Feeding people is in Sarah Gan’s DNA. Her Malay-Chinese Nyonya heritage taught her how to cook from scratch, without measuring cups, and with the kind of intuition common to chefs. Nyonya cooking is the result of blending Chinese ingredients with various distinct spices and cooking techniques used by the Malay/Indonesian community. Curry pastes can take a whole day to create - a long and laborious task of chopping and pounding the fresh ingredients by hand before frying the pastes till aromatic which are used to make the various curries and broths.

This mouthwatering culinary heritage made Sarah kinda famous in her neighbourhood. People couldn’t get enough of her warm, aromatic and subtly spicy dishes, so she made a business out of it: Ugly Food & Co. Sarah crafts every paste and condiment herself using fresh produce from the Brisbane markets so you won't have to spend all day in the kitchen to re-create the tastes of hawker food.