Meet Exuberant Malaysian Chef Wanitha Tanasingam

I’m sitting in the bar at the Grand Shanghai Hotel in Burwood, Sydney, where I’ve arranged to meet exuberant Malaysian chef and cookery teacher Wanitha Tanasingam.

Pink-tinged images of pretty young Chinese women and children cover the wall to my left while large pink and white artificial flowers burst forth from above. I’ve arrived a little early and am a little disoriented.

Walking up from the train station to the hotel, it’s as if I’ve suddenly arrived in a different country and stepping into this neon-lit bar quickens that feeling.

“It’s an immersive environment which makes me feel so comfortable as a migrant,” she tells me when she arrives.

“And I want to keep my roots intact.”

We have a cool drink then set off for her favourite Malaysian eatery, Tasty of Penang at Burwood Chinatown.

“Ah!” she exclaims as we stroll down the street. “I just love these Asian smells of roast pork and barbecue skewers.

“Western cooking is all indoors and very polite. The food is cooked at 100C.
“But in Asia we cook outside because the food is cooked at 170C and we often use a lot of oil so the smell lingers on your curtains, couches  and chairs.”

She tells me the story of one of her students who roasted belacan (a hardened block of shrimp paste used in many south-east Asian dishes) in a hot wok in her home kitchen.
“Its pungent fishy smell went through everything,” she chuckles.

We walk back towards the train station and turn left into a busy, colourful, brightly lit arcade with red lanterns and upside down Chinese umbrellas hanging from the ceiling.
People are eating and drinking at tables and queuing at various food stalls.
That feeling of being in another country returns.

Wanitha laughs.
“Now you know how I feel most of the time,” she says, chuckling again. 

“I speak a language that’s not my mother tongue every day.”

She guides me up the stairs to the first level and over to Tasty of Penang which is more authentically hawker-style than the surrounding gaudy food stalls. 

A quick look at the menu reveals a variety of traditional Malaysian and Peranakan (mixed Chinese and Malay heritage) dishes.

We sit at one of the wooden tables and she orders a few noodle dishes which include Penang Asam Laksa (Sweet & Sour Fish Based Soup), Hor Fun (Cantonese Fried Flat Rice Noodles), Penang Hokkien Mee (Prawn Noodles) and Char Kway Teow.

It’s this last one, a classic street food dish of contrasting textures and bold flavours with its signature hint of charred smokiness, that she’s keen for me to try. 

“It’s one of the most epic noodle dishes in the world!” she declares. “It might look easy to recreate but actually requires a great deal of skill.
“You need to get the wok very hot. The Cantonese call it wok hei or breath of the wok, that distinct charred, smoky flavour from stir-frying foods over an open flame.”

She says that when making Char Kway Teow, she starts over medium heat  with the sambal oelek, lap cheong and barbecued pork and increases the heat when she adds the freshly steamed flat rice noodles, fish cakes and prawns while drizzling the sauces and rice wine around the side of the wok which creates that smoky effect or wok hei.

“My heart sings when I do my Char Kway Teow because it brings back my childhood. It’s like music to me.

“I love watching the guys at the hawker stalls make it and the way they flip the noodles with the wok chan. It’s a craft handed down from father to son and their skill is amazing because they make it day in day out.” 

You’ll find her recipe here.

And it’s one for which she once won two bronze awards in the Australasian Guild of Professional Cooks 1995 Salon Culinaire conducted at the International Food Service Exhibition in Melbourne. You’ll find her recipe here.
Wanitha hails from Penang in northwest Malaysia and moved to Australia in 1982.
Her father became head chef to the Sultan of Kedah in the early 1960s after working for the British Army which meant he was skilled in both Western and Malaysian cooking techniques.
“I grew up in a kitchen with my dad and learnt knife skills before I used a pen.
He didn’t want me to become a chef.  ‘Why you want to be a tradesperson?’ he would ask me.”
But her enthusiasm and passion for cooking got the better of her.

As she told Jennifer Richardson of The Create Escape:

“There’s always this beat in the kitchen and when you feel that you actually get great food coming out. 

“This is why music and food are constantly hand in hand. 

“Mindfulness is also present when you’re cooking because all the senses that are looking outwardly throughout the whole day will come home to you in the kitchen…you need to hear, smell, taste and feel the textures and those components are what will take food from ordinary to soul embracing”.
She admits that it’s hard work cooking in a kitchen.

“We are obsessive creatures. I used to work 70 hours a week in my twenties and thirties. There’s something not quite right about our egos to be so obsessive. It’s why so many young chefs burn out.”

These days she’s in charge of Cooking Team Building Events for VictorsFood where she uses cooking as a fun, interactive and accessible way to help corporate employees work together as a team. It was named one of “Top 10 Sydney Cooking Schools” by TimeOut and seven times voted “Australia’s Best Team Building Supplier” by readers of SPICE (events industry) magazine.

She’s also launched her first Malaysian food tour, Eat Malaysia!, running in May 2025, which promises to immerse you in the rich flavours, aromatic spices, and diverse culinary traditions of Malaysia.

Given her knowledge of the cross-cultural connections at play in Malaysia and of “locals-only” cooking techniques and experiences, it’s guaranteed to embrace the full spectrum of Malaysian cuisine. 

And with Wanitha as tour leader, it’s sure to be exciting and vibrant,  just like her.