VERSUS
Skewered and grilled We can’t mention meat-on-a-stick without bringing up the shish kebab, a Turkish word that literally translates to 'sword meat'. The dish found its way around the world during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, throughout the Middle East, Europe and eventually to Southeast Asia and Japan, where it took on the form of satay and yakitori. TEXT WEETS GOH
ILLUSTRATION PAYNK
YAKITORI
SATAY
I remember my first bite of yakitori. It was at one of the first few shopping mall kiosks. True to vaunted Japanese efficiency, they had an automated process going on: a metal contraption lowered a congo line of skewers into vats of sauce before moving them through a corridor of heating coils that grilled the meat. It was love at first sight. The dripping fat, the nose-twitching aroma of charred meat, and a machine that looked like something out of science fiction left a deep impression on my young mind. Forward to today, the wondrous possibilities of yakitori have since been opened to me—it’s not just chicken thigh chunks on a stick. Chefs dedicate their entire life to the art of yakitori, where even the skewering of one specific cut can entail eight different possibilities. And then there’re the cuts; all manners of offal and esoteric pieces of cartilage. It’s sometimes judiciously brushed with an umami-laden sauce made with chicken carcass, mirin and shoyu, sometimes grilled over binchō-tan, and always slightly charred and delicious.
When you think of satay, there's invariably the image of an old man in a stained wifebeater, furiously waving a straw fan while flipping about a dozen skewers. The hawker dish is found throughout Southeast Asia—also known as sate in Indonesia, and sateh in Thailand—with meats and cuts unique to each region. All are heavily marinated in soy, sugar, and spices like lemongrass and turmeric, which makes the meat keep better in the Southeast Asian humidity. Varieties found in Singapore are mutton, chicken, beef and sometimes pork if you’re buying from a Chinese seller, who will usually spike the peanut dipping sauce with a tangy dollop of grated pineapple. It's a dish many locals hold dear, and can run the gamut from 40 cent skewers hawked surreptitiously (to skirt food licensing laws) by the much-loved “Tiong Bahru satay man”, to $14 to $20 triumvirates at the newly-opened Violet Oon Satay Bar & Grill that will either save our culinary heritage or destroy fond memories of a once affordable, meaty treat.
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