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Bayon and Angkor Beer: Colonial Heritage Edition

Bayon Beer

Cambodian Beer Labels

Angkor

A hand-illustrated beer label bestows the trappings of refinement even on Bayon Beer. It makes it look like the class of beer that you would savour on the balcony of Bokor Casino in its heyday while you watched the islands recede into the mist; contemplating which dinner suit you’d wear that evening.

While I was on the hunt for the dubious origin of Love Beer, I stumbled across Mick, a beer label collector who is on the lookout for Cambodian beer labels. He has posted his collection of 1960s-era Bayon and Angkor labels on his site (which he has kindly allowed me to reproduce) and would love to get in touch with any local or international collectors willing to trade in South East Asian labels. His firm belief is that Love Beer is from Indonesia and the “Singapore” on the can refers to the brewery. The mystery ensues.

For label-trading action and a tale of one collector’s heartbreak at the gates of the Cambodia Breweries cannery, see Mick’s website.

Bayon

Paucity of Phnom Penh Power: Icecream in Crisis

“It’s a disaster,” says Giorgio Arcasi from behind the bar in his riverfront restaurant, Pop Cafe.

“I can’t buy ice cream any more, because after one day it melts. It’s so bad for business. In April or May, if you don’t have a generator you’ll have to close.”

Guy De Launey from BBC foretells Cambodia’s most important news: the coming of Phnom Penh’s riverfront icecream meltdown. By April, icecream will be flowing in the streets. Giorgio from Italian restaurant, Pop Cafe, even gets a concerned looking photo of him in front of his equally endangered vermouth supply.

See: Lights out in Phnom Penh

Sihanoukville is the next Goa 2: Electric Boogaloo

Now that most travel writers have discovered that their audience are sick of reading soporific accounts of their day tour of Angkor Wat, they have set their sights on sunny Sihanoukville. Unlike most writers, John Henderson of Inside Bay Area loves the beachside food:

…I eat delicious, authentic Cambodian food at prices I haven’t seen since rural Egypt in the ’70s. At one charming, romantic bar/restaurant called Le Roseau, a new taste thrill called coconut amok chicken is simply one of the 10 best dishes of my life. With sticky white rice and an ice-cold beer, the total cost: $3.50.

If commercialization in Cambodia has risen, prices have not. In two weeks in Cambodia, my most expensive dish has been $5. For that I received a plate piled high with a pound of crabs in garlic sauce at Treasure Island Restaurant, where I had my own gazebo overlooking the Gulf of Thailand a few feet away.

I’m not sure about the authenticity of amok chicken but if it convinces people that there is more to Cambodia than Angkor Wat, I’m all for it.

See: Cambodia is an affordable paradise

Why Is Everybody Going to Cambodia?

So asks Matt Gross in the New York Times this week, after one hell of an expensive junket in Siem Reap. He might have enjoyed listening to Morcheeba on the complementary iPod Mini in his airport transfer Lexus, but he wasn’t all too keen on the food:

While Cambodian food looks a bit like that of neighboring Thailand and Vietnam – curries and stews, noodle dishes and lots of rice – it’s rarely as tasty.

He does give thumbs up to his friend Paul Hutt at Meric, Khmer Kitchen, Dead Fish Tower, and Abacus.

Sihanoukville is “the next Goa”

So says Alexander Lobrano from International Herald Tribune after his week at Sokha Resort’s private beach, as reprinted in today’s Cambodia Daily. What the Daily edited out of the original article was what I’m here for: the food. Before Alex’s review was trimmed for the Daily’s A4 format, he said:

Among the best bites in Sihanoukville, Chez Claude (Kam Pegn hill, Sihanoukville, tel. 855-12-824-870, entrees $5-$14) has superb views of the Gulf of Thailand from its perch on a hillside between the Sokha Beach and the Independence Hotels, and the kitchen prepares an impeccably fresh local catch of the day with a French touch.

La Paillote is generally considered the best restaurant in town, with excellent home-style French and Cambodian cooking served in an open-air garden setting (Weather Station Hill, tel. 855-12-633247, entrees $5-$11).

Downtown, stop by the Starfish Café, where the American baker Deidre O’Shea has taught local women to make Western bread and pastries as a way of supporting themselves and earning money for the philanthropic projects the café oversees; in addition to fantastic brownies and cookies, breakfast and lunch are served, and excellent boxed lunches are available

See: On the cusp: Asia’s new trendsetting beach