Good Satay    好時沙嗲  

This is a written proposal to change the name from "Good Satay" to the more apt and descriptive "Meh Satay ." My partner and I were really disappointed with the food at this joint. He ordered the chicken and prawn satay and chicken sausage with garlic rice and I ordered the fried beancurd with peanut sauce + rice (I'm a vegetarian).

The presentation for his rice satay dish was saddening. They added coarse chunks of cucumber and left the bland chicken sausage uncut, leaving an unappetizing first impression.* Also the prawn satay was just half of one prawn, seems like a rip off to me. In describing the chicken satay, my boyfriend quoted Rupaul saying "the chicken satay should sashay away."

As for the fried beancurd and peanut sauce, they originally gave me some kind of weird sambal sauce. I usually don't have a problem when restaurants make a minor mistake in my order but the sambal-looking sauce didn't taste like sambal--it tasted like barbecue sauce with pepper flakes. Blegh. I asked them to replace the sauce with peanut sauce (as the menu described), which took some time to arrive for some reason (don't think it takes a lot of time to plop some sauce in a bowl, especially when the kitchen is so close). I had to ask for the sauce again and the waitress seemed miffed that I required her services. The tofu was also cut in different-sized chunks, so some pieces were crunchier, while others were more soggy.

Also it smelled funny in there... not quite dry, salted fish--I know that smell, I grew up with it-- but a staler version of it. I don't think we'll be coming back here... :-/

* I just think they should at least cut these since the food utensils are soup spoons and chopsticks. In Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, you'd be given a spoon and fork so it's easier to cut through large chunks of food.

Was searching for cheap food with a friend around TST.
I took her to "Good Satay" cause she never went there. How possible!?
You know it is a good place when the door is covered with newspaper and magazine articles. We got in at around 3 p.m. when people were still working in the office.
That's why the restaurant was not packed with customers.We ordered the famous chicken rice and satay.
Both of us went to Singapore this summer and tasted authentic chicken rice there.
As a chicken-rice lover, I can definitely tell if the chicken rice at "Good Satay" is nice or not. The chicken rice arrived so quickly, yay!
A bowl of clear soup made with chicken innards:
tastes good and prepares you for the chicken and rice.
A big dish of chicken:
Super convenient as it is boned, there is jelly between the skin and the flesh!
Totally surprised by the fact that the taste of the chicken stays in my mouth!
Sweet soy sauce:
Not as thick as the Singaporean ones and it tastes just right!
Chili sauce:
Not as spicy as the Singaporean ones, it is not bad.
Ginger & spring onion:
The BEST among the three! I finished the whole dish of lettuce underneath the chicken by dipping it into the sauce!Satay
Not very impressive. Maybe it was not prepared right after we ordered it.
The beef is a little bit chewy.

Overall:
The chicken rice is very well-prepared!!! It tastes really authentic and in some ways even better than the Singaporean ones!
The price is really reasonable as the standard of the food is high!
Highly recommend it to everyone. I am really pleased that "Good Satay" does maintain the quality of the food when it is so popular!

Having tried both the institutions that are Wee Nam Kee & Chatterbox in Singapore, I like to think that i've had the best chicken rice there is. But chicken rice is one of those highly subjective things, every dedicated fan has a different favorite chicken rice restaurant, and everyone eats their rice with a different ratio of condiment mix. Purists deny the sweet soy sauces importance, some combine the ginger and chilli into a single paste, some prefer dark meat, the variety in this single dish is endless.

Good satay is adorned with magazine and news paper cutouts on its front facade, each a review praising its satay, laksa and chicken rice. Located in a rather desolated eighties themed mall on a quiet strip in east Tsim Sha Tsui. Despite its relatively grim surroundings and exterior, this place can get pretty busy at times. Not wanting to wait for my chicken, and hungry as all hell I went at mid afternoon when only a few tables were seated. $46 HKD gets you Good Satays chicken rice set. The rice itself is fragrant and wonderfully oily. The chicken is cleanly cut with no bones or dark bits (though some prefer the rougher cuts). The tender breast meat and gelatinous skin can't help but put a big smile on my face with the menage a trois of condiments, each one generously applied. It's fantastic.

