Phnom Penh – Page 3 – Phnomenon: food in Cambodia

Real Khmer? Cambodian fine dining in Phnom Penh

“I hope I’m not going to wake up to that tomorrow morning”, Austin mentioned as I took the above photo.

Good morning, Austin.

I spent last weekend with Austin from RealThai while he crafts a piece for a Thai newspaper about Phnom Penh as a weekend destination, and takes photos in a manner much more professional than mine. He was keen on me showing him some of the less fluffy edges of Cambodian food (see pig parts, above, from Psar Orussei) that we could use for our own purposes. It is always a pleasure to travel about Phnom Penh with a fresh set of eyes and compare notes on respective adopted nations’ cuisines. Austin has an encyclopedic knowledge of Thai food, whereas my knowledge of Khmer cuisine is much more like an 1880’s Children’s Primer: One part shipping tables; one part unverifiable observation; three parts Tales of Interest in Foreign Lands. When Austin invited me along to provide local insights into Phnom Penh’s top end at the restaurants’ expense, how could I refuse? I consulted my shipping tables to check my availability with the tides.

Chef Luu Meng from Malis was a genuine surprise. Since I had last eaten at Malis about six months ago, Luu Meng had tweaked the menu to add some homier Khmer food (a few basic, herb-rich soups) and altered the street-level layout to look a little classier with a paintjob, fewer tables and some deep couches.

Meng spoke at length on the primacy of freshness, the importance of the Mekong’s rise and fall to affect the seasonal growth of local herbs and the migration of Cambodian freshwater fish. He devoted twenty minutes to speaking on the flavour profile of th’noeng leaf which he describes broadly as somewhere between “green mango and tamarind”, and the huge difference between maom leaf (“Vietnamese!”) and ma-aum leaf (basil’s lovechild with spearmint). He spoke about being excited about Indian food and about weaning his staff from their previous MSG habits (none is used in his kitchen).

In between chatting we ate a handful of journo-friendly plates : fish amok, kroueng-coated chicken wings, local scallops with pepper (pictured above), and beef in bamboo. Most hit the more Chinese end of Khmer cuisine – Luu Meng is a man who wholeheartedly embraces the capsicum.

Night was reserved for the Khmer degustation menu at Raffles Hotel Le Royal’s fine dining effort, Restaurant Le Royal. After chatting with Luu Meng, I was openly optimistic about the direction that this New Khmer Cuisine was taking in Phnom Penh. I had also previously eaten a seriously good bowl of pho at a conference buffet at Le Royal but never set foot in their fine dining area.

Jan, our maÃ®tre d’hotel/sommelier, described the menu, suggested wines, and was an altogether ideal host. European wines are not my strong point: I’ve got a decent grip on varietals but come from a background of drinking too many tannin-heavy Aussie reds, some of which from a box rather than a bottle. He made one of the best wine/food pairings that I’ve had in Cambodia. After describing Southern German terroir with glee, he picked a 2005 Wittmann Estate Riesling which was acidic but with sweetness on the back palate that fits perfectly with both the richer and subtly spicy elements of Khmer food. The nose of peaches was clear enough to bring back my grim memories of working in a central Victorian orchard, memories that in hindsight I should have appreciated as a small omen.

The trio of starters was locally inspired, only in the loosest sense. The pared-down mango salad contained chopped capsicum instead of chilli, dried shrimps mashed to a fine paste rather than whole with no real seafood punch. This was accompanied by two slices of West Coast scallops on triangle of banana leaf and a pair of wonton parcels with hoi sin sauce. I’m a fan of when chef’s pay attention to texture, which was evident, but the salad was pared back to being barely recognizable as Khmer, and the other two components could have come from literally anywhere.

I questioned our waiter in Khmer as to whether the forthcoming Pumpkin Soup was Samlor Karko, a Hindu-influenced Khmer soup which amongst other ingredients, contains pumpkin.

“No”, he answered, “It’s samlor lapov” : quite literally “Soup Pumpkin” followed by a grin.

There is a grin of nervousness in Cambodia. Ask a local about the current regime, the Khmer Rouge, or their dead parents and you’ll get the same grin. For a Westerner, there is nothing more unnerving than having a local describe their tales of torture and terror under the Khmer Rouge whilst they give you an unflinching and toothy smile. I hoped that the nervousness was more about the service staff suddenly realising that I could understand them a little when they were musing in Khmer about the sexuality of two young white men eating together by candlelight, rather than about the soup. I was tempted to confirm with them that Austin actually was my alluring Thai songsaa*.

