Satay Celup @ Ban Lee Siang, Jalan Ong Kim Wee Melaka

Have you heard of Satay Celup before? It’s a dish where raw or semi-cooked food like seafood, meat and vegetables on skewers are dunked into a boiling pot of diluted satay sauce. Imagine having steamboat with the soup substituted with satay sauce.
I believe Satay Celup is a dish uniquely available only to Melaka and well favored by the Malaccans. Well, there are attempts to introduce this dish to the other states but from what I heard the venture was not successful because the people found it hard to accept.

The concept of Satay Celup could be attributed to being a combination of lok lok and buffet steamboat. With a tray provided by the restaurant, customers would proceed to the huge refrigerators housing the large selection of food on skewers, pick their choices and start dipping away.
I first got to know Satay Celup when I pursued my studies in MMU Melaka. And it’s a shame that I have never tried, or worse still, never even seen it in my entire year spent in Melaka lol. It’s a pity I was not adventurous enough in my younger days, hence missing out on many stuff.

So in my last trip to Melaka I made it a point that I simply had to try Satay Celup, no matter what. Even dunking 1 skewer would suffice. Among the many Satay Celup restaurants Ban Lee Siang was our choice because of the good reviews I read about it, and Jalan Ong Kim Wee where it is situated was reasonably near to our hotel too.

As you can see the satay sauce used for Satay Celup is pretty diluted and you need to stir it constantly to prevent the bottom part being burnt. And presenting our very first Satay Celup stick, balls of vegetables lol.
By the way, the satay sauce is not the sweet type we usually eat – it was a whole lot spicier and very hot from the boiling. So it’s pretty much a lip numbing experience.

I think you have heard rumors about that the satay sauce being RECYCLED. This means the pot of sauce you are dunking your yummy skewers into, was also used by tens to hundreds of customers who dined at the same table before you.
Well, I can confirm the rumor is real because I have asked the workers personally about it lol. They simply top up the satay sauce with fresh (or maybe reused?) sauce when it runs low.
So…. if you are a hygiene freak, this place is not for you lol. There are a couple of newer Satay Celup restaurants that let the customers use personal pots and fresh sauce only. You just gotta look for it.

L to R: Dunno-and-forgot-what’s-that, pork, prawn, si ham (cockles) and mushroom skewers. Most of the meat and vegetable sticks cost RM0.50 while the seafood ones (marked with color) were RM0.60.

While eating there I witnessed one of the most stupid things ever. This couple was taking their food from the refrigerator and the guy accidentally dropped his the sausage skewer on the dirty floor.
To my horror, instead of throwing it away or at least have the courtesy to pay for the mistake, he PUT IT BACK TO THE FRIDGE OMG. Sigh, what is wrong with these people. You say lah, stupid or not?

If you have sharp eyes you would see that there’s a stick at the side of the photo, which I have circled up. That’s the skewer the idiotic guy dropped and put back in. I told the workers about it and hopefully they did the only right and sensible thing, none other than discarding the dirty food.

Many people are saying that Capitol Satay Celup is the best in Melaka, like it being the original and oldest outlet. But since I tried it just to fulfill my curiosity, it didn’t really matter. Will I return? Maybe not after all.

Ban Lee Siang Satay Celup
45 E, Jalan Ong Kim Wee,
75300 Melaka.