Sekali is an exciting popup restaurant:
It was brought to my attention by our indefatigable @digga on another thread, but it deserves its own thread for its ambition. (I haven’t had any of their food.)
Here is their latest event:
I’m actually the polar opposite of “indefatigable.” I wonder at my potential if I actually sleep > 4 hours a night or could keep up with all the new posts.
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Sekali’s latest popup was today, at Lamplighter in Cambridge:
I got everything, and everything was excellent. The top of the top were the curry puffs, the duck roti (except the “roti” were soft buns – delicious, but I had to make a quick expectation adjustment), the tomato-cashew rice, and the green curry sausage. But, really, there was nothing that was not superb. Haven’t had the cheesecake yet, and am looking forward to the kaya jam at breakfast tomorrow.
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A few observations that might be useful to others who want to sample this terrific food:
- Dinners (either takeout or onsite) that accept reservations sell out early – in under an hour in my experience.
- The Lamplighter one was first-come-first-served. They said they’d start selling at 4:30, serving the food either to be eaten there or in containers to be taken out.
- I got there at 4:10 and I was about 15th on line. By 4:30, I estimate there were at least 30 people behind me, possibly more. Most people took away large bags of food, although the person ahead of me waited patiently for over half an hour only to get one order of curry puffs and one of chicken skewers to share with a companion at the bar.
- They were starting their second large sheet pan of curry puffs by the time they got to me. The young woman at the counter whispered that people getting there after 4:30 were unlikely to find much food left.
- The people on line were almost all young, and obviously with money to spend on food. A group of twenty-somethings behind me were knowledgeably discussing summer truffles vs winter-.
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I missed several Sekali popups this summer because their schedule did not match mine, but I made it to their latest at Lamplighter yesterday. This was the menu:
I sampled each of the dishes (I’ve bought their kaya jam and chili crisp previously). They were mostly hits, but there was a miss or two. The shumai were excellent but there was some package variation. One container had a nice balance of salted egg-yolk and chili crisp in the sauce, another was mainly chili crisp. The two containers of nasi padang were also dissimilar, one a but bland, the other nicely dotted with anchovy. The biggest miss was that the pastry for both the curry puffs and the egg tarts was a bit soft, and even a bit soggy on the tarts (a consequence of the tart cups being covered with plastic lids). The fillings in both were, however, delicious.
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As part of our NYE dinner two nights ago we had this from Sekali:
Everything was very good, and very elegantly presented. The fillings of the dumplings were entire shrimp, split and stuffed with pork, with the shrimp tails sticking out of the delicate wrappers. The sticky rice in the Cornish hen (itself cooked to a beautiful bronze, yet moist) had all kinds of delights – a little sausage here, a little soy bean there.
The meal came with clear re-heating instructions.
This is a very good outfit, and I thank @digga for bringing it to my attention.
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Derrick Teh and his team do not disappoint. I first ordered when he sometimes operated out of Momi Nomi’s space. Delicious food, visually pulls one in and agree, elegantly presented.
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They continue not to disappoint. I’ve had several of their offerings at Lamplighter since I last posted about them, and everything has been stellar. Run, people, to their food. don’t amble.
But, if ambling is your preferred mode of locomotion, let not your heart be troubled, as Sean Inanity likes to say – they will amble to you next week:
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Thanks for posting this. I am wondering if anyone has used WECO to order food, what their experience has been ? Me, my order is in for Sekali’s pop-up at Momi Nonmi on 7/30.
We ordered from WECO a few times (it’s probably been over a year). I liked the idea in principle, and their customer service was great, and deliveries were on time and packed properly. But we didn’t love the food - it just ws not to our tastes. I think it’s worth trying to figure out if it works for you; I know people who are quite happy with it!
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Of course the food depends on what you’re ordering and what the source is. WECO itself doesn’t make the food. I have my order coming from Sekali this week, and I’ll report back. As a point of curious fact, WECO insists that they’ll charge you after delivery, not before.
Yes, we received invoices (via email) in the late afternoon or evening. From what I remember, they did their own cooking - though things may have changed since our last orders.
I pretty much agree with everything truman posted. We ordered from WECO twice in early 2022 and liked it but didn’t love it so never used them again.
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You and @Stiv are right – WECO appears to be an outfit that pretty much entirely sells its own food. What confused me is that here and there they deliver the food of others. Mamaleh’s back in May and Sekali now, and I had put them down in my mind as a food delivery service, not the food make&deliver service they basically are.
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I’ve just commented on the WECO delivery aspect elsewhere, but a quick comment on the Sekali food: The curry laksa was excellent, but it did require two pots (that I now have to clean) and some precision timing and temperature control (90 seconds for the noodles, the curry sauce to heat but not simmer). When I order food in I want to think less, clean less, and eat more.
The curry puffs were HUGE, the biggest I’ve had and, while age might not wither Cleopatra’s variety, size certainly withers the variety and mix of textures and tastes of a curry puff. The ratio of pastry to filling gets wronger as the size gets larger.
Appendix: Consider a spherical samosa of radius r surrounded by a pastry shell of fixed thickness d. The ratio of pastry to filling gets smaller as r gets larger.
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Sekali did a pop-up at Momi Nonmi Cambridge St., Cambridge advance order only. I am trying to pace myself, eat slowly.
The Heirloom Tomato Salad visually stunning - best tomatoes I've had yet this season, vibrant green sugar snap peas and perfectly cooked shrimp, all luscious with calamansi labne, adding just a little heat.
All so delicious. Food prepared with a lot of love, pride and care IMHO.
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From Weco:
“In case you missed it, there’s an epic Guest Chef situation happening next week, folks! We’re absolutely thrilled to be featuring several dishes from James Beard Award Nominee Chef Derrick Teh of Sekali!”
That’s the week of 2/26–3/1:
You have to hunt around in the page to get all the Sekali offerings. They’re intermixed with other stuff. The curry puffs, for example, are at the bottom, just above the Mini Broccoli Cheddar Frittatas.
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We went to the Branch Line Sekali popup last month based on your post, good tip there! Speaking of Branch Line, Charles Draghi of Erbaluce fame seems to now be working there and did a popup the week after. There’s another one coming next week.
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