Cook your own skewers in the peanut cauldron where satay celup was invented

Fifty raw skewers, one shared pot

The only one on Earth

A long chilled counter stacked with trays of skewers, quail eggs and greens on red and orange plates — amanderson2 · CC BY 2.0

Skewers of fishballs, tofu and greens tied in knots, laid on a steel tray beside a pot of thick brown sauce — chee.hong · CC BY 2.0

A hand reaches past raw skewers topped with tightly knotted leafy greens towards a steel pot of sauce — chee.hong · CC BY 2.0

A hand lowers skewers into a simmering pan of dark red sauce set into a table, a cold drink can beside it — chee.hong · CC BY 2.0

Two young women at a steel table smile over iced drinks and orange plates of skewers, a slotted spoon in front — chee.hong · CC BY 2.0

A boiling pot of spiced peanut sauce sunk into the middle of your table, with racks of raw skewers you cook yourself. Capitol Satay Celup on Lorong Bukit Cina is credited with inventing it; Ban Lee Siang on Jalan Ong Kim Wee is the locals' alternative.

Why it's unique

Satay celup is Melaka's own dish and nowhere else's in origin: a communal pot of thick spiced peanut sauce set into the table, and fifty or more raw skewers, pork, prawn, quail egg, okra, tofu skin, cuttlefish, that you cook in it yourself. The Low family's Capitol Satay is credited with inventing it in the 1950s, when the grandfather carried the stove and the sauce on a shoulder pole; the technique arrived with Guangdong food peddlers and turned into this.

It has since been exported, and you can eat satay celup in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore now. The dish is still this city's, and the origin claim attaches to one shop, so eating it here means eating it at the table where the format was worked out rather than at a copy of it.

Before you go

Capitol opens in the evening and the queue forms before it does. There is a numbering system and no reservations. Ban Lee Siang opens mid-afternoon around 3pm and is near capacity by 3.30, cooks over charcoal rather than gas, and is what Melaka residents name when asked.

You pay per stick by the count of used skewers, so do not throw them away. And do not double-dip a bitten skewer into the shared pot, because the whole table is eating from it. Neither shop is halal.

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