The only disappointment is the soup which is lukewarm and lacks salt.

i would not have come across this place without openrice, as it is hidden in the corner of an old commercial building on the 1st floor. decided to give it a try due to the good reviews.came alone so i only ordered the laksa. turned out to be a good choice as the chicken rice and satay on the next table did not look so impressive. my laksa came in a big bowl. it tasted different from the usual malaysian/ singaporean laksa but the soup was quite rich (i liked it).

Decided to give Good Satay a shot after reading promising on-line reviews and being an award winner on Openrice.

The place is tucked inside a commercial building and kind of difficult to find. We got there around 6PM, and we could sit at whatever table we wanted. The waitress provided us the menu and we decided to try out:
- Satay platter
- Laksa
- Hainan Chicken Rice

After our order, people started to drip in and within 15 minutes or so, most tables were occupied.

Our first impression from Good Satay was that it looked like many of the Chinese hole in the wall eateries, but it was quite clean. There was not a certain 'Malaysian' or 'Singaporean' feel to the interior and from what we know most waiters and chefs were Chinese as well. It lacked atmosphere, so we were really curious if their food would make up or it.

The Satay was served first. It was paired with a couple pieces of cucumber and a small plate of Satay sauce. Very minimalistic, I missed red onions and Longtong, how can they not provide these together on the platter? Since it was charcoaled grilled it gave off a nice fragrance, but other than that the Satay was not particularly tasty. Meat was dry and lacked spiciness. You can certainly taste that the Satay had not been marinated very well. Disappointing.

The Hainan Chicken Rice was second to be served. There were 3 sauces where you could dip the chicken in: Ginger, Chilli, and Ketjap. A small bowl of Chicken rice and a bowl of Chicken soup came along with the set. The chicken rice looked promising, but not as fragrant at other places where they serve Hainan Chicken. The chicken was bland and the chicken skin was not chewy... Come on, when you are eating Hainan Chicken, the essence is all about the shiny, chewy and fragrant chicken skin. Sauces were watery, ginger did not taste as Ginger and Chilli was too. I guess they really have to pump up the quality of their Hainan Chicken broth.

The most promising dish of the evening was Laksa. It was extremely creamy, flavourful and the vermicelli just had enough bite in it. Toppings included fish balls, shrimps and bean curd puffs. This dish was absolutely the highlight at Good Satay during our visit. Just a little remark: the soup from the Laksa was not burning hot, just lukewarm which made slurping easy, I guess.In overall just very mediocre food. Would expect from a place which is named Good Satay to serve sublime Satay, but the opposite is true.

It is important to have the right companion for each "event", this includes going for different types of restaurant/food with different people.

"Good Satay" is one well-loved, well-supported, well-known hot spot for many openrice lovers. Finally, the perfect prompt to visit came; a friend wanted "Malaysian/Singaporean food in the TST area". So there we went for a Thursday dinner (TGIF... almost).

ENVIRONMENT / SERVICE

Yes, at times you could feel like you were in a "cha chaan teng" here; but reservation was possible! My friend kindly rang earlier that day and was able to secure a table for the night (however, booking was already full for the following day, Friday; book early for weekends!).

We arrived pretty on time and we were swiftly shown to our table. As expected and with no expectation, "Good Satay" was one typical down-to-earth and local (and "exotic") style "restaurant". We were seated near the cashier and the "kitchen window" and had the full experience of the hustle and bustle. That did not bother me though; after all, different restaurants have different things to offer and different styles to embrace. What bothered me slightly was the "buzz" which radiated from the floor to the table (not sure whether there was some sort of renovation going on below...) ><".

Staff friendly, down-to-earth and prompt.

FOOD

A good few brands of beer were offered. I love to have a cold beer when having spicy asian food

We ordered two classics to share.

Hainanese chicken riceThis, I regret to say, was slightly disappointing.

