by Farah 'Fairy' Mahdzan 
(21 Oct 2005)
It was a Sunday afternoon and Orchard Road was swarming with people - among them, sizeable crowds of Filipina maids, happily socializing on their day off from work. As I ambled along in multicultural Singapore that fine September day, a signage at Lucky Plaza made me stop dead in my tracks. Firstly, it was the TEH BOTOL advertisement that caught my thirsty eyes. Secondly it was the intriguing menu that was being boldy publicized - AYAM PENYET. The English translation provided on the Indonesian sign was "Smashed Fried Chicken." (I don't know about you, but I always thought penyet was spelled "penyek." Maybe it's different the way Malaysians say it ('penyek') as opposed to how Indonesians say it - 'penyet'. Food for thought!) The SPCA would hate me for this, but of course my mind started to conjure comical images of poor chickens being flattened to death with a steamroller in the slaughterhouse, all ready to be served up as ayam penyet. Nonetheless my curiousity got the better of my imagination. So off I galloped into Lucky Plaza to check out what this ayam penyet business was about. And apparently this was it. |
A recipe straight from Surabaya, ayam penyet is fried chicken condimented with some killer sambal and kangkung plus cabbage and ulamraja leaves (for the 'cooling' factor), And yes it did look like the chicken had taken a bit of beating. |
Naturally, we had our chicken with white rice. The ayam penyet is nice and savory and makes for quite a bit of a meal. The sambal was hot and made us perspire like athletes. Eating sambal is a sport on its own anyway. I had also ordered a side of bakso meatballs, which I could barely finish. Fried chicken, bakso meatballs and just plain greed will do that to you. Our good friend Tante Safe of Singapore bought us lunch. Thanks Tante. :) Would I eat ayam penyet again? Absolutely. |
To wash our meal down, we had our mugs of teh botol. At 1.80 Singapore
dollars a pop,
it is the priciest Sosro drink that I've ever had if you compare the
conversion factor of
the rupiah (close to Rp.10,000). A bottle of teh botol in Indonesia is
typically around
Rp.2,000 - Rp.3,000.
And really, no true teh botol-er would drink their teh with ice.
Come on, it's even documented
"Devotees say that for the best experience you should sip Teh Botol Sosro with a straw, straight from a bottle that has been fridge-cooled: Don't pour it into a cup and put ice cubes in it." |
So much for being a teh botol devotee at Ayam Penyet! The teh botol
was actually from
the Tetrapacks. The inclusion of ice gives the illusion of a full mug.
Oh, and remember my little imagination of chickens being splatted
for the purpose
of being served as ayam penyet? Here's a little animation to put
that thought to
virtual reality.
No chickens were harmed in the making of the following
presentation.
The same cannot be said for the fates of the chickens
featured above.
HAPPY MAKAN
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