Satay brothers, Atwater market, Montreal

I spent a nice sunny Saturday playing tennis in the early afternoon followed by some frisbee.  We played for a few hours until our mutual friend Schwin arrived.  He had just purchased a new skate board and wanted to get used to it’s ride.

We left the tennis courts, grabbed ourselves a couple of pints from the dépanneur and headed over to one of the neighborhood parks.  We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the park, throwing the frisbee and enjoying a few drinks.

Eventually Schwin made mention of a new restaurant he wanted to try near the Atwater market.   It wasn’t quite supper time yet so we decided to slowly make our way to the market on foot.  Once there we walked up to the Satay brothers counter and got ready to order.

courtesy foodspotting.com

I was somewhat familiar with the food on the menu so I took over the ordering responsibilities.  6 “brochettes” (porc kebabs), 3 steamed porc bun sandwiches and at the suggestion of who I assumed is one of the owners we added a spicy papaya salad.

The Satay brothers is one of those places that only offers a few dishes but they do them really well.  There was also a soup and one or two more items you could order but that was it in terms of the menu.

When we placed our order the owner insisted we also take a salad and asked us if we enjoyed spicy food.  When we answered that we did, he advised that he would add a little “heat” to the salad.  The salad was surprisingly refreshing with the green papaya being crunchy.  I believe there was some fish sauce, minced peanuts and some type of small red chili pepper that had been chopped up.  It also made me realize that green papaya might have been the ingredient I couldn’t identify in the Korean cold noodle dish naengmyeon.

Everything about the meal reminded me enormously of South Korea.

We sat down at one of the picnic tables and waited for our order to be ready.  It wasn’t very long after we sat down that the dishes arrived.

First up the Papaya salad:

Picture courtesy of Montreal shopping tours.com

Here’s what was left by the time I took out my camera to take a picture:

A few bites of the salad and we eached tried one of the brochettes with cucumbers.  They were well cooked, moist and tasty and came with I beleive was a type of peanut sauce.  Nothing out of the ordinary but definitely an above average brochette when dipped in the sauce.  I personally thought that the sliced cucumbers could of used some type of seasoning.  None the less the combination of porc and cucumber was a good pairing:

Finally we attacked the steamed porc bun sandwiches. The sandwich itself included some coriander, sliced cucumber, thick moist porc slices and a light, sweet dark sauce I did not recognize.  It was the first time I had this specific type of bread bun.  The texture of the bread reminded me of Naan, but slightly thicker and chewier.  It’s also in the shape of a “U”, that’s to say the bread is folded in half with the contents of the sandwiches sitting nicely inside.   All in all a very good sandwich!

The meal cost us a total of 30$ without the purchase of anything to drink.  That’s approximately 10$ per person for some salad, two brochettes and a steamed porc bun/sandwich.  Well worth the price, if you have a chance to stop and eat here don’t pass it up.  I know I’ll be stopping in anytime I’m in the neighborhood!

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