By day, it’s a pleasant north London café; by night Sambal Shiok takes over to become a red-hot pop-up laksa bar
Sambal Shiok (inside Blend ), 587 Green Lanes, London N8 0RG (020 8341 2939). Walk-ins only for groups of six or fewer. Full meal including drinks and service: £60-£80
As a student in the 1980s I used to go Interrailing around Europe each summer on trips that always ended in Amsterdam. It’s not what you think, or at least not quite. It speaks volumes for the adult I became that my first anticipatory thought of the city was not the opportunities offered by the liberal drugs laws, or the cartoonish displays of sex in the red light district. It was the brightly lit, chromium-clad fast food automats in the streets off the Leidseplein, one of the city’s more notorious squares.
The sambal is a mess of tomato, chilli and funky dried shrimp which demands to be smeared on everything
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