Things I Ate in Cambodia

Indian Delight: Best Damn Tikka Masala in Cambodia (and other stuff)

2011-12-24T01:32:00.000-08:00

Indian Delight

115e0, Sisowath Quay

023 724 885

Phnom Penh

I'm an Indian food snob. I lived in Bangalore for six months back in 2008 and went back in 2010: I'm no fan of the uber-heavy, cream-rich Muhgali food that's favored outside the Subcontinent. However, I was very happy to discover India Delight on Sisowath Quay, which turns out Indian food much closer to the non-coronary-inducing masalas and curries I remember from India. They even pay attention when you ask for your food spicy. Furthermore, there isn't a heady layer of grease hanging over everything you order.

I find chicken tikka masala way too rich the way most places make it, but Indian Delight's version is just about akin to crack for me. You know what this stuff is (hint: it was invented in Britain) but I'll describe it again: pieces of roasted tandoori chicken cooked in a very spicy, slightly creamy sauce with a profusion of fresh spices. This is definitely the tastiest tikka masala I've had - hell, ever, I think - and it's only $5.00. I sometimes wish I could just eat this for lunch every day. It's especially good with the yellow rice peas pulao they serve here, which has a bit of saffron in it.

There's also a rich version of vindaloo, the Portugese-inspired Goa dish of curried chicken with plenty of vinegar and meat, as well as potatoes. My boyfriend is rather fond of the stuff and orders it regularly. I haven't ordered it myself - the tikka masala has its siren song - but it's decent stuff.

There's also excellent aloo gobi, which an be ordered dry or "wet," same question they ask you in India, which I always appreciate. i rather prefer the "dry" stir-fried stuff most of the time. This was again excellent, with a lot of interesting flavors and not-too-limp cauliflower.

It's tragic that most Westerners find okra "icky." Being of Louisiana and Southern extraction, I love okra and grew up on the stuff, and I really love okra curry. Incorporating the same excellent masala that is a hall-mark of India Delight, this is one of the best versions I've encountered. Reminded me of a particularly fabulous restaurant I used to frequent in Bangalore.

Mixed vegetable masala - a little buttery, quite good. The "subzi" often take a back-seat to meat curries in the minds of most but to me are rather integral.

Indian Delight also does lovely "mixed" lime sodas - salty and sweet - and owns a lovely espresso machine. It's by far my favorite Indian restaurant in Phnom Penh, and is one of the best I've frequented outside of India. The friendly service and the pleasantly quiet (other than the occasional Hindi ballad) dining room make for additional pluses, as do the reasonable prices. Set "thali" meals are around $4, while Happy Hour seems to last just about all day, with draft beer included.

I'd put Indian Delight at the top of your list if you're hankering for Indian food in Cambodia.

Rahu: I Forgot I Kinda Liked Hipster Sushi

2011-12-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

Rahu

Sisowath Quay

10 Sisowath Quay

Tel: 023 215 179

Hipster sushi makes up roughly 80% of the diets of Northern Californians, and I'm pleased to announce that Phnom Penh now has an entry into the field. Restaurant chain Metro has opened a sushi outpost next to Harem Shisha Bar and the Riverhouse Lounge, with sushi and Japanese specialities added on to the standard Metro menu.

The dark, moody, and aggressively hip decor - yes, I'll mention the Angry Monk Kid painting in the back corner, let's stop talking about it now - is set off by extremely attractive and somewhat attentive wait-staff. Where Rahu really shines is after 11:00 PM, when the sushi menu is discounted by 50%. In fact, I've never actually eaten at Rahu before the discount hit.

In a city where late-night food can be limited—if you're not brave enough to risk food stalls and gastrointestinal ruin—this late night sushi can be something of a blessing, especially if you're not really that into greasy hangover prevention chow. Rolls top out at around $5 and most are in the $3.50 area. It's a pretty good deal for the tastiest sushi I've had in town. The menu is not particularly extensive, but all the bases are covered, with sushi rolls, sashimi, and some other Japanese classics on offer.

The spicy salmon rolls are my favorite here. The legitimately spicy salmon interior is wrapped in rice which is studded with small, crispy tempura bits. It's finished with a not-excessive drizzle of wasabi mayo and is really a pretty perfect light meal or late-night snack. I used to bitch about California sushi's obsession with sauces, but now I miss them. A lot.

The simple tuna roll is executed beautifully here - fresh tuna, perfectly rolled, seaweed that isn't too chewy. No sauces to accompany here, which is as it should be for one of Japanese cuisine's more perfectly simple creations.

Salmon, asparagus, and cream cheese is another classic California-style roll that is just about impossible to find in Cambodia. I really like this roll - creamy cheese, some subtlety unctuous salmon, a bit of green onion, some crisp asparagus, and a smidgen of spicy sauce. Rich without making you feel sort of awful about yourself. Which is not the point of sushi.

There's also beef with red ants rolls on the menu. These are especially fun if you can order these when your friend is in the bathroom, than pass it off as something totally benign. That joke never gets old.

Don't forget to ask the waitstaff to bring you some of Rahu's home-made potato chips to go with your sushi and alcoholic beverages. They're seasoned with something delicious and are, in my opinion, far superior to the sweet n' salty peanuts usually on offer with beer in Cambodia.

Be aware that a service charge is tacked onto the bill whether you like it or not - keep this in mind before embarking on some sort of PM sushi binge. It's true that Rahu would be somewhat obnoxiously chic if it wasn't here, but as things currently stand in PP, it's kinda nice to be able to get California-style sushi late at night at an aggressively hip restaurant where the waitstaff aren't particularly nice to you. It reminds me of home.

Happa: Excellent Japanese Teppanyaki in Phnom Penh

2011-12-18T14:13:00.000-08:00

Happa
#17, Street 278
Phnom Penh
Tel: 077749266

I realized recently that the restaurants I eat at the most here in Phnom Penh are rarely the ones I review. Something about incredible familiarity makes me less likely to go ahead and haul the camera with me and do the review - so I'm glad I finally got around to Happa, a great little Japanese/Khmer teppanyaki joint on backpacker-beloved street 278.

Happa's pork stir-fried with sesame.

The menu focuses on Japanese small plates, prepared in front of you on the restaurant's big iron griddle, which makes for some rather interesting visuals and assurance that you're getting pretty fresh food. There's sauteed small plates of meats and vegetables, main-course dishes with steak, pork, and lamb, salads and fried specialities, and even Japanese pizza or "okonamayaki," a cabbage and flour pancake topped with bacon and cheese.

The teriyaki chicken here is excellent, nice and tender and not too salty, with some dark meat bits thrown in, which I infinitely prefer. I like to eat this with the oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter.

I'm also a big fan of the fresh tofu salad, which has soft tofu, seaweed, sesame and lettuce tossed in a vinegary-heavy dressing. A nice light stomach-friendly meal. My only complaint with Happa is that the cooks sometimes take too heavy a hand with the salt-shaker, but the issue seems to have been weeded out in the last month or two.

