7/4/2013 - Lau Pa Sat - Satay Street

Our previous attempt at having dinner at Satay Street was foiled by the haze that enveloped the city for the better part of a week.  This week, by a stroke of good fortune, we were both in the central business district and in need of dinner as our pantry had not been restocked over the weekend.  Stopping by Lau Pa Sat seemed like a logical and delicious solution.  Pretty fancy, right?  Plus, the smoke this time was from the food grilling and not burning peat somewhere in Indonesia.

I had been to this hawker centre a few times and it is much larger than our local Empress Market.  Kind of like a big city vs. small town restaurant.  Prices are a little higher too, but its all relative when you're talking $1.70 for sugar cane juice vs. $1.20 or $5 for a large bowl of rice and chicken vs. $4.  We were not on the hunt for standard food though, we were looking for grilled meat on sticks.  Each night around 7 PM they shut down the road next to the hawker centre and set up tables and chairs in the street.  You then have your choice of about 10 different stalls to buy satay from, all of whom seemed to be selling essentially the same thing.  You can buy a variety of rice and vegetables as well, but we went with the strictly cave man style meal.

At first they tried to sell us the set special for $48.  My brain was a little sluggish from work so the math didn't immediately pop into my head, but I knew that each stick was 60 cents and that sounded like a lot.  "How many is that?" I asked - the proprietor responded with "Only 80, but they are not that large."  I'm not sure if he didn't have his glasses on and was seeing double, but there were only 2 of us sitting at the table.  We had our work clothes on too, so should have looked like locals, but we probably had sucker written somewhere on our forwards as well.  Anyway, we went with 30 - 10 chicken, 10 beef and 10 mutton to be on the safe side.  They had turkey and duck as well some other meats that came from interesting parts of animals.  Pretty happy we stayed on the safe side this time, although the duck sounded intriguing.

10 minutes later a plate piled high with a good variety of meat magically appeared.  Each one had its own distinct flavor and the peanut dipping sauce was outstanding.  We destroyed the plate pretty quickly, I won 16 to 14, but its possible I stole one.  Needless to say we might still be sitting there if 80 had shown up in front of us.  Rumor is there is grilled stingray somewhere on the street, so its highly likely we will making a return trip, probably as soon as we forget to buy groceries again.

Happy 4th of July to our fellow Americans.  We are currently celebrating with drinks on the porch and listening to country music.  Pretty excited for the BBQ party this weekend for some of the Americans on the island to celebrate the right way.  Too bad the sparklers probably didn't make it through customs.