The pureed pumpkin soup arrived topped with a square of gold leaf. It bore no resemblance to Khmer food, just as my bleak peach harvest memories bore no relationship to my continued enjoyment of the riesling. As a curious coincidence, I’d left my inamorata (who now wishes to be referred to as such in print and in person) at home defrosting herself a bowl of pumpkin soup from the freezer which she’d previously packed full of fresh Khmer ginger, lemongrass and coconut. It was the last aroma that I could smell when I left my house and now I longed for that soup rather than the one in front of me.

Between soup and mains, the Rosicrucian-ly named Executive Chef Christian Rose devoted us a half hour of his time. He spoke guardedly about Khmer food choices and regarded us with slight suspicion when we asked about sourcing local ingredients, about local Cambodian restaurants (his recommendations: Khmer Surin, Malis, beachside seafood in Sihanoukville), and about the interest of his guests in Khmer cuisine. There appeared to be very little interest despite his assurances to the contrary.

Scattered amongst the conversation, he name-dropped his upmarket ingredients and recipes: West Coast scallops; beluga caviar; Wagyu beef (“Grade 9, not Japanese but with excellent marbling”); a multiple course duck degustation; an entire constellation of foods alien to the Cambodian culinary cosmos. This was the food of international excess, high diplomacy and hardcore local corruption. Does serving this food in a starving nation make you complicit? Does eating it? The mains arrived to break our conversation before I got the chance to head it in a lachrymose direction.

The following beef loc lac hit the right note: beef (not a cut of Wagyu, which would be a foolish excess), fresh pepper from Kurata Pepper, stock reduction – completely unlike your regular loc lac which is generally made with bottled soy and tomato sauce : and so a positive top-end innovation. This was paired with a miscellaneous coconut curry with a hearty chunk of fresh bawngkang (river lobster) tail meat, a few batons of vegetable matter and a minute mound of rice. Desserts were a wide selection of Khmer sweets and I caused a small commotion when I asked the waiter to name a more obscure one (I thought num lhong, but it was revealed to be the similarly shaped num bhor por).

We rolled out of Le Royal after four hours of well-paced food conversation, great wine and barely Cambodian food.

Meals and wine at Restaurant Le Royal and Malis were provided free of charge. Malis is located on Norodom Blvd, just south of the Independence Monument. Restaurant Le Royal is located in Raffles Hotel Le Royal on the corner of St.92 and Monivong Blvd. Enter via the main foyer and turn left.

Nouveau Pho de Paris

Should I expect a cheese plate? Pho Bo(cuse)? French onion soup with noodles? These are questions that have weighed heavily on my mind in the two odd years that I have been passing by Nouveau Pho de Paris on Monivong boulevard, Phnom Penh. Both Cambodian and Vietnamese foods have successfully integrated their former colonial ruler’s nosh in a way that makes it seem natural, but you should not fool with pho. It is one of the world’s perfect street foods like pizza, burritos, souvlaki or laksa. Like all of these dishes, there are defined limits within which there is plenty of room for play. There is no room in pho for nouveau Parisians.

Judging from the photos displayed under the glass-topped tables, the Nouveau’s menu seemed to contain a random array of Chinese, Vietnamese and Khmer foods with no obvious reference to anything French. The lunchtime crowd may have had a Parisian fresh from the Sorbonne amongst them though: my waiter was confused as to my lingua franca and opened in French to which I parried with Khmer. He returned with a fine and unexpected play in English. Unable to answer with anything witty or Vietnamese, I ordered the pho bo without checking out their menu. The atmosphere was certainly more rarefied than your average pho stall: air con; real wooden chairs; and Cambodia’s velvet Elvis equivalent, lurid paintings of Angkor Wat.

NP de P’s pho rated fairly well on the meat index with a hearty selection of cow parts : some corned beef, sliced stomach and tendon, and a pair of suspiciously buoyant beef balls. On the opposing herb front: basil, saw mint, bean shoots were provided in abundance on the side. A pile of weedy local coriander and both spring and white onions were already added to the soup. Noodles were wide and commercial and the stock was muscular and sweet but not hugely complex.

One mid-size bowl of nouveau pho de boeuf: US$1.50, tea gratis.

