Southampton & The New Forest,
Hampshire, U.K.
About Chubby Buns
Chubby Buns food van is born of my love for the food of my dad's homeland: Penang Island, Malaysia; a place famed worldwide for its unique cuisine: a spectacular fusion of Chinese, Indian and native Malay flavours.
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People from Penang are obsessed with food; the culture of buying food from street vendors or hawkers and eating on the street means you can't walk five minutes through this vibrant city without being assaulted with the heady mix of the smells of fiery spices, sweet desserts, fragrant herbs and spices, fish, meat, frying. Locals assemble to eat, laugh and socialise over food with friends and family late into the night as the stifling heat begins to dissipate. This unique and exciting cuisine perfectly reflects the beautiful people of Malaysia with their diversity and array of influences.
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After our most recent trip, Megan and I returned with a realisation that we needed to try to share some of the fun, flavour and sheer tastiness of Malaysian cooking back home -- Chubby Buns is a celebration of Malaysian food, of the great fusion of flavours and the joy of bringing people together to socialise over food and drink.
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We've honed several dishes inspired by the food of Penang, some new inventions, some I've been perfecting for years.
I hope you get to try some at our next event.
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Crazy for curry.
As a result of the need for spice and heat my dad brought with him from Malaysia when he moved to the UK as an 18 year old looking for work, I've grown up eating curry.
My love of fiendishly hot curry comes from sharing takeaway chicken vindaloo with my dad as a kid. And that love/masochism was fuelled in my uni years by friends, Adam and Adrian, people with a similar disregard for the health of their stomach linings.
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I started cooking chicken curry when I was a teenager, and can't go a week without eating it to this day. For me, there is nothing quite like a hot chicken curry with fluffy, blessedly cooling white rice (and a box of tissues).
I've experimented with loads of different recipes, interpretations and ingredients and the result is the, rather fine, Chubby Buns' Kari Ayam. (Disclaimer: the heat has been dialled down to accomodate normal tastebuds.)
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