Vegetarians will enjoy Happa's turn with tofu - seems like there's fifteen different tofu based dishes on the menu, all using soft local tofu. The tofu steak with basil and chili is a Khmer-accented take and is pretty excellent - not TOO soft - served with Happa's griddle-fried potatoes (my boyfriend is an addict) and some sauteed vegetables. As far as main courses go, the pork cutlet topped with cheese and mushrooms, served with potatoes and veggies, is also excellent at $6.00.

Grilled Japanese eggplant is on special here sometimes. I can't say I find it too different from Khmer style grilled eggplant, other than perhaps the slightly sweet, slightly vinegary sauce on top, but it's still a good and distinctly smoky dish.

There's also a couple pages of classic Khmer dishes near the back if you're interesting in mixing your East Asian with your Southeast Asian. If you get there in time, Happa often has sushi rolls and sashimi featuring the fish of the day—comfortingly for those inclined to distrust raw fish in a third-world nation, they often run out.

The friendly wood-accented dining area is a casual spot to drink a beer or a glass of wine while waiting for your food - no one is attempting to hustle you out of the restaurant here, and its quiet location makes it possible to have a decent conversation here while enjoying some cooler dry season weather.

Happa's owners also play fantastic music, which is a real asset in a land where restaurant music trends more towards the ear-gratingly horrible. I hear New Orleans tracks I don't encounter outside of the Crescent city at Happa, as well as excellent Delta blues, jazz, and soul music. Someone with excellent taste in American music is obviously in charge of the audio here.

My dad notes many of his Japanese coworkers are rabid blues and jazz fans - Japanese readers, can you back this up?

Suzume: Homey Japanese Food in Dark Heart of Phnom Penh

2011-12-16T02:56:00.000-08:00

Suzume
14A Street 51
092 748 393
Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh has more Japanese restaurants than I ever expected it to have, mostly due to the city's healthy (and apparently chronically starving) population of Japanese NGO workers. Most Japanese restaurants here are of the rustic variety, specializing more in curries, soups, ramen and gyoza, rather than more complicated and delicate affairs like sushi.

Expat-beloved and low-key Suzume, however, has a phone-book size menu with most standard Japanese dishes, including ramen and gyoza, a variety of tempura, and even a selection of sushi rolls.

Downside: everything is more expensive than it is at other "mid-range" Japanese places in town, including ramen at $7, which I think is a bit ridiculous in Cambodia. Bowl o' noodles, like everyone else eats here, just from Japan.

Edamame:possibly the perfect snack, tragically a bit hard to find here, or at least in the awesome pre-packaged microwave pack format you can find the stuff in Northern California. Buttery nutrient rich deliciousness, all natural, hard to object in any way.

Suzume does a pretty good turn in shrimp and vegetable tempura, which can be fried into a chewy, immense mass of suck and here is light and airy in the best Japanese fashion. Fried seaweed in batter is curiously delectable. I do not know how they turn shrimp into shrimp *poles* like this but it is rather impressive. Probably involves deveining, maybe crustacean torture, I don't know.

Vegetable gyoza are another classic - need to be light and not chewy, in the Japanese fashion (more leeway is allowed for big meaty greasy Chinese dumplings). These were filled with cabbage and chives and were quite tasty. I like the meaty variety more but one makes concessions when dining with vegetarians. (Hey, I love you guys. Cook for ya all the time. Well, used to.)

My boyfriend is sort of a Japanese curry obsessive and this is probably the most comforting of Japanese comfort foods to the expat set: mild curry, rice, and fried pork katsu on top. Great for cold weather (if we had any) and excellent if you're: 6'6, working on a construction site, or have recently suffered from a bout of weight-loss causing sickness. Since most foreigners here often experience #3, fire away. Japanese people: is this also Comfort Food of Choice? Suspect so for many.

Tuna rolls are a simple but delicious affair, and these use nice fish and are well-rolled, which is often an issue with sushi in Cambodia.

Admittedly: I spend my days at the Khmer Rouge War Tribunal of late and sometimes day-dream about asking the anti-materalist anti-Western Communist leaders of yore - "Hey, did you know bunches of expats dine on Japanese imperialist food at rather high prices in your very own capital? Suck on it!"

I will never get a chance to do this but it's kind of a dream.

My personal favorite: eel and cucumber rolls. These were quite good, and had a nice fresh, sweet, nicely unctuous flavor. Simple sushi rolls are something I miss very much from the US. Had I known I would miss Tulane University cafeteria sushi so much. In any case, these rolls fill the void in my heart, and there's no "service charge" like that surprise tacked on at Rahu. Tasty as Rahu's sushi may be.

Mekong Korean: Cold Weather Food for the Tropics

2011-12-11T08:25:00.000-08:00

Mekong Korean Restaurant
Sothearos Drive
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Korean restaurants are rife in Phnom Penh, and family restaurant Mekong Korean occupies a convenient location in the very center of the city. Dishing up rustic versions of Korean standards such as bi-bim-bap, tofu stew, stir-fried pork with red pepper and chicken stews, the restaurant has an entirely nondescript interior, few Western customers, and background music trending towards "Christian Celtic Songs Of the 90's." I find it all rather relaxing.

My favorite dish here is definitely the bulgogi stew at $8. It's not really bulgogi - they use ground beef here - but I love the slightly sweet, beefy, sesame infused broth. It's served with cabbage, carrots, sesame seeds, onions, and a bunch of enoki mushrooms. All the vegetation can make you pretend you're being healthy. Also a great option when dining with people who are red pepper averse, which is a serious, serious malfunction in Korean restaurants.

Another good dish here is Korean chicken stew, an exceptionally homey dish of braised chicken in a spicy red pepper sauce with potatoes, capsicum, onions, and chilis. It's spicy and delightfuly rustic at the same time. Great over rice, big pieces of skin-on, bone in chicken, something you'd make yourself in cool weather. It's almost getting into the low seventies at night in Phnom Penh now so I feel cold-weather food is entirely justified. It's around $14 for 2, and the stew's serving size was big enough that Giant Iowa Boyfriend and I could share it and be more than satiated.

The reason Korean restaurants may seem somewhat pricier than other restaurants is undoubtedly due to panchan, the ubiquitous selection of side-dishes trotted out at any Korean restaurant worth a damn. As these side-dishes are always refilled upon request (or without request), you could consider a good Korean restaurant something more of an all-you-can-eat buffet—and entree portion sizes tend to be healthy as well.

Mekong Korean does excellent marinated eggplant, fishcakes, beansprouts and daikon, but you'll get something different every time. I find their classic cabbage kimchi only OK, however. Something a little too harsh in the flavor. You'd be surprised how specific kimchi lovers can get. Also, how hard it is for kimchi lovers to get their non-Korean significant others to kiss them after they eat it.

Kimly: Crab Market Crab Shack, Awesome Fried Shrimp

2011-12-02T02:32:00.000-08:00

Kimly Restaurant
Crab Market (if you're in Kep, you can't miss it)
Kep, Cambodia

Kimly is the most popular restaurant in Kep's Crab Market cluster of eateries, attracting a mixture of both Khmer and Western custom. Specializing in fresh seafood, and with a more extensive menu than other Crab Market restaurants, it attracts a cracking business during holidays, and is usually pleasingly quiet during the week. Everything is fresh, of course: you may note this place is built over the ocean.

