The brand started in March 2024 with two variants, Original and Vegan (All photos: Ot Sa Te)
Concocting a sauce to spice up weekday dinners at home for her husband led Eunice Yin Ern down the rabbit hole. Two years on, what began as an experiment for personal consumption has blossomed into a business fragrant with potential.
Lemongrass chilli oil saved the nights when Yin Ern was tired of using oyster or soy sauce in dishes that had begun to taste the same. The kick she got from dollops of the condiment on rice or noodles enticed her to experiment: Spread it on toast; put it in stir-fries; mix it with mayo to create a dip; use the condiment as a marinade or an ingredient for curries, and its oil to fry eggs.
Extra jars from the batches she made found their way to friends’ kitchens and raving feedback planted the seed of entrepreneurship in her mind. “But it took a while before we got there and sold our first bottle of Ot Sa Te in November 2023.”
The product takes its name from the Vietnamese word for lemongrass chilli sauce, which Yin Ern first tried during an Asean Youth Fellowship in Hanoi that same year. The recipe is available online but she worked on blending the base ingredient with garlic, shallots, fish sauce, salt, sugar, palm oil and chilli to get the taste and texture she wanted. “It was like going down the rabbit hole.”
The brand rolled out in March 2024 with two variants, Original and Vegan. Teething problems included insufficient distribution channels, which meant people were unaware it existed. She got recurring complaints about the sauce lacking spice.
So, Yin Ern added more chilli and came up with a Spicy variant, followed by Pure (minus the fish sauce, garlic and shallots). Ot Sa Te, now available in three sizes — 100ml, 180ml and 300ml — can be bought off the shelf at select Bila-Bila Mart grocers, Mondo Smart Store and Energize vegan store in the Klang Valley, Penang Adventist Hospital’s bakery and via Shopee and TikTok Shop @otsate.
The founder-cum-managing director has made batches with coconut oil and olive oil, at customers’ requests. The taste does not run too much with the former, which brings its fragrance to the mix and has a slightly different texture. She does not recommend using olive oil as it is a bit bitter.
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Last July, Yin Ern moved production from her home to a shoplot in Shah Alam, Selangor. A month later, she welcomed Joyce Ang on board as a business partner. The pair first met in 2018 while working at the same digital marketing agency, as a social media manager and copywriter respectively, and found they had chemistry. Both married in 2023 and believe in “zero-pressure cooking” and that food is a critical part of being whole.
“Good health, mental clarity and energy all start with food. We want to make sure nourishment is doable, easy and tasty. What Ot Sa Te does for novice cooks is make things simple,” says Ang, whose favourite recipe is chicken chop in two steps: Lather pieces of the meat with the sauce then chuck them in the air fryer for 20 minutes and you are done.
At heart, their goal is to make cooking less intimidating. “A lot of culinary content today is like, ‘This is how you have to cook’. Or, people start comparing themselves with [others] and want to recreate MasterChef dishes. Everybody has a discerning palate and the desire for great food. But a lot of times, there’s that skill gap, right?”
Here is where Ot Sa Te comes in handy: It ensures that tasty food is within reach. The brand is unique, Yin Ern adds, because while most vendors produce chilli-based sauces, her primary ingredient is lemongrass, which is aromatic, flavourful and versatile, with chilli added for a touch of spice.
She used to cut the lemongrass stalks — harvested when the white section is at its thickest — and mince them finely with the other ingredients. The mixture would then go into the pot and was stirred until it caramelised, to get the texture customers like. Machines have taken over the laborious task of mincing but she still cooks the sauce by hand.
Sourcing the lemongrass remains a struggle though. Initially, Yin Ern bought what she wanted for personal use at the market. After starting Ot Sa Te, she tried looking for contract partners who could help with supply but many said they did not want to take the risk. Now she frequents Pasar Selayang and hunts around every single shop to get the 20kg she needs weekly to process her sauces.
“It’s taxing looking for this amount. Once we expand even further, I think I’ll just go direct to source. The dream, of course, is to buy land and fund our own farm — one day when we have the money.”
Switching from the corporate sector to a new venture was risky and Yin Ern’s mother was quite against the idea, she recalls. “My dad didn’t know until Ot Sa Te was launched.
“Sure, I had a stable job, but it was boring in a sense. If I had stayed, it would have boxed me in. Entrepreneurship allows me to grow in different avenues because I get to explore different things. I feel like I’m beyond the box. I am more as I gave myself that chance to explore how expansive I can become.”
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Running one’s own business requires more than just capital and the ability to sell, the partners agree. “You need cash flow, repeat customers and a good product. If you have these things, you will run.”
Yin Ern’s origin plan was for the business to be up and running within two years. “I was a bit too ambitious; two years is possible if I was that person within that [time frame]. But I’m not that person yet. I have to give myself more time so Ot Sa Te will grow further.”
Her vision is to take the brand global and reasons that it has a long way to go. As for what is lacking she says: Foresight, know-how, connections and capital.
“Everything you see right now is entirely bootstrap, and there’s only so much you can do. Eventually, we will need grants or funding to continue our journey.”
Ang, who says marketing has always been her thing, is optimistic that gumption and tenacity can help grow their business. “Circumstances can also shape it and there are many factors we cannot control. What we can do is just our best, to keep going on even when the odds are against us. We want to see how far we can take Ot Sa Te. It’s like strength training. Pushing boundaries can be painful but it’s what takes entreprenuers far. That’s also the part not a lot of people get to see.
“Entrepreneurship demands 200% of you all the time.Entrepreneurs are also a crazy breed that finds fun in this pain. It’s like running a marathon. Along the way, we get to meet wonderful people and go places we never thought we could, like Options’ International Women’s Day Forum [on March 24], where we got to share our brand with so many visionary participants.”
Does Yin Ern have other concoctions bubbling at home that have commercial potential? “Yes, I’m making other sauces as well. Maybe not so soon. Building a brand requires time, and I don’t want to jump ahead of ourselves or get distracted. Now, we’re just obsessively learning as much as we can with Ot Sa Te.”
This article first appeared on Apr 14, 2025 in The Edge Malaysia.