Location: #26Eo, Monivong Blvd, Phnom Penh

Instant karmic penance

For brutally slagging off Water Festival, I received a brutal cold which disabled my palate for the last week. The upside was that I did spend some time in Phnom Penh for the Water Festival atoning for my sardonicism and despite the excess of public relievers about town, it was amusing. The locals should be proud for running a festival that brings an overwhelming number of people into Phnom Penh with so little violence, and as far as I know, only one shooting that was the direct result of public urination. The crowd that strolled the length of Sisowath Quay on Phnom Penh’s riverfront (above) remained in a jovial mood throughout.

Ministry of Tourism barge illuminates the crowd.

Inanimate num pao (steamed pork bun) vendor plies his wares to an inattentive crowd.

Akauw

One of the worse fates that I’ll be consigning to this website is that I will never be able to review all of the multitudinous variations of Cambodian rice flour desserts. When you eat one type, four new ones return to take its place. It’s like battling a saccharine Hydra made from pudding.

At the moment, akauw are a favorite: simple steamed balls of sticky rice flour, coconut milk and a little palm sugar topped with shredded coconut and toasted sesame seeds (occasionally, crushed peanuts), served at room temperature. When they’re good, they tread a fine line between cake-y and rubbery. Either way, they are offensively more-ish.

My regular aisle-way vendor at the Russian Market ( Psar Tuol Tom Poung) who presented them in photogenic banana leaf cups hit the provinces over the Pchum Benh religious holiday and returned to Phnom Penh with a surplus of Styrofoam clamshells. Damn you, modernity.

1000 riel (US$0.25) for a punnet

Location: In the aisles of Russian Market, just north of the food court. If she is around, the easiest way to find this vendor is to walk along the northern edge of the market and enter through the entrance with the rice sellers near it. Then head due south. Otherwise, akauw vendors can be found at most of the larger markets.

Midday Mee Mamak Mission

Most workers in Phnom Penh get a two hour lunch break from twelve until two. The thought of scoffing down a cheap sandwich while hunched over a keyboard is literally unthinkable for most Phnom Penhois, not for the least reason that most Cambodians don’t work on computers nor do they enjoy the charm of sliced bread.

Two hours allows time for a multiple course meal and a snooze, and for me, plenty of time to obsess about what to eat for lunch and then immediately write about it. A few days ago, Robyn from EatingAsia went on a road trip to hunt down an excellent mee mamak, a Malaysian fried noodle dish that would be the likely result of Kerala meeting Guangdong in Penang for a food fight. I’ve been thinking about having it for lunch ever since and so headed for Mamak’s Corner, an Indian-Muslim Malaysian restaurant that I’ve been recommended previously.

I wanted to be smacked around by chili heat in the mee mamak and arrive back at the office two hours later, still shaking and wide-eyed from the endorphin rush. This mee was light on the heat and lacked the curry flavors, potato, and red onion that mark it as a food that came from the Malaysian intermixture of Chinese and Indian cultures. A few smallish prawns and squid slices provided the meat component. I was a little let down, but I’m not going to write off Mamak’s Corner after eating only one dish there – the 100% Malaysian crowd at lunchtime indicates that there must be some excellent dining secrets hidden somewhere between its menu and bain marie.

$2 for a plate.

Location: Deceptively, Mamak’s Corner is not on a corner. It’s on St.114 near the corner of St.61. Mamak’s is halal.

See also: Care For a Side of Diesel Exhaust With Your Noodles? for possibly the world’s greatest mee mamak.

Rule One: Don’t eat sashimi in the desert

If I was writing a rulebook on Third World roadside eating, at the top of my list would be “Don’t eat seafood unless you can see the water from whence it came”, which I could probably shorten to something snappier and memorable like “Don’t eat sashimi in the desert”. Despite my wariness towards Third World streetside seafood, when I spot a vendor who is keeping their raw produce on ice, it pays to give them the benefit of the doubt and break a few cardinal food rules. This mom-and-pop kraken charring duo were keeping their squid-on-a-stick iced in a plastic bucket at the entrance to Phnom Penh’s Central Market.

Compared to the diminutive beachside-in-Sihanoukville variety, this squid looked like it would play a starring role in the delirious undersea nightmares of Captain Nemo. Served charred, sliced into bite-sized pieces and topped with a spoonful of spring onions and fish sauce.

Barbecued prawns (bawngkia aing) are also on the largish side, basted with the same sauce and onion mix. Sides of fresh but sickly sweet homemade chilli sauce, salt/pepper/lime juice dipping sauce, and a green tomato, chee krassang and cucumber salad were complementary. At 32000 riel (US$8(!)) for two plates of giant squid and a plate of prawns, these snacks are premium priced but top hole.