Kimly is even so successful that they've built a guesthouse near Knai Bang Chatt: haven't been there yet, doubt they put crab-scented air fresheners in the rooms but one never knows.

I like the crab stir-fried with coconut milk the best: Kep's small, sweet, and tasty crabs pre-cracked and given a run through a thick and rather throughly spiced sauce. There's green capsicum and a little onion and green pepper involved as well. Kimly bears the virtue of never overdoing their crabs, rendering them chewy and displeasing.

We also tried the grilled squid with french fries. Simple enough - isn't everyone in the Crab Market selling squid grilled over a charcoal flame? - and pretty good with some beer. I confess that I'm not very keen on squid unless it is deep fried or stuffed with something, but my boyfriend deemed it very good. The fries were just OK, a bit limp, but there's really only so much one can expect.

I went for the stir-fried crabs with Kampot pepper on my next visit. It's a rather similar sauce to that used for the coconut milk crabs, sans coconut milk: plenty of earthy spices, green pepper, and green onion. The standout flavor is of course the fresh crispness of Kampot pepper, which is green, edible, and a nice reminder that pepper doesn't actually generate in little glass table shakers. Kimly's version of crab with Kampot pepper is not subtle - for a subtle approach, I prefer Trei, down the Crab Market row a few establishments or so. But this is good.

The real winner at Kimly may be the deep-fried shrimp with batter (make sure to specify to the waiter that you don't want shrimp fried in *butter*). If you order the medium version, you get a massive platter of fresh, delectable tail on shrimp with a crunchy but not ultra heavy crust. Delicious stuff and made me long for some Carolina-style special sauce to accompany, although the sweet chili and ketchup on offer did the job condiments-wise. People at other tables were staring at these longingly and asking what we ordered. Do it.

Romdeng Again: Excellent Stuffed Squid, Still Don't Try The Spiders

2011-11-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

Romdeng
#74 Street 174
Telephone: +855 092-219-565
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Romdeng is the Mith Samlanh street kid's charity Khmer training restaurant, affiliated with the more Western accented Friends, near Riverside. Set in an old colonial building, it's a salubrious place to try authentic Khmer dishes for a pretty good cause. The waitstaff, cooks, and I believe at least some of the management are all former street kids enrolled in hospitality training programs conducted by Mith Samlanh. It's a good idea, and, thankfully, the food is good too.

Both Romdeng and Friends do excellent frozen drinks, and I enjoyed this lychee/passionfruit/mint mixture. Would have been better with a little vodka, but this was a lunch-break-from-work type affair so I was forced to hold back.

Khmer food is reliant on grilled or roasted eggplant. Especially popular is eggplant served with ground pork and, in some cases, chopped mushrooms, as can be seen here. This dish had a pleasingly smoky flavor from both the eggplant and the oaky shitake mushrooms - definitely Cambodian and something I would order again.

Chicken stir-fried with basil and chili is one of those dishes that most Westerners would consider Thai. This is a point of enormous contention in Cambodia, of course - Khmers maintain that the Thais stole their cuisine many hundreds of years ago and added their own flourishes. A culinary historian with more free time (or a larger stipend) than myself might be able to sort this one out without igniting (another) border incident, but I'll just stick with calling it a "dish that straddles borders." Chicken with basil and chili may also be subject to contention because it's pretty darn good: fresh holy basil, some garlic, not-too-hot red chilis and some boneless chicken. I'd prefer it with bone-in chicken, though. What's with Westerners fetish for dark meat?

Cambodians also love grilled squid stuffed with things (usually pork...it's usually pork). These small grilled cephalapods were stuffed with pork stir-fried with a touch of ginger. Pretty good stuff, and not too chewy, as is the unfortunate fate of many of our underwater friends. Sniff.

This is Khmer curry with potato, green beans, pumpkin, carrot, and coconut milk. Khmer coconut milk curries taste quite different from Thai coconut milk curries. They're usually more subtle, considerably less spicy, thicker, and a bit less complex. This is often good news for those suffering from dodgy stomachs. You are unlikely to be seriously injured by Khmer food, whereas I was pretty convinced a couple times in Thailand that the chef was actually trying to kill me by means of tiny, tiny chili pod.

I don't like desserts much, with the exception of sorbet and ice cream, which can be ideal in a tropical, comically sweaty climate. (Fairly convinced people who eat warm chocolate brownies here are insane, possibly criminally so). I may or may not have forgotten what the flavors involved here were, but I know one scoop involved pineapple and the other passion fruit. I will devour anything with passion fruit in it, so the choice was easy. No, I don't care that passion fruit resembles alien brains.

The more adventurous, or at least more masochistic, can also order Cambodia's infamous fried tarantulas at Romdeng. I haven't tried em' before (no one wants to share with me, it's not my fault) but I've heard they taste pretty much like shrimp. The tarantulas are becoming an endangered species since every tourist seems to want a Facebook photo of them eating one, or at least pretending to eat one, which I believe is one of those unanticipated environmental disasters.

More accessible may be beef stir-fried with ant larvae, a Khmer dish that's often served with beer. "Ant season" tends to fall in the dry season, which stretches roughly from November to April. No, haven't tried that either. I guess I need braver family members. That's my excuse.

Touich Again: Awesome Family Owned Joint in Siem Reap; Free Jeep Ride

2011-11-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

Touich Restaurant
3 km outside center of town center: call ahead at 092 80 80 40 - 012 99 57 83 or email touich.restaurant @ gmail.com
Siem Reap, Cambodia

Touich, a small Khmer restaurant set in Siem Reap's back alleys, has gained something of a cult following since I was last there in February. Owned by an English speaking and charmingly eccentric Battambang family, this surprisingly hip little joint is probably my favorite in Siem Reap. If you call ahead to make reservations, the restaurant will send a 1940's era military jeep to pick you up at your hotel, which is all kinds of fun.

Touich specializes in sea bass baked with salt and stuffed with ginger. Although fish is often suspect in Siem Reap, they know where to source it, and it's fresh and good. The waitress will skillfully fillet the fish then serve it to you at your table, after cracking the salt crust - it's served with a spicy chili sauce. Beware bones, as is the case in Asia.

This grilled pork rib with barbeque sauce was excellent and tender. So much so that my Southern father had to ask about the provenance of the pig from whence it came. "It was a very big," the restaurant co-owner said. "It won an award, actually. I think it was around 500 pounds." Well, that explains a lot. One enormous pork chop. He told us that super-size pigs are often raised in Buddhist pagodas here and raised until they attain truly monstrous proportions, when they are sold off. Both spiritually sound and delicious, I suppose.

Stir-fried squid with Kampot pepper is a perennial Cambodian favorite (in a country amply blessed with both tender cephalopods and fresh pepper) and was very good here, in a slightly sweet sauce with the very unique bite of fresh green pepper. I will miss fresh green pepper very much in the event of my leaving Cambodia. There's nothing quite like it.

