically on her own. 

Turon is another favourite from the Philippines. Banana and jackfruit were deep fried in a spring roll wrapper and served with Sam's signature Chocolate Pot de Crème. I prefer deep-fried bananas to be soft, but in this case the fruit was still firm. I hardly ever eat jackfruit so it could be the Jackfruit remains tough after cooking. The Chocolate Pot de Crème had a thick layer or salted caramel and sea salt flecks, making it not only sweet, but also quite rich. Overall, the Turon Chocolate Pot de Crème duo was a miss for me and paled in comparison to the other two desserts of the evening. 

The piece de resistance was the Thai Tea Ice Cream Cake. You could tell that the time was taken to steep the Thai Tea in the ice cream base. The flavour was perfection and colour was perfection. The slice had a pressed chocolate cookie base which gave it texture. 

For the ticket price, the portions were generous and everyone left satisfied. For multi-coursed meals, timing is always important for me. The team that night did a great job of keeping the rhythm. Also, I loved the Thai Tea Ice Cream so much that I had to order a slice the next night for takeout! 

BYES






1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much for coming to the event Gurleen! I'm so glad you and Maggi had a good time!

    ReplyDelete