Location: The main eastern entrance of Central Market, Phnom Penh, after 2pm. Central Market (Psar Thmei) has a changeover period at about 2pm when the “official” food vendors who dwell near the northeastern wing in tiled concrete booths shut up shop completely, and a few makeshift stands open at the main eastern entrance to the market, serving late afternoon/dinner snacks.

Filipino Food in Cambodia

Of the regional cuisines that I know literally nothing about, Filipino cuisine tops my list. My knowledge of the Philippines has mostly been gleaned from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon and the works of seminal turntablists, the Invisibl Skratch Piklz. 100mph Backsliding Turkey Kutz may be one of the canonical scratch weapons that every aspiring hip hop disc jockey should have in their armoury, but it hardly provides much insight into food and culture of the Filipino people. Thankfully, the Internet is filled with people who know that there is more to Pinoy food than Jollibee and are conversely less interested in hip hop marginalia than me. It seems that Filipino expats aren’t too badly served by the Phnom Penh food scene. Toe writes:

In markets and supermarkets, you can buy bagoong, patis, bulalo, kangkong, ampalaya, and others. Probably the only thing you can’t buy here is bangus.

When it comes to restaurants, there is a handful. There is Helen’s Bakery which is a carinderia-style turo-turo where she cooks super-delicious pork chops, ampalaya, Filipino fried chicken, menudo, afritada, pinakbet etc. for about $1.50 per meal. Her tapsilog, longsilog, and tocilog are famous all over Phnom Penh. She also delivers for free. Her carinderia is visited not only by Pinoys but also westerners who like her tacos, potato salad, and pizzas.

Then, there’s Bamboo Restaurant, situated strategically near the Independence Monument. It’s a little bit more elegant than Helen (air-conditioned) and of course a little more expensiveâ€¦ but still quite reasonably priced. They have crispy pata, kaldereta, lumpiang shanghai, sinigang na hipon, pancit bihon and everything else you could think if you’re craving for Filipino food. Their leche flan and halo-halo are to die for.

Locations: Helen’s Bakery is at No. 159B, Norodom Blvd; Bamboo Restaurant is on the strategically important corner of Sihanouk Blvd and St.9.

See Also: kurokuroatbp

Like eating vanilla custard in a latrine

Photo credit: Liz.

So says Anthony Burgess, regarding the King of Fruit: durian (thouren). I’m still on the fence about durian. I understand their sensuous, visceral appeal, and the obsession with certain cultivars and terroir. I have seen people in intense arguments about whether a specific fruit came from Kampot, the seat of the throne for durian in Cambodia. It is a fruit that is suggestive of raw violence. But despite the best efforts of friends to persuade me with younger, milder “beginner’s durian”, I can’t seem to generate any personal passion for or against them.

Ohan

Running a restaurant aimed at expats in Cambodia requires equal parts audacity and derangement. There seems to have been a recent growth in the number of Japanese restaurants around town, and of all the national cuisines that are replicated in Cambodia, Japanese has one of the greater degrees of difficulty. As a consequence, the restaurants seem to be run by a diverse and occasionally motley crew of Japanese expats who all seem to fit into the categories of audacious or deranged.

The owner of Ohan is definitely at the daring end of the spectrum. I’ve never seen him bedecked in anything but his canary yellow chef’s ensemble. He’s always keen to greet every single patron in the restaurant and when he asks if you’re enjoying your meal, you can tell that he is not asking as a routine social nicety. His moist-eyed look of joy when you answer in the affirmative is the only thing better than the food.

Apart from Iron Chef fashion sense, Ohan’s second audacious factor is the strange location. Although relatively close to most of Phnom Penh’s other Japanese restaurants (Kokoro, Himajin, and Origami), it is next to Cambodia’s worst sandwich vendor, Lucky 7, and opposite the decidedly un-sexy Phnom Penh Centre office buildings. You can only enter the place from the Phnom Penh Centre parking lot side. The external features are nondescript and the inside slightly less so. A few people I know who work in Phnom Penh Centre didn’t know it existed but the people who obviously matter, Japanese expats, have been more attentive because the restaurant is full at lunchtime.