Westerners who aren't from the Deep South usually are highly disinterested in eating frog, but you should really give the Cambodian frogs a try. These fat, placid beasts really DO taste like chicken, and it's worth navigating around the small, delicate bones.

Touich stir-fries the frog with ginger and some herbs. Frog is also good barbecued on a skewer. Don't knock the local protein source. Further: my mighty Louisiana ancestors have been noshing on these things straight out of the swamp for many generations right alongside Cambodia, so I'm the last to get all snooty.

Chicken soup with lemon is Cambodian comfort food, and something I eat a lot when sick, not-super hungry, or just feel like a simple meal. The tangy broth is accented with ginger and some very subtle fresh herbs, and is really refreshing after a long, hot day of touristing around the temples. I like to toss some white rice into mine for extra texture.

There's a pretty impressive wine list and a "wine rack" presided over by the Wine God. Mostly French stuff - we went with a fruity French white.

Sidenote: Touich plays awesome music. Bob Dylan, Beirut, Sinatra and Delta blues were all on the playlist when we visited.

Don't miss Touich for a fun dinner experience in Siem Reap. Scorn the massive tourist restaurants, and come for the free jeep ride and a good meal instead.

Angkor Palm: How to Sample Khmer Food Without Any Awkward Commitment

2011-11-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

Angkor Palm
Psaa Chas (near the Old Market)
Siem Reap, Cambodia

The Angkor Palm is an attractive Khmer restaurant on the main drag of Siem Reap's backpacker ghetto. The restaurant's primary draw is its Khmer sampler platter, a convenient and cheapish way to sample a bunch of Cambodian dishes without the need to fully commit to a single one. I like to bring visitors here as a nice intro-to-Khmer food - and the fish amok and morning glory are pretty good by themselves, as well.

So what's on the plate, anyway?

Fish amok, a Cambodian baked dish of fish and coconut milk, with aromatic spices. A perennial favorite and one of Cambodia's not-so-numerous distinct dishes. Backpackers tend to eat little but if they take to it. I've almost overdosed, but I need to learn how to make it in the event of leaving Cambodia. Great stuff.

Stir-fried morning glory with oyster sauce, garlic, and chili. A Cambodian mainstay, this slightly chewy and delicious green vegetable is grown in small ponds and patches of standing water across the country. Aggressively good for you and surprisingly tender.

Deep-fried pork spare-ribs. Cambodians love their pig, as evidenced by any journey through the Cambodian countryside, where scary-looking pigs upwards of 400 pounds root about in the undergrowth until their time is up. A fried sparerib is a fried sparerib, but they're certainly something Cambodians LIKE.

Fresh vegetable spring rolls are another perennial favorite here, stuffed with vermicelli noodles, carrots, cucumber, peanuts, and a lot of fresh herbs. I like most Southeast Asian herbs but find fishwort - an herb with a small, almost gingko-shaped leaf - to be absolutely abhorrent. Your mileage may vary.

Green mango salad with small smoked fish and chili. It's a lot like papaya salad, with a slightly more sour, slightly more fruity flavor. The smoked fish are quite chewy and may be an acquired taste.

Khmer green curry is in essence a less spicy and more vegetable-heavy variant on the Thai stuff, with pumpkin, onion, green beans, chili (small quantities), coconut milk, some meat, and whatever else was hanging around the kitchen. I suspect the Khmer curry philosophy is fairly similar to that of gumbo: if you've got it, toss it in the pot. It's a good comfort-food dish and something I find myself ordering quite often. Will not blow your face off like the Thai stuff, as is usually the case with Cambodian food.

We also had some slightly too breaded fried squid, while my boyfriend and my mother had fried rice. I'm not even sure if it's really possible to rate fried rice. You only really notice if it's really bad or really good. Maybe I'm wrong - I mean, I love fried rice - but it's basically the Staff of Life in this part of the world.

Really Really French Food at The Wine Restaurant - in Phnom Penh

2011-11-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

The Wine Restaurant
Street 19 (Right off Street 240)
Telephone: 023 223 527
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The obviously named Wine Restaurant is a popular oasis for French expats, who enjoy the large wine selection, highly French-ified menu, and nice, open dining area. Most Phnom Penh residents hit up the Wine Restaurant for its high value $10 three course lunches, which I can verify are very nice: goat cheese toasts with salad, boeuf bourguignon, and strawberry sorbet, all nicely prepared and at a rock-bottom sum.

A very pleasant amuse bouche of puff pastry filled with shrimp in cream sauce.

Things get a lot more expensive at night, which is when my visiting parents charitably took Phill and I to the restaurant. Everything is both ala-carte and exceptionally French, although Kampot pepper sneaks into the menu. There's an emphasis on steaks, cream sauces, fresh seafood, foie gras, and cheese - and, obviously, the wine accompaniments to such delicacies. Good news is we were feeling hungry.

My father and I shared an appetizer of seared foie gras with fruit compote, over a salad. Foie gras is an elemental, slightly perverse dish in its all-encompassing richness - you love it, you hate it, you think it's cruel, whatever. I love it, at least in somewhat reasonable quantities, and this was very nice with the slight sweetness of the jammy fruit. It was served with somewhat unpleasantly bitter greens with balsamic, which actually made a nice counterpoint if eaten in tandem with foie and jam. This stuff ain't good for you, but it's certainly warranted every once a while. Well, except for you PETA types. Sorry.

I selected the seared scallops with mushroom sauce. They were presented very attractively, in a circle around a subtle balsamic reduction and a bit butter lettuce with mustardy dressing: the creamy mushroom sauce was served in a small cravet on the side, which I thought was rather clever. A scallop is easily overwhelmed, and allowing the diner to select how much sauce they'd like is a good idea. The sauce itself was a nice, vaguely boozy cream sauce and very nice: it would also suit a steak.

My father, ever the meat lover, ordered a simple rare strip steak with a side of frites - a classic French dish - with a side of red wine sauce. My dad, who knows his way around a steak, reported that it was good, and the red wine sauce was also a serviceable effort. Worthy of particular note are the fries, which are crisp, thin, nicely salted and generally good. Pretty much a requirement in a French restaurant that's actually trying.

Suspicious of Cambodian beef (although I believe they import everything here, as do most expensive restaurants in Phnom Penh - Cambodian beef is stringy), Phill and my mother both ordered the seared duck. This was a seared breast of duck served with a Kampot pepper sauce, some salad, and the aforementioned Good French Fries. Accolades all around: nicely cooked and high quality meat. Duck isn't ultra common in Cambodia, but the good stuff is easy to get: duck herders sell their plucked, fresh off the farm wares on the road to Siem Reap, while duck herders move their charges about in many areas of the countryside.

We finished with fresh passion fruit sorbet with a small wafer cookie in it, perhaps the ideal dessert in Cambodia's climate. Some other French desserts are on offer. I can't remember what they are. Sorry.

