It’s been a couple of years since I last went to Malacca on a food hopping trip and I really really miss that awesome lok lok I had at Capitol Satay Celup that was totally unrivalled. Its satay sauce was one of the best I’d ever tried!
I had a craving for lok lok for a long while now so when the husband and I spotted Malaysia Local Delights along Tanjong Katong Road while we were on the bus, we knew we had to come back for the lok lok buffet.
And we really did! We came on a Saturday late afternoon just after 5pm for an early dinner and we were told there wasn’t a need to make a reservation as the restaurant wouldn’t be packed at that time which was good.
The tables indoor were meant for bigger groups of people so we had to sit outside the restaurant. The weather wasn’t particularly hot that day (thank goodness) but because the al fresco area was by a busy road, it could get a little noisy and dusty. There was also a traffic light near us so when buses stopped right in front for a while, people were just looking over which made our dinner feel a little lacking in privacy.
While we were seated, the lady boss came over to run us through their buffet system so we would know what to do next. Appreciated that.
For those new to lok lok, it is just a variant of a steamboat or hotpot where the respective ingredients are skewered on satay sticks and we can just dip these sticks into selected broths to cook and then eat off the sticks directly. This is the hassle-free part about lok lok which I really enjoy so my ingredients wouldn’t get lost at the bottom of the pot like how they would in a normal steamboat and I need not use a ladle to search for them, lol. Plus there wasn’t a need for cutlery too, really. So easy!
At the price of S$26.80 nett per adult for weekend dinner (S$24.80 on weekday), you can lok lok to your heart’s content! Hot food selections and free flow drinks are included too. There are 8 choices of broths (satay, chicken, Sichuan mala, Korea spicy kimchi, tom yam, Penang prawn, nutritional/herbal and curry laksa) of which we could select 2.
All the fresh ingredients (except leafy vegetables) were pre-skewered on sticks and stored in big chillers like these. Some of the labels did not tally with the actual ingredients in the trays so gotta look before you grab.
Disposable plates were next to the chiller which were to be used to hold the sticks of food.
Besides meats like sliced pork, pork belly, sliced beef, chicken breast and different offals, there were also prawns, assorted yong tau foo items, vegetables, mushrooms and noodles. The seafood selection wasn’t fantastic. I only saw prawns, cockles (which we didn’t eat), cuttlefish and mock abalone (made from squid paste).
The hot food selections were mostly fried food and were left in the open. There were beancurd skin, yam pieces, wanton, luncheon meat, ngoh hiang, tau pok, meat balls, you tiao, tau kwa, fish paste, otah and potato. Everything were quick to go but were also quick to be replenished so they were served fresh and warm (if not hot).
The bottom shelf had containers of different noodle types. I didn’t have any but the husband tried the spinach noodles which he said it wasn’t too bad.
There were also 2 types of keropok (prawn & fish) and 2 carb dishes of fried rice and fried noodles to bulk up your meal.
Assortment of sauces and condiments. Though we prepared a few mixtures, we didn’t really use them in the end because the satay soup that we picked as one of our broths was flavoursome enough. Do try their belachan though. You’d know why as you read below.
Drink selections included plain water, soft drinks, water chestnut and lime juice.
It took a while for our soup bases (satay soup & chicken soup) to come and we were left sitting there for quite some time with a table of ingredients but no pot to cook them in. So we just tucked into the cooked food as we waited.
Here are some random pics of what we took:
You’d notice that on every stick, there was only one bite sized piece or a small portion of every item which I thought was a wise move so we wouldn’t end up taking too many sticks and probably not being able to finish them in the end. Minimised food wastage definitely.
I didn’t really fancy the yong tau foo items that were straight from the packet but the husband liked them. I was more into the mushrooms, pig skin, quail eggs, taiwan sausage and mock abalone. The only offals I had were pig intestines and stomach which were clean and had no unwanted stench.
Meat wise, I wasn’t too impressed. The pork belly was too thickly sliced, not like shabu shabu standard. The rest, standard.
The prawns were of a decent size and were fresh and sweet. Didn’t have many though as we were lazy to peel them, lol.
More balls for the husband and more taiwan sausages for me.
Normally I always find fried food at buffets to be really greasy and not worth the calories but these items were surprisingly pretty good. Didn’t have any taste of reused oil either.
My favourite had got to be the yam. So tender on the inside that it almost melted in the mouth.
We were told by the lady boss that all raw ingredients should be first cooked in the chicken broth and then dipped in the satay soup as the latter wouldn’t be hot enough for cooking purpose. Worked differently as the one in Malacca where we just put everything into the satay sauce. The chicken soup was bland but it wasn’t like we needed to drink the soup as we only used it to cook our food. The satay soup was a more liquidy version of the satay sauce but nonetheless, it was still nutty and aromatic. We dipped all the fried food into it and they were delicious but it could get sickly after a while.
I had 3 servings of the keropok and the husband really wondered why I’d pay for a buffet just to eat keropok, lol. Well, I just liked them especially when paired with the belachan sauce below.
A little watery but it had a strong flavour of lime juice that made it really appetising. Went well with the keropok and fried rice.
Fruits were also skewered and chilled in the fridge. Only the watermelon was sweet. The rest, meh.
Gui lin gao and fruit cocktail were the only desserts. The former tasted weird and the latter was just bland. Rather skip them and save space for another stick of lok lok instead, lol.
And this was the concluding moment. As we ate, we counted our sticks and stacked them in bunches of 10 for easy tallying later. Our record? A whopping 147 sticks which was 3 sticks away from our anticipated target, lol. Well, maybe we could have done better as we were getting sickly of it already besides being stuffed to the brim.
When we were about to make payment at the counter inside, the lady boss came out with a tray of freshly fried chicken wings and asked if we wanted any. Looked steamingly delish but we gave it a miss. By the way, do note they only accept cash or NETS payment. No credit card.
The whole experience about such a lok lok was really the fun of eating food on sticks. The overall standard was quite mediocre and I didn’t really think it was that value for money but we were still happy to satisfy our craving for lok lok as this was the closest to the one in Malacca we could get here in Singapore.
Malaysia Local Delights
224 Tanjong Katong Road
Singapore 437014
Tel: 6440 8378
Opening hours:
4.00pm to 2.00am (Mon-Fri)
12.00pm to 2.00am (Sat, Sun & PH)