The texture of the chicken was good - smooth, tender and FELT fresh. However, it tasted like.. nothing - blend and tasteless. I am sure most, if not all of you, will agree and agree the importance of the "fresh-chicken" taste and indeed the pleasure it gives us. That plate of chicken did not give me the satisfaction.

Good that there was the choice of three sauce served together. The "black" one was somewhat a bit too watery, the "red" and the "green" ones were interesting but nothing to rave about.

Soup was a bit oily and unmemorable.

Rice. Rice! This I really enjoyed and made it the "soul" for the "quartet". I would have wanted (and expected) the chicken to be the focal point; but I guess I should not complain given that there WAS SOMETHING, a highlight, a 'yummmm". As you could see, rice coloured in pale wheat yellow. Colour of rice pleasing, aroma of rice appetising, texture of rice complimenting. Every mouthful was satisfaction. It was not too oily and certainly not dull and dry. Served warm enough that a little steam (with chicken aroma) would swirl in your mouth as you savoured the rice. I enjoyed munching the rice itself without the chicken.

LaksaLaksa was GOOOOOOOD!!!

Soup base was nice. I would have loved it even more if it was slightly spicier; but the soup base was already flavourful enough !
For Laksa, I "look" for a soup base which has some "complexity" in taste. Pure spicy, pure oily, pure "curry", pure "coconut-ty" all do not work (at least for me). The Laksa served to me had a very balanced taste (curry and coconut) with hints of "complexity" (a bit of "gritty" texture). YUM!

It was a very generous portion! With the usual - egg, prawns (not teeny-weeny ones), chicken stripes (now, the chicken here tasted nice because it absorbed the Laksa essence ) (it was tender thin stripes), fish ball (reasonable mouthfeel), tofu puff, beansprouts... good good good!



Overall, not a bad experience but I wouldn't be rushing to go back. But I must add, this place was super super good value. With this price, you just could not fault any bit of the good food served.

It is important to have the right companion for each event, and I believe (do naïvely believe) that for each and every one of us, there IS one right companion out there for everything, the one.

The foods we ordered were alright but, the service that we received was BAD! My friend came highly recommended this restaurant for Singapore satay so, I took my Japanese friend to eat there last night. The waitress seemed pretty impatient as I asked for an extra set of bowl and chopstick. Before we finished our meal, the waitress asked us to hurry up because there were many customers waiting outside. Frankly, I don't mind paying more money for better service but, I don't think I will ever come back! Besides, I believe there are better tasting satay elsewhere with better service!!

Tried the Hainan Chicken Rice, which was excellent. Great value for the money.

Second dish was a mix plate with satay, prawn, rice and pork "sausage". The photo in their menu shows a big platter including thick sausage and 4 satay skewers. What came was 2 skewers and a hot dog. Now to be fair there was a good half prawn on a skewer as well, but the presentation fell well short of what the menu showed. The satay was very good as was the prawn and rice but the hot dog was just that - thankfully the peanut sauce helped a bit.

Had I not been expecting so much from their own menu I might have been perfectly happy but the mismatch between menu and actual plate left me a bit underwhelmed. But all in all the food tasted great and was good value for the price.

First time in Good Satay, hearing of numerous recommendations from openrice. Tried a couple of dishes

1. Hainanese chicken rice: Rice is reminiscent of Vietnamese broken rice. The chili sauce is a key ingredient of any good SG chicken rice, and it is disppointing. The "green" ginger sauce is more spicier. Overall the chicken rice at Mandarin Chicken rice (Jordan) or Asian Family (CWB) is better and closer to the SG hainanese chicken rice version.

2. Sambal Okra (ladies fingers): does not have the wok-hey of fried okra in sambal, rather it was more like okra boiled in sambal sauce.

3. Char Kuay Teow: Fried with a good wok-hey, kuay teow was quite tasteless.

4. Prawn Mee: a good-size king prawn, howver reeks of pork lard all over

With the recent hype of two new popular Singaporean eateries 1) Mandarin Chicken bar in TST 2) Hainan shaoye in CWB, I decided to visit the long standing "Good Satay" in TST.

