Malaysians do enjoy their satay and a truly good satay meal lies in the peanut sauce. So what happens when you get some excellent satay sauce and have the chance to boil skewers of other assorted things in it ‘lok-lok’ style? Satay Celup, of course!
Our first visit to Ban Lee Siang was with KampungboyCitygal, Brought Up 2 Share and My Story during our one-day food excursion to Malacca many months back. We enjoyed the satay celup so much that we made another trip to Ban Lee Siang on our own after that!
The concept is a free-for-all style where one has to manually get their own skewers of food from the fridges lined up against one side of the shop. Each table will have one pot of boiling satay sauce which will be used to cook the skewers.
Priced at RM0.60 per skewer, there was a good variety of food to choose from, though it’s mostly standard fare that one might find in a ‘lok-lok’ truck. Selection ranges from various types of fish/meat balls, skewered vegetables, tofu, mushroom, beancurd skin (foo chuk) and many other items along the same vein.
There were some fried items as well such as fried beancurd skin (foo chuk), deep fried wan tan (dumplings) and Chinese crullers (yau ja gwai).
To be completely honest, the skewered items are not anything special. Their only purpose is to soak up the taste of the excellent satay sauce which they get boiled in. The sauce was the main attraction of the place and the only factor that pulled us back. It was very nutty and had a strong scent of spices in it which made for a wonderful peanut sauce. We definitely wouldn’t mind having the sauce on its own!
Suddenly, the ordinary skewered items became the most appetising things around when coated in the rich peanut sauce.
Another avenue and good change from the skewered items is to order some bread. Just scoop up some of the peanut sauce into your bowl and use the pieces of bread to sop it up! Definitely a very enjoyable experience indeed!
Needless to say, we got hooked on Ban Lee Siang’s peanut sauce and we think the crowd at this place is totally justified. Take note that there are two ‘Ban Lee Siang’s right beside each other and we understand that there is a rivalry going on between them due to some past history. Looking at the shop straight on from the road, we have only tried the Ban Lee Siang on the left (which is the more crowded one). We don’t know which is better, but the peanut sauce in the left shop was so good that it made us fans of satay celup!
Restaurant Information
45 E, Jalan Ong Kim Wee
75300 Melaka.
