The Satok Weekend Market in Kuching, Malaysia is the biggest outdoor wet market I’ve ever been to. I feel like that’s an impressive thing to say, because fresh fruit markets are like all I do. I might skip the museum, or forgo the sunset boat tour. But I go to every fruit market. Every time. Sunday morning I headed across the river to Kuching’s biggest weekend market.
About Satok Weekend Market
The first thing to know about the Satok Weekend Market is that it isn’t the Satok Weekend Market anymore.
People still call it that, but the market is no longer located on Satok Street (Jalan Satok). In 2013 the government moved everyone across the river about 5km from Kuching town to a sprawling complex called Medan Niaga Satok, in an area locals refer to as Kubah Ria.
It’s a bit sad for people who remember the old market (I do), a casual shamble of tarps thrown up to shade shoppers as they perused the carts and impromptu tables blocking the street. It grew organically over 25 or 30 years into a big, maze-like, and entirely temporary event. It had all the magic of a flash mob — arriving in a flurry of activity Saturday afternoon, and disappearing completely by Sunday evening.
The new Satok Weekend Market is like a fairground. It has enormous, open-air structures with soaring roofs supported by steel beams and bolts. Below them, people tumble over each other through the crowds, heavy plastic bags swaying as they grocery shop. The market has everything, roughly arranged into fresh meat, seafood and eggs and dried powders and vegetables you’ll recognize and vegetables you won’t.
The scale of the market is either intimidating or exhilarating, depending on your appetite for markets and crowds. To make things a bit easier, I’ve drawn a map.
A Map of Satok Weekend Market
Here is the market viewed from above, rendered in my childish drawing. As you can see, the market covers 5 entire buildings and then sprawls onto the sidewalks.
The road looping around the market is entirely filled with a slow queue of cars. As a pedestrian, I felt bad for the drivers slowly trying to make their escape from the jams. If you drive to the market, try to park outside and then walk.
And importantly, since you’re going to be here awhile, the toilets are located in the round building and costs 0.20 RM to enter.
What to do at Satok Weekend Market
Satok Weekend Market is a food market.
There’s a small area near the bathrooms where you can buy clothing, but otherwise, the entire market is dedicated to food. No helicopter toys or balloons, no racks of tudungs, the Malay headscarves, nobody thrusting ugly watches or overly priced belts at you as you try to pick your way through the crowd.
More specifically, Satok Weekend Market is a fresh ingredients market.
The market has an area set out with snacks like apam balik, a crispy crepe folded in half over crushed peanuts and sugar (contains eggs, not vegan) and tables of my favorite snack, nyonya kueh (vegan), as well as tanks and tanks of sweetened juices and sugar cane for thirsty shoppers.
This area has mostly quick bites to keep shoppers going rather than to sit down and have a meal. There’s also a food court, but I didn’t stop there, except to ask for the bathroom.
The majority of the market is dedicated to fruits and vegetables, fresh meats and spices, and other things that you need to cook.
This was the perfect market for doing my two favorite things: people watching, and looking for weird fruits and vegetables.
If you’ve found this blog, then you’re probably like me and the unique rare fruits and vegetables really make traveling like an adventure. Who knows what interesting life forms you’ll find?
Here’s are a few of my favorites that I found at the Satok Weekend Market.
Pisang Tanduk
Bananas are supposed to be boring, but in Borneo they’re not. There are so many different kinds of bananas, but the one I saw most at Satok Weekend Market was the tanduk, or bull’s horn banana.
These bananas are huge. It’s hard to see in the picture, but each banana about 1.5 feet long. Like a plantain they’re often used for cooking, but if you wait until the skin turns black you can eat them raw. Opening your mouth big enough to take a bite is worthy of many dirty jokes.
I didn’t buy any, by the way. I just think they’re cool.
Dabai
I bought a whole kilogram of these, because they are that delicious. Dabai (Canarium odontophyllum) is sometimes called the tropical olive because they are a fatty fruit with a similar fat content to avocado. They taste naturally salty, with a satisfying savoriness of the elusive umami.
But they’re not an instant gratification food. You can’t just start gobbling them down in the market, which is probably good because you’d never make it home with a full bag.
When you buy them, they’re as hard as little marbles. You need to blanch them, as instructed in my Instagram video.
Dabai is one of the more expensive fruits because it’s such a delicious delicacy. It’s sold by weight, and the price can be anywhere from 6RM per kilo to nearly 30RM per kilo depending on the quality.
Typically, look for Dabai with firm, shiny black skin (no wrinkles) and a large yellow spot on the top, where it’s broken off the stem. The larger the yellow spot, the more flesh and less seed you’ll get. I bought the mid-range ones at 16RM/kilo, took them home to my Airbnb, and split the whole bag with my friend that night. Yum.
