The new shop that has replaced Manhattan Fish Market is a new up and coming Indonesian Javanese restaurant called Ayam Penyet AP (Literally Smashed Chicken of Ap). Ayam Penyet is a very famous dish from Indonesia that actually involves the food getting smashed. I first tried this when I was in Singapore, eating at a food court. What happens is that the chicken is firstly fried, then grinded bits of peanuts are scattered on top of the chicken then it is smashed using a very unique hammer and served with rice. I have not really found out the significance of smashing the chicken.
This restaurant even has a website http://www.ayampenyet-ap.com/
This chain has quite a few outlets in different malls. It has been quite successful so far. So i myself wanted to go try it.
So lets start with how the restaurant looks like!
They didn't really do much to the place after taking it over from MFM but it still is very nice and cosy place to be. It even has free wifi for you to work! It has small rectangular wooden tables and ordinary wooden chairs.
Heres the full menu. Please take note of this, rice comes seperate. Meaning, a portion of Ayam Penyet at RM8 does not come with rice which is at RM1.50.
So now, onto the real food:
1st thing is Empal Penyet ( Smashed Beef ) @ RM 7.00
Whats on the plate? You have one small chunk of beef, fried tempe, fried taufu , raw lettuce, spinach, cucumber and also sambal. You can see the scattered peanuts that were smashed with the beef on top of it. Honestly , it didn't look smashed to me.
The beef was abit on the tough side . It did not feel very nice to chew and in fact some small chunks got stuck in between my teeth. Onto flavour, I think it was an average effort. It could taste alittle bit of beef, but I personally feel that it was not the best I have tasted.
Now the dish comes with something I have never tried before which is tempe. My mum tells me it is made of Soy. I tried some of it. It tasted bland but I think that is how it is supposed to taste althought i did not much fancy it. However, it is something healthy so healthy things never taste that good.
Nugget rating = 5.5 nuggets
Price = Burns a small hole.
Next, we had Ayam Pop @ RM 8.00
What is this ayam pop? According to the menu, Ayam pop is "chicken steamed in spices and fried with oil". So it is steamed first then fried. I was a bit confused about that cause when the dish came, I was actually expecting steamed chicken but it was fried. Defeats the whole point of healthy living anyways.
I want to give a thumbs up to the chicken. It was actually done fairly well. The skin is fried till it was perfectly golden brown without any spots browner than the other. The skins also is filled with alot of flavour and aroma. The meat falls of the bone easily and also has a very tender feeling to it.
It comes with a special type of "sambal + nuts" but it taste sort of like a sweet sauce more.
I do not think they actually "penyet" this chicken.
Nugget rating = 7 nuggets
Price = Also burns a slight hole in the pocket.
I think we should also move on to something important which is the sambal!
I totally love this sambal. As somebody who loves something really spicy, I give this one a thumbs up! It totally has enough "kick" to make someone go wild! It is not like the sambal we have on nasi lemak. This sambal has onions and a few other ingredients that are mixed together.
Nugget rating = 7.5 nuggets!
Check out the total bill for both me and my mum:
All in all, I think the name speaks for itself. The chickens are good, the rest are just average. On price wise, I would say that this is the price you would pay to eat at Macdonalds. As this is also a franchise, RM8 or RM9 for a meal is nothing uncommon. They have a set promotion that is coming RM9.90 for a choice of Ayam Penyet/Udang Penyet + rice + drink!
Worth to give it a try!
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