Diner’s Diary | Satay Inn has a menu makeover and plays up its Singapore flavours

Satay Inn has been in Hong Kong for 10 years, and its three branches recently underwent a makeover, with new dishes added to the menu. The restaurant also added a tagline, “A taste of Singapore” to emphasise the menu’s multi-ethnic flavours.

Singaporean Kelvin Wong, sous chef of Asian cuisine at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, was brought in to tweak the menu, and he draws inspiration from the Lion City’s hawker food culture.

At a media tasting at The Royal Pacific Hotel and Towers in Tsim Sha Tsui, we were able to sample some of the new dishes.

One of them is cereal butter prawns (HK$318), in which fresh prawns are fried in the shell with butter, dipped in condensed milk and covered with wholegrain wheat cereal. We found the giant prawns meaty, although not as crunchy as you’d expect given the cereal coating.

We did enjoy the wok-fried sole fillets with okra and sambal (HK$128). The fish was cooked perfectly, although the spice level could have been bumped up a notch, as it was very mild even for this sensitive spice eater.

We also quite enjoyed the garoupa fillets with bean curd (HK$298), an aromatic dish cooked in a clay pot, with a flavourful sauce that featured basil and star anise.