Engkala
Engkala is one of the truly unique fruits. There’s really nothing like it that I can compare it to. When it’s ripe, it has beautiful pink skin. As it softens, you can pop off it’s little acorn cap to reveal pure white flesh with a texture somewhere between an avocado and an elastic band. It’s rubbery and creamy at the same time. It’s just weird.
It’s also one of those rare fruits that are fairly abundant in Sarawak, and seen nowhere else. So make sure to taste these when you get the chance.
Coconuts
I arrived to Satok Weekend Market thirsty, and by the time I left in the heat of a Sunday afternoon I’d had three different kinds of coconuts.
Coconuts were really abundant, more so than at other markets I visited around Kuching. I don’t know if this was a season fluke, but I was grateful because I love coconuts.
The three kinds of coconuts were biasa, pandan, and rendah kuning. My favorite is the biasa, the normal one, which is usually very watery, slightly salty, and feels hydrating. The pandan is smaller, rounder, and has a sweeter, more aromatic flavor that people liken to the herb, pandan. Rendah kuning, or the yellow dwarf, is a coconut with a yellow exterior that tastes pretty similar to the biasa but generally (in my coconut connoisseur experience) a smaller nut.
Coconut connoisseurship may be even more unusual than durian connoisseurship. Satok Market is one of the few places you can attune your tastebuds with a coconut sampling flight.
Asam Paya or Kelubi
This fruit, Eleiodoxa conferta, looks like snakefruit. It’s not. It’s not even the same family.
Also, you will never, ever, eat them fresh for calories or pleasure.
I tried. I like sour things. I like the way it makes your face seize up and contort and for one brief second you feel extremely alive. I took one bite and that was enough life for the day.
Asam paya is used as a condiment, sliced thinly or pounded with chilies, onion, ginger, sugar, lime and shrimp paste to give flavoring to raw fish salads, something else I will never eat. So I may never taste this again, but I’m glad I did.
I came to Satok Weekend Market looking to experience something new.
Ramput Laut
I’d come to Satok Weekend Market in an adventurous mood. I was hoping that, given it’s size, I’d be able to find something new for me to try. That’s a steep order. Like I said, I’ve been to a lot of markets in Asia. Just check the market page of this blog.
Even after my asam paya debacle I was still in an adventurous mood. So I investigated these plates of hair-like seaweed. The vendor told me that you wash the seaweed in hot water, then serve it as ulam, salad, with a dressing of vinegar and chilies and diced tomato and cucumber.
I took some home to my Airbnb to to eat on a salad with my dabai.
Durian
You didn’t think I’d let a whole post go by without talking about durian, did you? Why do you think I was really at the Satok Weekend market? It wasn’t for Asam Paya and seaweed, I’ll tell you that.
I found three stalls selling the regular durian, Durio zibethinus, but no other species. I don’t know if it was because we were approaching the end of the season, but I was a little disappointed in the durian situation.
But the scarcity produced a flurry of activity that was interesting to watch.
This van of durian unloaded while I was completing my lap of the market. When I walked by the second time, it had attracted quite a crowd.
I watched for a few minutes, before walking out of the market to a place where my Uber wouldn’t have to wade through the insane traffic.
I know where to get better durian in Kuching.
Conclusion
The Satok Weekend Market is a great place to spend about an hour or an hour and a half people watching, looking for fresh ingredients, and drinking all the kinds of coconuts.
It’s especially great if you are staying in an Airbnb with a kitchen, like I did, because it meant I could take home some of these weird ingredients to try cooking myself.
It’s not a great place to buy durian, or at least it wasn’t when I was there. That same week, I found Durio graveolens and both better quality and more abundant durians at other markets, which I will post about soon in the Ultimate Guide to Kuching Markets.
To get a more indepth look at the Satok Weekend Market, make sure to watch the video.
How to Get to Satok Weekend Market
The market is now located far enough away from Kuching city center that it’s not really walkable. The tourism website suggests taking a van from the Outdoor Market in town, but a very easy and cheap way to go is to take Uber.
From my apartment near the Petanak Market, it cost me 7.36 RM ($1.66USD) and 15 minutes to go to Satok Weekend Market.
WARNING: if you type “Satok Weekend Market” into Google Maps, it will give you directions to the old Market.
Instead, type “Pasar Satok” on Taman Foong Joon or just use the map below.
About This Map Use this map to navigate to different places in Malaysia where you can find durian.
Victor Wong says
Is Pasar Satok opened during weekdays? Any fruit or vegie market opens weekend?
[email protected] says
Pasar Satok is closed on the weekdays, just open weekends. Check each of the markets for their open hours and days of week.
russel says
hi ! good to see all the rare foods in the market -makes me really hungry right now ! If you don’t mind can i know the operating hours for satok night market ?