In the earlier days, this was a popular pick along with Katong.
It was so hard trying to find this restaurant, but after looking at the map, it was located behind CEO.

The restaurant is located in an ancient mall that looks like the ones you see in old HK movies.

The restaurant is not a big restaurant to be exact, its like a few rented rooms next to each other with three to four dining tables inside.

I was searching the menu for the satays, but I couldn’t find it.

The satays were illustrated so nicely on the front cover, that I thought it was the menu cover. There was chicken, beef and pork, so I ordered chicken and beef.

For the mains, I ordered the chicken with rice, and a Laksa. I wasn’t sure which type of vermicelli they use so I asked if it was the thin type or the usual type, the lady who took my order was kind enough to show me a strand, so I ordered the Laksa.

While waiting for the food to arrive, I noticed they had a motto on the yellow table sheet, there were four lines with the rough translated meaning:

Satay packed with flavours
Unique chicken rice
Native laksa
Wonderful curry

I had already ordered 3 of those 4 items.


The satay was the first to arrive, instead of the chicken and beef that was ordered, it was chicken and pork, but I was too lazy to ask them to change it.
Surprisingly, the pork was tender, same with the chicken, both were full of flavours and didn’t really require the peanut sauce. The pork was better than I expected, it didn’t have that smelly pork taste.
The peanut sauce was ok, but slightly sour. So according to their motto, I suppose it is fair to say it is packed with flavours.


Next to arrive was the chicken, as soon as it arrived, it reminded me of the chicken I had at the Satay Inn at North Point, especially the soup, as it contained shredded vegetables in it.
The ground ginger sauce was interesting, it was green and tasted very nice, the soy sauce was thick and black with tiny aniseed balls in it. The chicken rice was unique as claimed in their motto, unique because of the soup and the soy sauce.


The laksa soup was extremely thick, the colour of the soup was mustard yellow, as well as vermicelli, it contained beanshoots, beancurd puffs, cuttlefish balls and fishball slices.
The laksa was not spicy, and surprisingly the vermicelli was flavoured by the soup, although there was a weird smell in it though. Overall I felt the laksa was more Malaysian than Singpore, and I was rather disappointed there weren’t any laksa leaves in the noodles, as photos show on Openrice.
It was not spicy at all and the taste was sweeter than the laksa's I have had before, I thought it was more Malaysian than Singaporean.

Overall, the food here is reasonable, and the price is ok too.

I came here yesterday for a casual lunch with 3 friends. I'd always looked at the good reviews on OpenRice, but never got around to trying it myself. We went for lunch, so there was no wait. I heard dinner can be a different story, though.

The four of us ordered the mee goreng, hainan chicken rice (half order), beef brisket curry, satay (2 orders) and beef bagus. I'd definitely recommend the chicken rice, as it was pretty close to what I'd eaten in Singapore. The beef bagus was my least favorite because there was a bit too much prawn paste (or fish oil? or something like that) mixed into the sautee.

Next time I go, I want to try the char kway teow! Haven't had that since I went to Penang last year. Must. Feed. Craving. Also, they have nasi goreng and nasi lemak on the menu too...Next time!

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Went there as part of Singapore-in-Hong-Kong meetup group. So with a Singaporean's tastebud, I would say, this place is highly recommended!
I find the food decently good. For the first time since my 9-months stint in Hong Kong, I manage to find good hainanese-style chicken rice and char kway tiao. Yes, no Thai chicken rice nonsense - like, FINALLY! The chicken rice chilli sauce isn't really up to the SG standard, but I'm happy enough with the white chicken. And yes, the rice is fragrant! *Slurp*
Beef Rendang is good, and so are the Satays. But if we have to compare with the taste found in Singapore, it's probably some distance away. And oh, Ketupat is missing. But well, to be fair, for the dishes in Good Satay's own style, I'm a happy customer.
Rojak is too sweet for my liking. And Bak Kut Teh? I believe the instant mix that can be bought from the supermarket is better. There are hardly any pork ribs to go around - I probably only spot 2 swimming miserably in the bowl? I wonder who ate them in the end. So these two dishes - disappointing.
Meal for 6 came up to be around $332 bucks. Good enough!

