MELBOURNE | There’s a new spot in Chinatown, specialising in Indonesian-style smashed sambal fried chicken, ayam geprek. It’s called Geprek, and I recently popped in and met up with owners Anthony Sandoval and Vivian Veronica, for What’s on Melbourne.
Anthony and Vivian, who hail from Indonesia, started Geprek as a pop-up in Sydney’s Burwood Chinatown Night Markets in 2022, before opening a bricks and mortar store in Sydney’s Chinatown in 2023. It’s been a huge success, and the couple didn’t want Melburnians to miss out on the fun.
Fried chicken might evoke simplicity in your mind, but the dishes at Geprek are anything but basic. Chicken is marinated in a garlic and chilli-based marinade before being deep-fried to order and smashed with a pestle and mortar. Compared to ayam penyet, which smashes Javanese-style fried chicken, ayam geprek smashes American-style fried chicken. The chicken is served on rice, with your choice of sambal, and optional sides.
It’s the sambal that really elevates each plate at Geprek. Anthony and Vivian are passionate about showcasing the breadth of variety in Indonesia’s regional sambals, and offer five of them. They range from the fragrant, spicy, chilli, lemongrass, ginger, and lime juice based Balinese sambal matah, through to popular medium-heat sambal terasi (what most Aussies think of when they think of sambal), and fiery Javanese sambal bawang. The latter features a lot more chilli, garlic, shallots, shrimp paste, and lemon juice.
My personal favourite is the Sumatran sambal ijo. It uses green chilli, stir-fried with dried shrimp, red shallots, garlic, and assorted spices. The result is a medium heat sambal that balances the heat and freshness in a way that goes well with the ayam geprek.
If you don’t want spice, you can choose from toppings like chicken rendang, salted egg sauce, and satay sauce.
Toppings include things like fried egg, mozzarella, and extra sauce, and there’s also the option of swapping out white rice for coconut rice or Indomie noodles. You can also choose from a few sides like satay chicken skewers.
To drink, it’s a small selection of sodas and Indonesian drinks like Teh Kotak.
Geprek
Shop 13, Midtown Plaza
Melbourne
Victoria 3000
Australia
Telephone: n/a
E-mail: n/a
Website
Open
Mon – Sun: 11:00am to 9:00pm