The Wine Restaurant is a fine choice for a high-end Gallic meal - with a formidable wine selection - in Phnom Penh. Especially relevant if you have finally tired of fish amok, loc lac, and fried rice, and would really like to eat something incorporating a cream sauce. The dining room is respectfully hushed, while service is on-point and well trained.

All the actual French people seem to filter into the restaurant from 8:30 onwards, so you may have the place to yourself if you come early. An added plus for those with kids: there's an outdoor play area with a totally bitchin' dragon-themed play car. It's been hard to resist the urge to jump into it many times myself. Mostly when drunk.

Palm Beach Seafood: Giant Ass Crabs And Devouring Them in Singapore

2011-11-06T20:18:00.001-08:00

Palm Beach Seafood
One Fullerton Road
Tel: +65 6227 2332
Singapore

I went to Palm Beach Seafood for my first Chili Crab Experience in Singapore last year, had a nice meal, and figured it would be fine for us to go back again. It's one of the chili crab emporiums that gets regularly recommended to out-of-town types willing to pay for the experience, and it's also in an indisputably enviable locale at One Fullerton Place, within post-dinner stroll distance of the Merlion and many, many high-end shopping opportunities. (Like all of Singapore).

Palm Beach is a standard Chinese seafood house and you can tell by the dining room, which has white tile floors, fake foliage-adorned walls, a bunch of large bubbling fish tanks at the back of the room, and is pitched at a very, very high volume. Chinese seafood houses are roughly the same everywhere insofar as I can tell.

The menu has a range of fresh seafood dishes, along with some non-seafaring specialities to even out the menu. The standby is of course crab, and there are a number of different species and sizes on offer, priced by the weight, and with a number of different cooking styles. You can pick your own victim from the tanks. Most people get the Singapore classic chili crab, which is cracked crab stir-fried in a sweet and spicy red sauce, served with bread rolls for sopping purposes.

Palm Beach really does do an epic chili crab, and this supposedly "medium" stone crab was an impressive specimen of the species. It was roughly as big as my head, in fact. Staring down a gigantic crustacean at dinner time is one of my (many) definitions of a good time, and once we were given Palm Beach branded seafood-bibs and some implements of destruction (crab crackers), we were well on our way.

The demise of Pinchy.

I don't really remember much about digging into a good crab, as I tend to enter what is commonly known as a fugue state, but it was tasty, really tasty, and there was a lot of it. I must say that I prefer my family's home-made chili crab to the restaurant stuff - the sauce is too sweet - but this was pretty excellent all the same. They didn't overcook and undercook the crab, which is an occasional complaint. Chili crab is in essence a fairly simple thing, or it should be.

We also tried some very good milk-fried prawns: bursty little beasts fried in hot oil then served with buttery crumbles mixed with fried curry leaves and a touch of garlic. Curry leaves are a favorite of mine, rarely encountered in the West, and they gave the dish an exotic, subtle South Indian flare. I am not sure where the "milk" part comes in, but maybe it has something to do with the buttery crumbles. They were very good, and an interesting departure from the stand-by of salt and pepper shrimp.

We ordered some fried duck to go with the seafood, which was a mistake at a restaurant that specializes in seafood: overcooked and too tough, except for the drumstick, which naturally I got when my parents weren't looking. Skip it. A better side dish is spicy fried morning glory, which was very good the first time I was here, and is a natural, nutrient-rich accompaniment to seafood dishes in Southeast Asia.

Palm Beach does nickle and dime, as many Chinese seafood places do. Being charged extra for a supposedly complimentary plate of prawn crackers and pineapple sambal is a bit tacky: if something is on a table in front of you at most restaurants, it is a tacit agreement that it's free, or at least it is in my book.

The place was chock-full when we arrived and the hostess put us in a rather lame seat right next to the door, which incensed my father since we did arrange through the hotel concierge and called in advance in the morning - and a walk-in group got a nicer table immediately upon arrival. After some poiteish posturing on the matter (well, polite as posturing about table location gets, I guess), we were put somewhere nicer. If you book far enough in advance, you can also be seated outside with a view over Marina Bay while you do horrible things to innocent sea creatures, which does sound pretty salubrious.

Addendum: I have always wondered why human beings love to gaze wistfully over the sea from whence the creatures they are messily devouring came from. Maybe it makes us feel like we are the brave fisher-people our ancestors hailed from. Maybe gazing over the sea makes us feel like conquerors of what lies beneath, never mind that the vast majority of the under-sea species we eat really aren't much brighter than, well, a lobster. (Exceptions made for octopi and whales. I'm sorry, guys. Real sorry.)

Or, maybe people just really dig a sea-view and like to assume that what they are eating was pulled wriggling and feisty from the very ocean they are looking at, even if in reality, dinner came from somewhere far away and was (if it was lucky) dumped into a holding tank before the inevitable end. This is rarely the case, of course - except in Cambodia, where crabs, fish, and prawns are kept in wicker boxes tied to over-the-water restaurants, and are fished out as need desires. Convenient enough in its way, except for in a typhoon.

Sup Tulang: Singapore's Most Obscene Food (And Possibly The World's)

2011-11-06T06:55:00.000-08:00

Haji Kadir & M Baharudeen Sup Tulang
Address: 505 Beach Road, #B1-13/15 Golden Mile Food Centre, Singapore
Tel: +65 6294 0750
Opening Hours
Daily: 12pm – 1am

This is a blog post about Sup Tulang, which is one of the more viscerally carnivorous things I've ever eaten, and in the incredibly civilized locales of Singapore, to boot. It's a Malay-Indian dish of beef or mutton bones, which are cooked in a spicy cumin and chili infused (and BRIGHT red) stew until the marrow inside gets soft and spreadable. You may have seen Anthony Bourdain slurping down the marrow with a plastic straw on TV, which is where my Dad got the idea from.

Hell bent on consuming sup tulang in his lifetime, my father put me to the task of finding out the best place to eat it. The Internet food oracles told me that would be the Golden Mile Food Center, closeish to Singapore's Little Arabia district. After an Indian breakfast and a morning spent wandering Little India and buying all manner of counterfeit shirts, we headed for the food court and the Haj Kadir food stall.

The stall, thankfully, is easy enough to find - bottom floor of the shopping center, to the right of the entryway - and is advertised with big, slightly green-tinted pictures of gory looking marrow bones. The elderly stall-men took our order, we sat down at a picnic table, and ordered fresh lime juice and lemon tea, as well as a serve of chicken-rice for my mother, whose sensibilities are more delicate than those of my father and I. Soon enough, a plate of four marrow bones for 7 Singapore dollars were plonked down on our table. We were given plastic straws for the marrow and some bread for the sauce.

It's a pretty obscene food. Tasty enough, but pretty obscene. The sauce is pretty delicious: it's got some gamey, mutton infused, smoky flavor, with chunks of chopped chili floating in it. The bones don't have much meat on them, but the meat isn't the point, really, it's the marrow inside.

I decided to go for the marrow first - the sounds you make when sucking marrow out of a big-ass bone in a public place, well, I'll leave those to your imagination. Then, I picked up the bone, which was really very slippery, and gnawed off the meat. I don't think I made any growling sounds while I was doing this but I also can't say I didn't.

