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Eddie Beck | January 16, 2014

Malacca is home to satay celup. Unique to Malacca only, satay celup has been around since the mid-1950’s and its popularity have grown with time.

Considered a signature dish in Malacca, it is a favourite among locals and tourists alike. It’s not uncommon to see queues of people outside satay celup eateries especially during week-ends and public holidays.

And satay celup restaurants have sprung up like mushrooms after the rain to take advantage of its growing popularity.

Satay celup (Steamboat Satay) is a dish where an assortment of raw and semi-cooked seafood, meat (including raw meat) and vegetables on skewers are dunked into a steaming pot of peanut gravy with a variety of different ingredients.

The secret of satay celup lies in the peanut sauce served. It is a thick sauce and full of crunchy ground peanuts. Comprising of 22 ingredients and spices, including peanuts, dried chilli, onion, garlic, lemon grass, brown sugar, turmeric, galangal and sesame seeds, they are cooked together to perfection.

Among the popular ones are Capitol Satay Celup Restaurant at Lorong Bukit Cina, Ban Lee Hiang Satay Celup Restaurant and Old Village Satay Celup Restaurant in Jalan Ong Kim Wee, McQuek in Jalan Bandar Hilir and Kingtu in Cheng. So popular satay celup in Malacca, now we have even halal satay celup, Chucuk Satay Celup to cater to Muslims.

The most popular is undoubtedly the Capitol Satay Celup and they pioneered satay celup in Malacca. Low Yong Cheng’s family has been in the satay celup business since the mid-1950s. It was started by his grandfather who used a tricycle parked next to the Capitol cinema, when Yong Cheng took over he decided to move into a shop and retaining the Capitol name.

The downside of dining at Capitol Satay Celup is always a queue alongside the road. This place is infamously known for being crowded. During weekends and public holidays, the queue can be maddeningly super long and customers are known to have lined up for two hours!

Over 80 types of skewered seafood and vegetables, ranging from chicken, cockles, abalones, fish balls, cuttlefish, mushrooms, vegetables, quail’s eggs, shrimps, bean curds, fried bean curds and tofu are available.

Price ranges from 70 cent per stick to a few ringgit. Just dunk them into the aromatically rich and spicy peanut gravy and let them cook. It’s fun to dip in as many as you can and a few minutes later the food is cooked and is ready to be eaten.

Everything is self-serviced here and take-away is not encouraged.

So the next time you are in Malacca, make an effort to sample Malacca’s favourite street food. You will be glad you did!

Source: Free Malaysia Today