A Pflugerville Indonesian food truck turned into a Round Rock Indonesian restaurant this fall. Sate opened its new physical restaurant in Round Rock at 150 Sundance Parkway, Suite 400 on November 2.
The counter-service restaurant focuses on Indonesian barbecue and dishes. Per the name — which is Indonesian for satays (aka skewers) — there are skewers with ayam (grilled marinated chicken), babi (grilled marinated pork), beef, and tempeh. Then there are dishes like ayam bakar (charcoal-grilled chicken, ice, and pickled vegetables), gado-gado (a salad with steamed vegetables and peanut sauce); rice cakes, and rice both yellow (turmeric and coconut milk) or jasmine. Everything is being grilled using bintochan charcoal on a yakitori grill (as opposed to the direct-flame grill the truck used).
Sate co-owners and couple Tina Villarreal and Eugene Villarreal started the food business in 2019 as a pop-up so that they could recreate the food they missed from Indonesia (where Tina is from; Eugene is an Austin native). They opened the food truck in July 2021, which closed sometime in 2022. Throughout the years, they had always wanted to open a physical restaurant.
“We wanted to create a cultural destination for our friends and fans to introduce Indonesian cuisine to our community, which has a low representation,” they write over email to Eater. “Meat on a stick is a popular food item and satay translates well here in Texas.”
The couple plans on expanding Sate’s menu eventually, with more grilled dishes such as seafood and fish. They also offer weekend specials, which will be announced on its Instagram and Facebook pages.
Austin’s Indonesian food options include Brentwood food truck Yeni’s Fusion and Davis Springs Chinese-Indonesian restaurant Twin Panda.
Sate’s hours are from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Takeout and delivery orders can be placed online; there are indoor dine-in areas.