Kedai Satay Melbourne restaurant review 2024

After 15 years, this fiery Indonesian stalwart is still warming the tummies and souls of city workers with $20 lunches and more satay you can poke a stick at.

Kedai Satay has been a city favourite for 15 years — and still continues to cram them in with $20 lunch deals.

I’ve had my share of avocado smashes, but a tall glass of chilled avo juice? Never.

Jus Alpukat, the Indonesian name for the hip tropical bev, is a polarising slurp.

Shaken with condensed milk, ice and chocolate syrup, it’s something to settle bellowed tummy growls after sweating through all that sambal.

Maybe a dash more sweetness will convince me, though it’s a hard sell against the iced cendol; a Malaysian coconut milk infused drink jiggling with green pandan jellies and palm sugar.

Kedai Satay has been giving Melbourne a taste of our favourite holiday island for 15 years from its unassuming King Street outpost. There’s no frills, just flavour.

No fancy decor or website. Bookings? Sure, but you can easily swing by and find a seat across two-floors of the 80 seater.

It’s just food packing fistfuls of spice, warm lemongrass breeze and a taste of the tropics that’ll confidently send you to a deckchair slumber, like a few lazy poolside Bintangs.

Owner Alfonso Agustinus, his wife Dina and extended family were all born in Indonesia and work at the restaurant.

Chicken satay. A non-negotiable when out for Indonesian.

Avocado juice isn’t your vibe? There are a range of squishy, Malaysian drinks to quench thirsts at Kedai Satay.

Both Alfonso and Dina are in the kitchen, while the others work the floor.

What started as a vehicle to feed hungry office workers grilled meat skewers, rice and salad has evolved to include more dishes from West and East Java, Jakarta and Sumatra.

Don’t worry, the plastic laminate menus include snapshots of each dish to settle unsure minds.

So what did we order? Let’s start with some non-negotiables.

Satay, always. Here you can get three or five chicken skewers ($15 for three, $15.50 with rice, $14.50 salad only). We opt for a mound of yellow rice, tumbled in turmeric for its sunny appearance. Or you could try the lamb ($18, $18.50 rice or $15.50 salad). The satay sauce; nutty and salty where it counts, the spice; not distracting from the other flavours at play.

A bowl of crackers ($4), sadly not the roadside lemongrass flecked cassava crackers which I consume by the bagful on holidays, but your bog-standard, mystery flavour, food-dye edged kind that add crunch where it’s needed.

Tempeh and tofu. A match made in fried heaven.

Nasi Bungkus, a banana-leaf wrapped parcel of beef rendang curry.

Nasi Bungkus ($21), a Sumatran dish and banana leaf wrapped meal of curry, rice, vegetables and sambal. Kedai Satay lets you choose from eight different flavours — everything from grilled to fried chicken or fish, but my tastebuds run away with the thought of beef rendang.

Indonesian rendang isn’t as soggy as Malaysian, a dryer style of spice roughened beef cooked in coconut milk and served over more yellow rice, fragrant cooked cassava that tastes like tea leaves, and chilli sauce tossed potatoes.

Sambal, we ordered all four, because when in Southeast Asia ….

The shrimp paste muddled belacan doesn’t stand a chance against the sambal balado; a West Sumatran spicy sauce with a fine dice of egg and spicy red chilli; adding a firecracker beneath any dish. The sambal lima, more citrus and pepper focused, has its place. And then there is green chilli, which is, well self explanatory.

And of course, Bintang. When you’re sweating into next week, the crisp pilsener works as the best extinguisher, but there’s also $7.50 house wines, $15 margaritas and soft drinks.

I couldn’t help but favour some of the lesser-known dishes.

Talk about a feast!

Fried tofu and tempeh ($13.50), fallen Jenga stack of battered batons of both tofu and the fermented soybean cake. Tempe is more nutty and lentil-like in flavour and texture, kicking a mellow tofu a kick in the pants.

Batargor ($7), a Sudanese dish from East Java, is a fried pick and mix of wonton chips and tofu and seafood, coated in a luscious peanut sauce proving why deliciousness can come in the simplest forms.

And finally, kremes ($1.50), perhaps the cheapest and simplest pleasure of all.

You know those delicious batter dregs skimmed from the fryer when cooking fried chicken? That’s what I’m talking about, magical fairy crumbs to amp the Richter scale of any meal.

Kedai Satay isn’t a new restaurant, doesn’t have the hype or design bells and whistles, but is responsible for some seriously good eating and drinking. While an airfare to Bali is a hard ask, but know you’re one avocado juice away from holiday in your hometown.