Recommended to try the food in Good Satay, but the lunch turned out to be quite disappointing. Menu as follows:
1. Nasi Lemak (Coconut Rice): the rice was too rich and sticky, the sambal prawns too un-spicy, and the ikan bilis a no-no
2. Chao Kuey Teow: the spiciness was tinged with sweetness
3. Mee Goreng: tastes surprisingly like the Chao Kuey Teow!
4. Chin Chow Ice: too sweet and too much santan (coconut milk)
5. Cendol: so bad it cannot be described with words!
6. Satay: Passable, but can be better marinated; the satay gravy was too bland

Overall, the food was a huge let down...should be more spicy with more chili!

I made a reservation here, and at first the woman said I couldn't reserve 7.30 because of the concert that was on that night.... I was quite annoyed so I asked ok what time can I book? then the woman said either 6-ish or after 8. By now i was annoyed so I just asked if i could book for 7pm and she gave in =P.

Upon arriving I thought to myself thank god I booked because this place was full except for the reserved table and there were already people lining up!

We ordered
sambal fried mee with seafood (squid + shrimp listed) $36
The noodles were like hokkien mee, stir fried with turmeric and sambal for flavour, and also had chillis, peppers and potatoes (why?!?), with a couple of pieces of seafood. It looked quite attractive as there was yellow, green and red.

Taste wise, it was quite spicy despite having asked for 'little spice', but still very enjoyable! It was not a dried-fried type of noodle but moist and very flavourful. I could hardly see/taste any seafood which was meant to be in the dish and found it very odd that they included potatoes... but aside from these small problems a very good dish indeed!

Prawn hot pot with vermicelli $60
This arrived sizzling/boiling when the waitress removed the lid. There were three large prawns (halved so six pieces total) in the pot, with lots of whole peppercorns which I had to remove annoyingly, and lots and lots and lots of vermicelli! I don't like vermicelli noodles which are straw-like - but these were not. they were fatter and rounder and more like 'glass noodles' than the chinese vermicelli = good! The broth although slightly oily was very tasty of the dried shrimp sauce. However, this dish can be improved by the addition of maybe a few pieces of veg (kailan or morning glory) and the peppercorns could perhaps be put in those sachets which can be removed before eating? rather than being scattered above and under the noodles....

Fried morning glory with sambal $30
The veg was the first to arrive and as I was extremely hungry I ate quite a bit of it! It was actually really tasty and well-cooked. I hate it when they fry morning glory briefly with lots of oil so all i can do is chew and chew and chew... I think this veg needs to be simmered for a period of time to soften - which they did here!

A very good experience indeed. Staff were efficient (in seating guests and taking orders and delivery of food), not particularly nice but not rude either!

Went here today for lunch with my friend and tried out their famous Hainan Chicken Rice!

I was attracted to their interesting menu! It rhymed and made me laugh!

The atmosphere of the restaurant was pretty quiet when we turned up, which was around 12:15pm. It started to get very crowded at around 1pm!

we ordered the hainan chicken rice! There came soup, rice and hainan chicken! The rice was my favorite as the oil was just right and the hainan chicken was delicious! Very soft and tender! Definitely good for value - $36!

my friend ordered a side dish - chicken satay ($20ish) it was again very delicious! I just had one slice of chicken satay and the chicken tasted soooo soft, so soft that I couldn't even distinguish if it was chicken or pork! It was really that good! The sauce was also excellent, sweet and yummy!

my friend then went for the dessert - black glutinous rice with cocoa~ it was not of a big portion ($12), but definitely delicious~ nice black glutinous rice: soft, crunchy and yummy!

All in all, it was a good meal: cost around $74 per head. Service wasn't particularly good coz we went there pretty early. It was rather short of staff at the beginning, but then at around 1pm, it got better!! Definitely worth going!