Mandy Yin is Malaysian-born Chinese of Peranakan Nyonya heritage. She moved from Kuala Lumpur to London at 11 and later studied and practised corporate law. She eventually gave this up for a career in food. Mandy watched her mother cook all the family dishes they'd eaten for years and meticulously wrote down every step. She combined this knowledge of the fundamentals of Malaysian cuisine - its mind-boggling array of snacks, sharing dishes, slow-cooked curries and stews, strong spices and deep flavours, famous spicy laksa noodle soup and the nation's beloved sambal chilli sauce - with her memories of boisterous, hot hawker centres in Kuala Lumpur. Now, she owns and runs critically acclaimed Sambal Shiok in London and is regularly featured in the national press. Mandy's life goal is to showcase the exciting variety of Malaysian food. She hopes that this book will inspire many to cook Malaysian dishes, to seek out and eat Malaysian food wherever the reader is in the world and, finally, to travel to Malaysia to fully understand and experience the richness of its cuisine and culture. For fellow Malaysians, she hopes that you will find great comfort in these pages, as she did recreating nostalgic tastes whilst writing this book during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
Vibrant, face-slapping laksa... powerful, satisfying, the very stuff of memories. * Jay Rayner, restaurant critic for the Observer * Mandy's food is real, wonderful, exciting, classic and contemporary all at the same time. To know and understand the secrets of great Malaysian food as cooked and orchestrated by Mandy would be a revelation for anyone from budding amateur to the most experienced cooks. * John Torode * Sambal Shiok is a place of joy and great cooking. A beautiful thing to have in London and a wonder to have at my own back door. * Giles Coren, restaurant critic for The Times * It takes something rather special to drag me up to the Holloway Road on a chill Wednesday night. At Sambal Shiok, the laksas are magnificent: murky with profoundly fish depth and a base chilli grunt. * Tom Parker Bowles, restaurant critic for the Mail on Sunday * Sambal Shiok's signature laksa has queues waiting around the block. Not bad for a tiny joint in N7... It's Holloway's hottest ticket! * Susannah Butler, Life & Style Evening Standard * It's this wonderful effortless folding of the personal into the cultural that makes Sambal Shiok such a wonderful book from which to read, as much to cook. * Eater *