It was a very happy experience for me, as I am a dedicated carnivore and everyone who knows me is pretty sure I retain ancient race memories of Stone-Age ancestors. In that I'd be super happy crouching by a fire tearing big chunks off a mammoth haunch while snarling and snapping at the semi-domesticated wolf pack that might bother me for scraps. Napkins, what are those?

The old men who ran the stall sat at the table next to us and watched me eat the marrow out of the bones while talking animatedly to each other in Malay. According to my mother, they appeared to be somewhere in between profoundly disgusted and impressed by the enthusiaim and verve with which I went at the marrow bones. Probably more disgusted.

Two cute little Singaporean ladies were eating sup tulang at a table near us, wearing cute little clothes, and they were somehow eating sup tulang *delicately*. I have no idea how but am fairly certain whatever dark magic they had been trained in to pull this off is far, far beyond my meager powers.

A normal, healthy reaction to sup tulang consumption.

The real problem with sup tulang is encountered after you're done with it, when you realize that the red dye they use to color the sauce doesn't come off your fingers, even if you scrub them really hard with liquid soap in the cleanish dining hall bathroom sink. It sort of comes off your face, but only sort of.

Therefore, every Singaporean will know for the rest of the day that you have eaten sup tulang. This is not exactly embarrassing, but few foods we encounter in the Western world actively mark you for the rest of the day. I ended up taking a long bath with a lot of intensive scrubbing, and my fingers were still stained red for a couple days. Although at least it took care of the facial Marks of Doom.

Anyone even vaguely squeamish about eating meat should probably steer well clear of both sup tulang and the people who are willing to eat it, is what I'm getting at. I suffer from no such moral compunctions and think most cute animals are preferable roasted on a spit with a nice marinade, but I know I'm not speaking for everyone.

Some Thoughts on Singapore Food Halls

2011-11-03T02:46:00.001-07:00

You can't go to Singapore and not eat at food halls. This is both because it's a cultural touchpoint and a Quintessential Experience, and because it is practical: Singapore is an expensive-ass place and food hall meals tend to be at least cheapish.

There are a lot of them, and some are renowned for a certain speciality, some are beloved by tourists, and some you stumble across in little back-alley neighborhoods. I am of the opinion that you can get pretty good food in all of them if you've got a nose - Chowhound.com and a cursory Google hunt are all you need to find the good stuff.

Further, as insofar as I can determine Singaporeans don't actually cook, food halls are usually great spots for people watching, as people of every imaginable ethnicity chat, bicker, and pontificate over large portions of....just about everything. You can get anything from Mexican food to Bengali food to New York cheesecake at the largest of these institutions, but it's the street dishes you should be looking out for.

We paid a visit to the Lau Pau Sat Festival Market nearish to Raffles Quay, which is set in a gracious old building and is a big favorite with power-lunchers from nearby high-rises and office buildings who are the mood to slum it. I was looking for a couple specific Singapore dishes and zeroed in on the Char Kway Teow hawker stand roughly in the middle of the hall, which had a couple of classics on tap....

I would like to disabuse the general public of the notion that Singapore carrot cake has anything to do with carrots or cake, or cupcakes, or dessert. This curiously named street food dish par-excellence is in fact sliced radish cake, stir-fried with sweet soy sauce, egg, and onions, in the "black" variant - a soy-sauce free variant exists that is called, shockingly enough, "white." It's a bit odd at first to the Western palate, but I've developed a real liking for the stuff and consider it a first-rate breakfast meal.

This is a Singapore-style oyster omelet with a bit of onion, and it's a nice greasy, salty, slightly funky bite - perhaps best avoided if you're not already the kind of person who goes nuts for oysters (me) and to be sought out if you are (me). Singapore has a way with grease for a place with such an at times noxiously squeaky-clean reputation.

Oysters have a dodgy reputation just about everywhere in Asia - my family had to stare me down from eating one the other day in Cambodia, but I like to live dangerously. However, Singapore is a place with food safety standards, and, even more pleasingly, graded ratings placed in prominent positions behind every food stalls counter, which makes your choices easier.

Then there's Singapore chicken rice, a classic breakfast in these parts, and really quite fiendishly simple: rice cooked in chicken stock served with boneless chicken (boiled or fried, most often boiled), a sweet soy sauce of some type and a hot chili sauce of another, and a bowl of chicken stock soup. It's just about the best thing possible for a weird stomach (and it will happen to you in Southeast Asia) and is available just about everywhere, usually at reasonable prices.

I like to get fresh fruit juices or sliced fruit for snacks on ridiculously hot days in Singapore. Thankfully, food halls are fully aware of how goddamn hot their homeland is, and getting a nice fresh electrolyte-loaded beverage is an easy matter. They'll mix your fruits for you or blend in some ice if you ask nicely. I also have a real thing for sweet fresh lime juice - they call it nimbupani in India, which is a delightful word - and it is easy to obtain here. Sugar cane juice is a bit cloying for my taste, but someone will happily press you some for a buck or two at the stalls: look for the guy with the sugar cane stalks. (I know, I give such useful, specific advice).

Finding out what is good and what is not at food halls is easy: who is being mobbed by hungry Singaporeans, and who is not? Rocket science, it isn't.

Bayang: Fancy Indonesian Food in Singapore, Food on Sticks

2011-10-31T07:06:00.000-07:00

Bayang
3A River Valley Road,
#01-05 Clarke Quay, Singapore

Indonesian food: a cuisine that's just about impossible to find in most of the USA, and for reasons I find unfathomable - peanut sauce, fried rice, fresh ingredients and less aggressive spicing than Thai food, what's not to love? Thankfully, I live in Southeast Asia now, and we decided that we'd pay a visit to Bayang in Clarke Quay for our final dinner in Singapore.

Clarke Quay is a bit of a zoo at night, full of US marines on the hunt and young Singaporeans dressed to kill and backpackers really feeling their vow of partial-poverty, but it's kind of a fun vibe - the same as any Where Young People Go pre-fab destination in any major, wealthy city. As a resident of Phnom Penh, it felt rather exotic.

Bayang is also a bit of a pre-fab restaurant, with a chic and subdued interior, an English menu that explains things, and friendly waitstaff. The food is more than serviceable and attractive (though I'd like to go to some sort of po-dunk authentic Indonesian joint in Singapore, someday), and the location is convenient for a post-or-pre meal wander along the river on a busy weekend. I dock them some points for a curiously beat up menu - time to print out some new ones, tiger - but there's a nice selection of Indonesian classics with a special emphasis on grilled stuff.

We very much enjoyed the satay sampler with beef, chicken, and shrimp. All three meats were very tender and nicely marinated, and the lemongrass skewers were an attractive touch. Something about satay is bizarrely charismatic. I chalk it up to a nigh-universal human love of Food on Sticks and peanut sauce. Well, except for those of you with food allergies. Guess it sucks to be you.