Crystal says
Hi,
I am interested to bring my family to this market after reading your post. Do you know is Durian is still in season in Oct? And does this market open on Monday or Sunday evening? Thanks!
[email protected] says
Hi Crystal,
I think October will be a low time for durian, and you’d be better off coming later like in January. The market is not open on Monday and will be in the process of closing down on Sunday evening. Best go by Sunday afternoon!
Clair says
Absolutely love veg and fruit markets in SEA and I have very fond memories of pisang tanduk! Thanks-you for the memory its been awhile.
We had a tall clump of tanduk growing way across the dirt track from our home in the forest. There used to be an American working on a house there just beyond in the tall, thick wet, green grass forest clearing. He had imported a very, very old man from India to work on his gothic/Indian/British-suburban Taj mahal creation in the jungle which because of copious stain glass windows most who saw it thought was a church. Polish American married to a Brit of Indian decent. The idea was to move in and there raise his family. He had mental health issues unfortunately which were more than graphically manifested in the appearance of the house. An idiot savant he could speak hundreds of languages, picking them up like children pick up dirt. Everything that was done on that house he promptly rejected in multiple languages. His own designs. Changing his mind each time. So each time another brand new section started because he couldn’t afford to tear down the last or rebuild it. Slowly the workers which he didn’t pay left in drips and drabs except for the old man. He also fell foul of building regulators with every new plan. Officially there aren’t any building regulations but he omitted purely out of stupidity ever paying the bribes that made that so. Till eventually he ran out of money and suppliers. His wife sold absconding with the proceeds and their two children. Having originally been impressed enough to marry him I dont think she had realised he had health problems until quite late. A Jain vegetarian she rarely visited because she was afraid of stepping on anything living, when she did she never uttered a word too busy concentrating on the ground. I think she had long decided she never wanted to live here. The house was in her name, she was basically funding the mess with a primary school teaching job. She only managed to get the original price of the ground back. He fled their debts soon after going back to America and we’ve never seen them again.
Everything was quite once more. At least for awhile. Pisang tanduk had been there for ever, certainly as long as I’ve been here and before, even before the house. It was nothing but a deep well full of snakes and pisang tanduk in the same tall lush wet green grass clearing. I always admired it. I loved the way the long bananas hung. Most bananas including our own grow in tight bunches, bananas curving upward like clasped closed hands. But Pisang tanduk’s giant fruit were long and curvaceous, hanging open and spread out like a giant flower whose petals were reminiscent of oriental pagodas. Attractive and very elegant. Once I braved the snakes and wet and took a ripe one, it was delicious, fruit bats, rats, birds bees and hundreds of other insects got the rest. The flesh a little coarse but surprisingly sweet, without any other flavours. I never took any more as we had enough bananas of our own, the tiny little thin skinned ones, sweet with a hint of lime. I always thought of growing tanduk in our garden purely as an ornamental, but there it was so I didn’t have to act on my impulse.
Sadly the old Indian who created the fantastical concrete mouldings stuck all over the house for four years was never paid and he took revenge on pisang tanduk after he and the house were abandoned by the owners. Living in the bowels of the ruins alone we didn’t even know he was still there mixing and scrapping concrete. He became mad as hell one day, the concrete ran out and unable to phone anyone, his desperate family thousands of miles away, no food to eat he went amok. Before I could dig up a shoot he had smashed the grove to the ground and almost every remaining entire window pane in the building. Discovering his plight that same day I gave him a 1000US$ so he could pack up his small belongings and go back home to his family in India and still have something even though not a fortune to show for his absence.
After a season and much to my delight Pisang tanduk grew back. Small at first but vigourous. I relaxed. Unfortunately yet again before I could get a shoot cutting the new owner suddenly arrived out of the blue and poisoned the roots and concreted it over so he could park his car. So that was that. There was an attempt to tear down the rest of the house but then it was as suddenly abandoned again. All that remains are some crumbling walls and a small smooth carpark, building rubble fills most of the well.
I have seen pisang tanduk for sale at a few plant markets including the one in Bangkok but the shoots were always to big to fit in my suitcase. I guess I probably wont be able to grow it now as I’ve never seen it around here again, but it was very lovely while it was there and however it may have got there. I will never know.
[email protected] says
Hi Clair, thanks for sharing your story about Pisang Tanduk!
Terence Chan says
Hi, I’m a durian lover myself. I’m traveling to Kuching this weekend. Do tell me, where to find good durian in Kuching?
Thanks!
[email protected] says
Hi Terence, I think unfortunately that now is the wrong time! Try coming back in August 🙂
Gracie says
Lindsay, I feel like we are soul sisters. I too, may skip the museum and the boat tour. But never the market. I’ll have to make it to Malaysia one day. It looks like a fruit hunter’s dream.