The drawcard is the $5 set lunch special. Four choices, each as delicious as the next : pork sukiyaki, mackerel, tempura, and a soba/sushi set. There’s also a few more expensive bento ($7-10) if you have a hankering for something else. Since I’m on the piscatorial bandwagon at the moment, I went for local mackerel. The charred, salty slices of mackerel fillet were crispy without losing the mackerel’s tender oiliness. A potato/egg/mayonnaise salad, pickles, seaweed-heavy bowl of miso, and short-grain rice round out the set. Tea, hot or cold, is complementary.

Ohan has a loyalty card that only serves to remind me that in relative terms, I’ve blown a lot of cash on Ohan since it opened. They made a fatal mistake of offering a few Japanese-loving friends and I free draught beer as an opening special, so we’ve stayed until close a few nights over the past month to test their mettle and the capacity of their kegs of Tiger. The kegs run deep. Their dinner menu is expansive without being overwhelming. In Cambodian terms, it is not cheap. For a sushi/sashimi blowout dinner look to pay about $25 a head, sans sake.

Location: On Sothearos, opposite the Phnom Penh Centre

How to buy fresh fish in Phnom Penh

I don’t often read Cambodia’s most popular expat website, but when I do, it generally has something to do with the food. This week, they’ve put together an Idiots Guide to Buying Food in Cambodian Markets and despite the missing apostrophe, it is fairly spot on. It does however make the shocking admission that:

Fish is a bit of a minefield, and I’m happy to admit that I never completely got the hang of it, but as a rule the more expensive it is the better it is.

In the Khmer spirit, I thought that I’d try my hand at some informal demining of the fish purchasing process. Fish is central to Cambodian life, so it’s no great surprise that there is a good deal of it to be bought at your local market at bargain prices.

Organoleptic assessment for Dummies

In the West, the best way to find a good fishmonger is that their fish counter should smell like the sea rather than like the fish: fresh, clean and crisp. There shouldn’t be pools of mucous lying around the fish, the store, or the fishmonger. This all goes out the window in Cambodia. Unless you happen to arrive at a market damn early, everything in the market smells fishy and finding a patch of floor in the meat section which isn’t covered in brown mucous or something coagulating is rare. You can of course pick up the fish itself and give it a sniff.

Five tips for choosing better fish:

Gills should be bright red. There is a very handy practice in Cambodia of cutting the covering off the gills before sale and exposing the gills for all the world to see, eliminating the need to pick up the fish and poke at its fleshier bits. It does ruin the attractiveness of the whole fish a little. Steer clear of the brown gills.
Eye clarity is a good measure of freshness in Cambodia. Although some deep-sea fish have naturally cloudy eyes, very few of these species will be on sale at the market. Look for the fish that is looking at you with bright, unsunken eyes.
Skin should be bright, shiny; iridescent or opalescent with no signs of bleaching or discolouration.
Texture: When you give the fish a poke in a fleshy part, the indentation should spring back in under a second. Even better is if the fish feels rock hard (and of course, is not frozen) : it means that rigor mortis has only recently set in, or possibly, the fish is still alive.
The fish should show no signs of bruising or broken skin.

Where to shop:

Every market has fish but some markets are fishier than others. Because I don’t know my way around the local fishing villages, Central Market (Psar Thmei) is the best bet. They have the largest selection of freshwater and saltwater creatures and unlike most local markets, they keep some of it on ice. The next part is really only for your hardcore fish junkie.

Handling: Separating the fishermen from the fisherboys.

Knowing about how your marine friend was handled on its journey from underwater to under your griller is the secret that separates the angling amateur from the piscatorial pro. For the most part, these tips are a bit useless for Cambodia because most fish that you’ll see in the market have been caught and dumped on the floor of a small wooden boat, then shipped to market on the back of a refrigeration-free motorbike. However, if you’re lost for words next time that you’re speed-dating in a fishing village, try these questions:

How is the fish caught? Line-caught fish generally receive less of a beating than those trapped in a trawler’s net.
Is the fish stunned immediately upon coming aboard? Important to know for larger fish that tend to do a fair amount of thrashing around once they’ve left the water, damaging both themselves and unlucky crew members.
Show us your fish-to-ice ratio: As a rule of thumb, one part ice to 2 parts fish. This will obviously depend on the initial temperature of the fish, fish hold temperature, and the period of storage.

See also: Mekong River Commission has far too much information about the local varieties of freshwater fish. The FAO has a handy guide to organoleptic assessment, if for instance, you want a “Sensory score sheet for cooked cod flesh taken from gutted fish that have been stored in melting ice“. They’ve also got a guide to ice ratios, if you’re looking to radically reform the Cambodian fishing industry.