It’s like walking into a holiday at HM Quan, a mini-break so mini it covers the time it takes to have lunch, but it’s the decor that will get your attention and ease you into what’s a fun, very reasonably priced experience.
The fake-grass floor will be immediately felt beneath your shoes and, once you move through the small room, you’ll need to get right down on low-set bamboo stools that sit next to low-set bamboo tables. Sheets of bamboo mats hang from the ceiling and the tropical, green lush feel around the front counter is as kitsch as it is welcoming. There’s an instant sense of fun here and the service backs that up with a helpful friendliness.
The other pleasing aspect is the value for money. A list of congees at just $2.99 for a bowl of steaming rice porridge is a price rarely seen for a cup of coffee, let alone a filling dish of food.
Congee is a very simple dish, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s the generosity and style with which it is served – a generous portion of the classic rice porridge arrives in a smooth ceramic bowl with a thick wooden spoon to its side – that seals the deal as great value for money on every level. The congee at HM Quan is very plain. In some places around the west you may get some seasoning, but here they leave it all up to you. Each table holds a spice rack of jars filled with soy sauce, fish sauce, pepper and salted shrimp and you can season the porridge as you see fit. But before the congee arrives, you need to order it and this is another point of difference at HM Quan. You’re given an order form – something like you might see at a yum cha restaurant – and you, the customer, fill out what you’d like. There’s the list of congee followed by rice dishes including vermicelli salads, mixed rice and rice paper rolls.
The rice paper rolls are a huge plate of sliced rolls filled with vermicelli noodles and vegetables and then dressed in a heap of radish, apple, dried fish, chilli, quail eggs, roasted shallots and mayonnaise. It’s not a pretty dish, but the flavours – intense salty, savoury and spicy – are a delicious mess of depth.
If offal is your thing, there’s a bánh mì filled with “stewed beef organs” and the special of the day on our visit was congee with “innards”. We didn’t establish which animal the innards were from but there’s an element of charm to HM Quan that it seems to get away with.
Some conversations get lost in translation and ordering from a form must help alleviate any misunderstood interpretations here. But it’s the important parts – the good fresh food, the friendly smiles, the very reasonable prices and the kitsch interior – that all add to an experience that really does feel like a bit of a holiday. A very short one, but a delicious one just the same.
HM Quan
5/68-82 Hopkins Street, Footscray
Cuisine | Vietnamese
Prices | Congee $2.99; mains $8.99; desserts $4.99
Open | Monday to Friday 5-10pm; weekends 9am-9pm
The verdict | Put on your list
Phone | 0432 423 979
