Hawkers Perimeter — Restaurant in Dunwoody

I didn’t even know this whole Ashford Crossing area at Perimeter even existed. This area has changed so much. It is a smaller version of Avalon. It’s cute and has several restaurants in the area.

Atmosphere: super loud music. It is very hard to hear conversations with anyone at the table. The music is really loud. But love the decorations and theme. Love the lighted mirrors and decorations in the bathroom

Service: Jasmine did an excellent job explaining the menu. It’s tapas/street/food truck portions. Not big. Menu options are limited. One thing to note is as you place your order, food comes out. It does not come out well at one time.

Quality of food: this is where I have to give only 3 stars and I feel like I’m being more than generous. For the price point and portion size, it’s kind of pricey. Our bill for 4 months as over $144 without tip. We tried this place because the reviews raved about the food and how great it was. It was good. Some things had great flavor. Some things did not.

We ordered four appetizers and four dishes. The favorite dish out of all was the fried rice and as I walked to the bathroom, most of the tables seemed to have ordered the rice. It is really the only dish that had a decent portion of if you like duck, replace in the chicken fried rice. Very good. Pad Thai was super spicy and my dad could not eat it and really enjoy it. It said on the menu u a little spicy but it was pretty spicy. And he added the fried egg which was super dry and over fried for $3😳. I ordered the curry laksa ramen hoping it was going to be really good. It was not like any curry laksa that I’ve had and really didn’t have a curry flavor. It was okay but nothing spectacular. My son ordered the bim bim bap and it was the smallest portion and not worth $15. I’m Korean and know what this dish should be and it was total failure. I think there were like four tiny pieces of meat, the kimchi was not great, too sour and he basically had less than half a cup of rice.

Overall, it was good. Nothing great. Music was very loud. Food was so-so (not raving like others shared), and service was good. I’d go back to try again and would pretty much order the fried rice. That was really the...

Updated Aug 5th 2023

The 2nd chance.

I'll leave the original review below this one so people can see there was improvements made. The manager did get back to me and offered a comped meal but we wanted to see if they would improve on their own versus "Hey these people that reviewed us badly are coming in so make it good".

I'm happy to report that they have improved significantly.

We were greeted in 4 minutes and our order was taken. The food was good. They had to remake my entree because someone that was not our server accidentally took it to another table. The Managers and server all apologized and I'm cool with that. It wasn't their fault. They remade it and got it out to me. They even comped it.

The food was good. We had the Roti, dumpling soup, bulgogi, and the doughnut desert (I highly recommend that one). It all tasted really good.

Our server was really on the ball too. She was great.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

No Service

We wanted to try this new place. We were sat at a table in the middle of the floor. We studied the menu. Looked like there might be some tasty things on it. However... No one came to greet us. No water brought out. Servers just walking by. No urgency. Not really working. Then the hostess sat another couple. Still no service. Then yet another couple sat at a booth next to us and they got water immediately. Then a server showed up to chat with the couple that came in after us. So we got up and left. 15 minutes is plenty of time to allow for some service or a greeting. This was NO SERVICE at all. It wasn't even busy. So, we probably will not return. No excuses for this lack of service.

The manager reached out via comment to this post. I supplied further feedback but just as with the inattentive staff, no reply from the manager. Seems like a theme...

Hawkers is alright - it depends on your expectations. You’re paying a premium for the atmosphere and unique dishes… AKA it’s a bit pricier for the food you get. Chicken dumplings were $10 for 5 pot stickers - definitely more filling dishes out there. The spicy chicken bao was novel and actually kind of fun and I think worth the $12. Duck fried rice was ok - small on the portions for a “larger” $16 shared dish. The cocktails are fun and reasonably priced compared to Superica next door - $10-$15 ish in range. Some options for sake, domestic and draft beers, even white claws.

Food portions are generally on the smaller end. The kitchen can be a bit slow to get orders out (we were able to watch the screens from our booth), but I suspect that should improve with time. Nothing horrible in my one experience. Music was great 👍🏼 perfect vibes. Only place I know that can play Lil Wayne’s 6 foot 7 foot right after Florence + the Machine’s Free and it not be weird at all.

If you’re only in it for the value of food, I recommend a drive over to doraville/china town area down the highway for better value and greater authenticity (at the cost of some atmosphere and novel fusion dishes).

If you’re in it for the fun dishes, unique drinks, and fun atmosphere, go for it. Just expect smaller portions, some familiar and some interesting east asian fusion dishes (of course with an Americanized taste in mind), and a higher price tag. It’s easy to run up an $80 or $100 bill (tip included) for a table of two with 2 drinks and 3-4...