Visiting Sabah, I was excited as always about the food and the peculiarities that would be offered by the region and the local cooking. Sabah is tucked away in Borneo, caressing the sea, but it has a lot of rainforest and cultivated land too. On the coast there are what are referred to locally as sea gypsies, living in wooden houses on stilts in the sea by the coast. Originating from Indonesia and the Philippines, they do have their own local food culture, and I found a chef who teaches it, Fortunato Lowel, at the Mango Garden Restaurant. What I loved about these recipes is that they are not complicated, but they are full flavoured, and very healthy too. This is proper home cooking, using the ingredients from the sea and the land surrounding it. The fish soup is a powerhouse of aroma, light and fresh, golden with turmeric and zingy with chilli and lemongrass. The fish salad (a Malaysian style of ceviche, really) was fresh, bright and warm with chilli, the fish was lightly …
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