SERENDIPITOUS SATA & SATANIC SANTA

On a soaking wet Xmas afternoon, we had to send Mimi to Melawati to keep her promise with a friend. Taman Melawati, if you must ask is on the other end of KL and I am at the wrong end. It is best to drive to unfamiliar Melawati on a full stomach and an equally full tank of gas. Having a stomach full of gas is not so good for your passengers.
By the time we got off the Ampang Expressway and got on the MRR2, it was raining cats and dogs. Visibility was limited and traffic was reduced to a crawl. Somehow, we ended up with Melawati facing our backside. We took the turning to Lembah Keramat and discovered that the road was already flooded and the car's fuel tank almost empty. Sighs of relief were heard when we spied a Petronas station just after the Dewan Orang Ramai Lembah Keramat. When I wanted to fill up, the boys at the station told me lightning tripped the computer and I had to wait for a while.
By the time we got our petrol, the road leading to the Melawati junction was already covered in water and we had to detour through Taman Permata and managed to get to the start of Jalan Melawati without drowning our car. We could not proceed because there were a few cars stalled on the road. Even an SUV was seen ready to float. We made a U turn over a low divider and asked Mimi to call her friend, explain our predicament and cancel the appointment. The friend suggested another route and we got Mimi smiling again. By this time my stomach was growling and we had absolutely no idea where to have lunch. I could call Som in Taman Permata to get some suggestion or I could call Zainaldin Zainal who was still waiting for me to size up Century Paradise Club to hold committee meetings. Before I could phone any of them, I saw a building with "Roti Prata" written on it so we headed towards it. They were out of roti prata so I ordered mee mamak. Then we saw this lady across the road.

Sata sold in KL? Sata is not to be confused by the new pc hard disk system. Sata is Terengganu's fishermen's food. Sata is fish flesh blended with grated coconut and finely shredded daun kesom and ground spices. The blend is then shaped like a cone and then wrapped in banana leave before being skewered on a bamboo stick and grilled.


We tried a skewer (se nyocok). We had 4 cones of sata for RM 1.50 which is more than reasonable. The sata were delicious albeit on the sweet side. Sata should have more fish than coconut but with the price of fish in KL, it is forgivable. When Zainaldin Zainal joined us later, he told me of another place that sells sata. It is the same place that I wrote about earlier. We couldn't get sata there then.
Zainaldin was marooned by the heavy downpour at the Dewan. He came as soon as he could and took us to his club to let me see if it is suitable as a venue for Perstauan Veteran RTM's committee meetings. The club is nice but too far and too expensive for our purposes. We will stick to Hotel Singgahsana for the time being.
The Satanic Santa? No it was never Zainaldin. It was someone who broke into our surau just before Xmas. He didn't leave any present but instead carted away the PA System. Now we have a silent surau. May the thief's testicles be infested by the hungry fleas of a thousand camels.