Whole grilled marinated fish was also done nicely, with tender meat that didn't require rocket-scientist levels of precision to fillet. A delicately seasoned marinade with lemongrass, ginger, and chili gave the white flesh a nice additional kick - the three house-made dipping sauces on the side were another nice touch.

Nasi goreng, Indonesia's ubiquitous fried rice with Stuff on the Side was on offer, complete with a shrimp cracker, sambal chili paste, and an additional stick of chicken satay. It had an appropriately smokey, coconut infused flavor and was quite tasty - there's a reason one of the planet's biggest countries is absolutely nuts over the stuff. I still haven't tried the epic Dutch-influenced Rijstaffel spread, which all my expat relatives grow a bit misty about when discussing the dish, but someday, someday, someday.

And then there's gado gado, Indonesia's classic mostly-boiled warm salad smothered in delicious peanut sauce. Another dish I'm astounded hasn't hit big in the US - are we THAT scared of peanuts? It's made differently just about everywhere, but the regular players are hard-boiled eggs, cashews, green beans, cabbage, shrimp crackers, bean sprouts, cucumber, tofu, and whatever else happens to be lying around the kitchen that would taste good with spicy peanut sauce on it. I love the stuff and could probably eat it from mixing bowls.

I can suggest Bayang for upscale and reasonably priced Indonesian food in a pretty setting in a great location - good for a meal and a stroll. Probably worth looking elsewhere for true authenticity when it comes to Indonesian cuisine in Singapore, but hell, do you need that all the time?

Komala Vilas: Real Indian Breakfast Food in the Heart of Singapore

2011-10-26T01:28:00.000-07:00

Komala Vilas Restaurant
76/78 Serangoon Road
Singapore 217981
Tel: +65 6293 6980

Singapore's Little India neighborhood.

I love South Indian breakfast food, I really, really do. Started when I lived in Bangalore in college and has persisted ever since, coming to a boil whenever I go back to India (like last year). The rarity of good dosas, vadas, uttapham and other AM Indian delicacies in places not India kills me inside. Phnom Penh does have a pretty good little dosa-slinging joint, but it's not quite the same. Thus, I was very happy to come across Komala Vilas in Singapore's Little India, a restaurant that effectively transports you to a busy morning somewhere near Bangalore or Chennai.

We had a rava masala dosa, an Indian crepe made with semolina flour and stuffed with potatoes, fried onions, green chili and spices. Like most South Indian breakfast items, it's served on a steel plate with small cups of tomato and coconut chutneys and sambar, South India's ubiquitous tamarind vegetable stew. You eat with your hands, ripping the dosa apart and dipping it in the little cups of flavor: it's really pretty perfect. Would only be enhanced by the addition of a smidgen of melted cheese - why can't you find a cheese dosa outside India?

We sampled an uttapam as well, a pancake with red onion and chili mad with a fermented rice and daal batter. Uttapam is in essence a thick, flat variant on the dosa and is eaten with the hands in approximately the same way: the red onions weren't too sharp and made a nice counterpoint to the sambar.

Komala Vilas also does excellent, flaky, hot samosas, which are served with chutney and provide a spicy, interesting AM departure from a boring ol' crossiant. Great with chai tea, but everything is. There's also fresh juices and good, strong, super sweet South Indian coffee on offer, just like I fondly remember it.

Komala Vilas has been doing its thing since 1947, serving cheap and simple South Indian breakfast items to a diverse crowd of Singaporeans. It's a bit of a zoo on weekends, but the people watching is, to me, a real perk - you can pour your tea from saucer to cup and listen to the cacophony all around you. "Quiet" and "Indian" don't go together. Saunter down the street after breakfast, buy some knock-off junk and tasty food products in the Indian run shops on Serangoon road, and pop your head into the Hindu temple if you're feeling nostalgia for the subcontinent. This is the fun part of Singapore.

Coolabah Hotel and Restaurant: A Hint of Class Amid Backpacking Hordes

2011-10-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

Coolabah Hotel and Restaurant
14 Mithona Street
Ochheuteal Beach Road
Sihanoukville, Cambodia
+855 (0)17 678 218

The Coolabah Hotel and Restaurant is an Australian-owned hotel-eatery-bar located along one of Sihanoukville's main backpacker drags, close to the popular party-ground of Serendipity beach. The Coolabah, newly renovated, tastefully decorated, and with a good restaurant, is a delightful breath of fresh air in an area that is sliding, with some speed, into the realm of the sleazy.

My boyfriend and I were unlucky enough to be in Snook during a truly impressive three-day rainstorm, which meant we spent a lot of time inside our very nice $25 dollar hotel room, and a lot of time in the hotel restaurant willing for the rain to please please please stop.

Luckily for us, the Coolabah's restaurant, spread across the main-room and by the small hotel pool, happens to be excellent. We chatted with the affable Australian owners, watched the rain bash against the windows with truly aggressive force, and ate a couple of really good lunches. (I also found a 2004 guide to Ireland's Best Vacation Resorts in the hotel's left-books library. How did this even happen?)

I will submit that the Coolabah's Caesar salad is the best I have had in Cambodia. All the essentials are there: a good dressing with a hint of fresh anchovy, chicken still warm from the grill, shaved real parmesan cheese, big home-made garlic croutons, and big chunks of bacon, as well as some nice hard-boiled egg.

They don't use giant-ass romaine leaves that I have to cut myself at the table, which inevitably leads to my getting Caesar salad splattered across my face. I only wish there was somewhere in Phnom Penh I could get one this good.

The seafood chowder was also excellent, as one would hope when eating by the ocean. Boneless (importantly) chunks of fish, shrimp, scallop and squid in a cooked down and creamy broth with a delightfully pink tinge, served with a little toasted bread. A great dish for a rainy day and something that exploits all the good seafood treats Cambodia has to offer. Another dish I wish was found more often on Cambodian menus.

My boyfriend deemed the fish and chips another best-in-Cambodia candidate: a light cracker crust (Panko?), covering some nice flaky barracuda, with big, beefy, Australian style "chips." Although he disdains tartar sauce, the philistine, I ate his instead and thought it was pretty good.

Breakfast was also a winner: an omelette with mushroom and ham was big and nicely executed, with a slightly but not excessively creamy center, and there was fresh baked brown bread and a selection of jams to go with it. House-made yogurt - not too sweet and all natural - with homemade fruit preserves made for an awesome afternoon snack as well.

This Russian Pacific Fleet ship = why I was in Sihanoukville in the wet season. Read about my Slavic adventure here.

Washed down with a fresh passion fruit soda, the snack almost made me forget that my journalistic business trip was being ever so slightly stymied by the fact that the streets were running with muddy, fetid water and giant snakes were infesting (other people's) homes, or that's what a damp-looking Australian guy hanging out at the pool table told us happened to him.

You gotta love the tropics.

The Coolabah's clean and well-maintained rooms (the bathrooms left me in awe) and the equally clean and well behaved clientele offer a delightful contrast to the patchouli scented and icky hordes of backpackers that emerge from their hovels in Snookie whenever the sun shines. Beware! Beware the dreadlocks! Go to Kampot instead! But if you must, stay at the Coolabah.

