The Satay Bar at Awana
85 Sloane Avenue, London SW3 (020 7584 8880)
Meal for two, £50
Street food in Kensington: it's a non sequitur, isn't it. Kensington doesn't do street food. It does girls in Manolo Blahniks and poodles in coats by Burberry. Street food in Kensington is as likely as an attractive member of parliament. Or a good restaurant in Droitwich. Actually, no. You are far more likely to find gap-toothed peasants turning morsels of food over smoky charcoal burners, squatting on a Kensington kerb than you are to find a good restaurant in Droitwich.
But you get my point. Satay is Malaysian street food, and there is nothing street about Kensington. I therefore expect that, before I'm even done telling you about the lovely example served at Awana for between £7.50 and £9 a pop, self-important old Asia hands will be banging off emails about what a schmuck I am for advising people to spend so much cash on snack food. And don't I know that it's only the real thing if it's cooked in Kajang by a homeless six-year-old over the last burning embers of her family's wooden shack? And £7.50? In Kuala Lumpur you can feed a family of six for that and still have change for a cab home. And so on.
And the answer is yes, I know all this. Or at least the un-hyperbolic version of this. But that doesn't mean Awana's satay isn't to be enjoyed in and of itself.
It was Loyd Grossman who recommended it. We had been discussing the dismal state of Britain's hospital food, which Loyd spent so long trying to improve, and we were getting depressed so we decided to talk about nice food instead. Try the satay bar at Awana, he said. It's very good. And the rotis - buttery flaky breads - are to die for. So I did. And they were.
Awana is a glossy, shiny space decked out in imperial golds and browns and staffed by delicate women in black with a talent for appearing out of nowhere. The small satay bar is at the back and is one of those spaces where you can eat by yourself without feeling like a total saddo, which is something I like doing. Or often have to do, which may not be the same thing. This time, though,
I had a friend, so we could shake down the menu. We ordered a bowl of caramelised chilli peanuts with crispy, salty-sweet anchovies, and picked at those while our chef went to work. The menu is short: five fish, three meat and three vegetable. (Though, as the latter includes things like tofu and capsicum, why would you?)
Because we are men, with a taste for blood, we ordered all three of the meat satay. The beef sirloin had the densest, most satisfying texture. The lamb won on fatty succulence, and the chicken for its ability to hold the smokiness of the grill. But all three had a rich, mouth-coating savouriness, helped by their highly textured and sprightly satay sauce. Both of the seafood satay - one of tiger prawns, another of mixed seafood with a buxom scallop and a carefully trimmed piece of squid - showed a clear sensitivity to the play of hot coals on delicate fish. And with this came those fabulous roti, the greased dough beaten out in front of us until we could have read a newspaper through it, and then refolded and refolded again before griddling to give the well-buttered flakiness that Loyd had so accurately described.
Was it an authentic 'street' experience? I have no idea, and I really don't care. But it was a satisfying one, and at an unemasculating price - and that's what matters.
