PETALING JAYA, May 24 — In the past, I’ve made little secret of my enjoyment of satay. There is something undeniable and irresistible about sitting at a table — preferably at dusk — while plenty of smoke and the smell of fire meeting meat fill the air.
I won’t bore you with the details; it’s a sensation we’re all familiar with, even if to varying degrees.
My latest jaunt for satay was sparked by a tip from a dear friend, who raved about a place selling sate madura in Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara. In his own words, “I have dreams about this place.”
Sate Barokah (Ibu Nur) is located on the ground floor of the shops in Glomac Centro. In addition to sate madura, it also offers other Javanese staples like bakso, ayam penyet and specialities like pecel lele, a traditional dish of deep-fried catfish served with sambal and rice.
Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara is home to a sizable Indonesian community, so plenty of warungs and places serving Indonesian food can be found here.
I arrived at ten to seven, which according to my friend, is the “best time to eat there — just before sundown”.
He says things get much busier later on, and during my visit, I thankfully only had a few food delivery riders picking up their orders to contend with.
We chose to sit outside, partly to enjoy the last hour or so of light and partly because the shop itself was pretty cramped.
Numerous kinds of keropok hung from the ceiling and a variety of bakwan (fritter snacks) were on display.
There are four types of sate madura you can order: ayam (RM1 per stick), lembu (RM1.20 per stick), kambing (RM1.50 per stick) and itik (RM1.70 per stick). The minimum order is five sticks.
Unlike the satay Kajang that most of us are no doubt familiar with, there are a few key distinctions with sate madura.
These usually use smaller chunks of meat and are often served with the sauce poured over, as opposed to separately for dipping.
The sauce is a defining characteristic of sate madura. Chicken and beef are usually served with a rich brown sauce made with kicap manis, peanut paste, palm sugar, onions and garlic.
Mutton is more commonly drenched in the thick and viscous kicap manis and then topped with sliced onions and chillies.
At Sate Barokah, both chicken and beef are served with the peanut-based sauce, while mutton and duck are served with kicap manis. The chunks of meat are indeed smaller, but with plenty of fat, particularly with the beef and mutton.
The richer, nuttier peanut-based sauce stands out against the more neutral flavours of chicken and beef, while the sweet, savoury kicap manis is the perfect foil to the gaminess of the mutton and duck.
Better yet, the sugars in the marinade have allowed charred, almost singed bits to form around the tips of each chunk of duck, adding just a touch of welcome bitterness to every bite.
It’s no secret that the duck is my favourite, even with a texture that’s more chewy than tender. But just like a skirt steak (one of my favourite cuts), the joy is in the chew: each cycle through my molars releases more and more duck flavour and is also the perfect excuse to mop up even more kicap manis.
It’s customary to eat sate madura with a side of lontong, which I can only imagine is the ideal vehicle for optimised sauce transportation to the mouth. But alas, we had already stuffed our faces with more sticks of sate than we probably should have.
I simply resigned myself to having to join my friend in having dreams about this place in the near future.
Sate Barokah (Ibu Nur)
1-10 Glomac Centro PJU 6A, Jalan Teratai, Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Open daily, 8am-11.30pm. Closed on Tuesday.
Instagram: @satebarokah_ibunur
* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.
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