Hopper Joint Prahran restaurant review 2024

Prahran’s new high-energy Sri Lankan eatery blurs the lines between restaurant and fun house.

Hopper Joint blurs the lines between restaurant and fun house. Picture: Annika Kafcaloudi.

Welcome to Hopper Joint.

She’s a fast-moving fever dream. The colours, smells, twinkling of schoolteacher hand bells. Eat as much as you can. Smash nine hoppers in one go. Beat the record. Is that Sally Capp? Drink and be merry. Watch pretty people. Up for the challenge?

Your 90 minutes starts now.

Cocktail please.

Maybe a G+T. They have 17. A Pimms jug? No, it’s a school night. One cocktail. Actually make that two, a marg with blue curacao (what a throwback) and the one with all the spices.

We’re out for Sri Lankan, after all.

Yes, I’ll see a food menu— it’s a deadringerfor a Little Golden Book— all sturdy, thick and pastel-pretty.

Strap in for the ultimate hopper feast.

Bonda is deep-fried potato balls.

“Read the story on the first page to understand what we do”.

Aye aye Captain Jason Jones.

I see you’ve swapped your hospitable champagne ways at Entrecote to woo crowds at your new Prahran plaything.

Your husband Bramham, or Bremi, is working the room with a similar shine, welcoming each diner by pressing traditional bindi bling on their forehead.

Drinks up! Oh this Bathing Buddha is citrusy, less savoury and spice than imagined.

Uh waiter, my drink has mystical vanishing powers. Here one minute, gone the next. Hic. Right, back to that story.

Hopper Joint only does a $49 per head set menu. You get two curries (veg, meat or seafood), one egg and plain hopper plus spicy sambols for dippings. Add snacks and sweets at your leisure. Jangle that bell for free plain hoppers. Rogue misuse warrants a $2 fine (a charitable donation to charity Beyond Blue). Fun fact: they’ve raised $220 in two weeks.

What’s a hopper? A bowl shaped egg pancake? Sri Lankan cutlery? Something else that has mystical vanishing powers? All of the above.

Roadside pineapple.

Here are the ground rules. Eat with your hands. Make a mess. Use the fancy soap when you wash up at the dining room basin in front of everyone. See the step-by-step wall mount for further instruction.

Everything in the old Morocco Lounge looks immaculate.

A single-level space (upstairs bar to open soon) flush with burnt orange and turmeric earthy tones. It’s industrial chic, a South-Asian odyssey, the dining room posh with French rattan chairs, marble, chandeliers and blooming marigolds. The kitchen is in full-view, flanked by a village of chefs.

Visiting Hopper Joint is like a South-Asian oddesy. Picture: Annika Kafcaloudi.

Marigold, everywhere. Picture: Annika Kafcaloudi.

Did someone say snack time?

Roadside pineapple ($10.90) celebrates nature’s candy. Ten or so hunks come sweating in their own juices served in a plastic lolly bag, rustled with chilli flakes and saltbush, with toothpicks for fishing. They’re kind of hot, kind of not. More fire extinguisher than legit snack. Keep them handy for later.

Pan rolls ($14.90 for two), a hybrid of the famed Chiko and Dutch meatballs bitterballen, are golden crumbed and filled with an well-seasoned, curried minced beef brisket. They need the tomato chilli sauce to add another flavour dimension.

Part Chicko Roll, Dutch bitterballen.

Bonda (say boon-dah, $16.90), deep fried potato balls, stodgy, safely spiced, not overly memorable.

Must be wine time.

A bottle of chilled Beaujolais should do the trick, actually twist my arm, off-dry Rieslingfreak. Just a glass. Something to undercut that chilli.

STOP. It’s hopper time.

Tear, dab, repeat. A little coconut sambol here, caramelised onions there.

Expertly cooked okra, minus the slime, holds its shape texturally and is my pick of the night. Ding.

Marlin, the star of today’s seafood trawl, firm in flavour and texture with wonderful cumin notes. Cheers to you chef Ronit Arlikatti.

Ding Ding.

Pork neck is rustled in dark curry powder and spices, slow-cooked overnight and tempered with curry leaves and chill before service. She’s still tough to eat. The buildable heat eventually catches you. Pass me the water.

Ring a ding ding.

I’m tapping out, but not before dessert.

Golden Syrup dumplings are not a wise order for the full. Luckily they are 100 per cent worth it. Think gingerbread balls, soaked in a burnt butter molasses with cold and silky cardamom ice cream.

Was Hopper Joint’s food life altering? No. Consistent and rightly delicious? Absolutely.

Jones and Bremi are hospitality masters and know how to have a good time, blurring the lines often between fun house.

Times up.

Was it worth it? Abso-freakin-lutely!