Cantina: Mexican Food That Doesn't Suck in Cambodia, Crawling with Feral Journalists

2011-10-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

Cantina
347 Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
023 222502
CLOSED SATURDAYS DON'T PANIC NO ONE HAS DIED

It's hard to properly review Cantina for me.

Hurley, the owner, is a friend, a fellow (vastly more experienced) journalist, and someone my boyfriend and I spend a lot of time sitting outside with, talking about nothing in particular, on rainy Phnom Penh nights. Cantina is also a dependable place to find a real, live Actual Journalist in Phnom Penh, unlike the FCC. Seriously: journalists can't afford to eat there. Don't even bother.

Cantina, as may be indicated by the name, serves Mexican food. Much to my shock when I first tried it, Hurley's food is extremely tasty and is not an abomination before the Lord, as Mexican food eaten pretty much anywhere other then Texas, Mexico, or Calilfornia is.

Hurley, as he told me a while back, has some sort of supply line going with Long Beach Cambodians who get him Mexican ingredients - chilis, salsas, hot sauce, beans, that sort of thing - on a regular basis. Further, they hand-make the tortillas, and everything is very fresh. You can even get good guacamole here if you come during the wet season. Mondolkiri province has enough elevation to grow good avocados.

We usually get taquitos to start off with, because who doesn't like a good taquito? And these are good, made with home-made corn tortillas and lots of chicken, and a very excellent creamy avocado sauce. Also, there's Tapatio here. God, I miss Tapatio sometimes.

I'm a tostada fan. Sort of like a taco salad without the fuss. The home-made corn tortillas really shine here, deep fried, covered in refried beans, cheese, meat, lettuce, tomato, salsa, hot sauce, and some guacamole, and you're good to go. I usually smash em' up with a fork, but the fried tortillas have enough give to allow you to break them into chunks. I have been told this is by design. They have good ground beef here - the Taste of Home - but there's also excellent slow-cooked spicy pork. Definitely give that a shot.

There's also tacos, fajitas, chili verde, quesadillas, gringas, enchiladas, nachos, and most of the other usual suspects. Mexican beer and good margaritas as well, including a frozen strawberry one that I have avoided for reasons of mental health. The decor is "Old war photos, most of them authentic, mixed with old raunchy Mexican movie posters," which I happen to find charming.

Most of the clientele are pleasantly-surprised Americans feeling home sick, though we shared a good laugh the other night when some French tourists walked by, one exclaiming loudly, "Oi, this is zee....Mexicaan food?" Oui, oui. Si, si.

Also, journalists. Let me explain.

Shoals of journalists come through Cantina on certain, special nights of the week, drawn there by some special signal - I believe it's the same lunar message that drives fingerling fish or certain species of eels to shore to spawn. Or could be because most of us — not all of us— have figured out how to send out mass text messages.

This makes me ask - why exactly do you, Presumed Fantasy Phnom Penh Tourist, want to meet a journalist, anyway? They have good stories, sure, but they also drink a lot and argue about weird socio-political matters, and then they drink some more. And then some more.

You might be talked into buying a round for a bunch of louts, or you might be forced to listen to some fuck talk for like an hour and a half about the time they got trapped in Kashgar during the Bad Days, whenever the Bad Days were (and there's always bad days).. After the bottle of bourbon, so the story makes even less sense.

Also, a lot of us are assholes. Present company included.

Consider Meeting Journalists in blanket terms before you actually run out and do so, that's all I'm saying.

Kandal House: Home-made Pasta in Cambodia, Go Figure

2011-10-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Kandal House Restaurant
No. 239BEo, Sisowath Quay
Phone 016 800 111
Phnom Penh

Not all restaurants on Riverside in Phnom Penh suck. Yeah, it's backpacker-ville and views of water tend to lead to mediocre food, I get that, but Kandal House is one of the exceptions. A small joint with a menu curiously divided between home-made pizza and pasta and standard Khmer dishes, it's one of my favorites for a quiet and inexpensive week-night dinner.

I usually get the cheese and spinach ravioli with Bolognese sauce, though you can get it with a cream sauce if you so desire. There's also beef and four-cheese ravioli on offer. The sauce is a vegetable-heavy Bolognese, which may bother the picky bitches among you but is a non-issue with me. The main thing here is that the home-made pasta is very light and delicate and the filling is fresh and tasty - no chewy, pre-made stuff here. One benefit of eating Western food in Phnom Penh is that restaurants have to make a lot more stuff themselves, meaning you're eating considerably less Sodexo-vintage food than you might be in the USA. I'm OK with this.

Fettucini with bolognese is what my boyfriend always gets (yeah, we get predictable sometimes) and that's home-made and good too. My carb addicted signifigant other likes that Kandal House piles enormous quantities of lightly toasted sesame baguette onto the table whenever you order an entree, complete with butter.

Curiously enough, Kandal House also has awesome chicken nuggets, which we discovered inadvertently as they're called strips on the menu. Circular, fried pieces of white meat chicken with sweet chili sauce are, insofar as I can tell, a huge hit in every culture (barring vegetarians, I guess) everywhere world-wide and these are really good - light batter, perfectly snack-able.

OK, it's a salad, but it's got a light vinegary Thousand Island dressing on it that I go nuts for for reasons known only to myself, and there's a lot of it for $3.00. I find it difficult to consume pasta without salad on the side - and if I knew why, I'd tell you - but this hits the spot.

Mike's Burger House: Inn and Out Knockoff in Phnom Penh, or Why Globalization Is Awesome

2011-09-26T01:25:00.001-07:00

Mike's Burger House
Russian Boulevard, in the Sokimex gas station, Tuol Kork
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

An Inn and Out knock-off in the dark heart of Phnom Penh? Believe it. Cambodian owner "Mike" spent much of his adult life in Los Angeles and developed a taste for the indisputably tasty stylings of Inn and Out Burger in California. Upon returning home to Cambodia, he opened Mike's way out of town, on the way to the airport. Globalization is awesome sometimes.

The restaurant's been moved a little closer to the thick of things, into a Sokimex gas station on Russian Boulevard, but the basic concept - cheap, large unapologetically American cheeseburgers alongside a few other US stalwarts - is unchanged. And man, do my boyfriend and I appreciate it.

Sometimes a cheeseburger with fake cheese, fries, and no weird Asian interpretations of such is what our little expat hearts most desire in the world, and that is what Mike's delivers. Even better, we can actually afford it. Cheeseburgers start at $2.50, a plate of fries so big that me and my comically oversized boyfriend can't finish it is $3.99, and you can finish off with an A&W rootbeer float. Man, I'm almost tearing up over ground meat. There's also a counter of US candy, some US grocery products, and a few other random things on offer.

I find these the best, or at least the most intrinsically comforting burgers in Phnom Penh, for a couple of simple reasons.

1. Fake cheese. Most places serving burgers here use real cheese and that is totally off-point. Fake, melty cheese makes a good fast-food burger. So sue me

2. Real sesame buns. Not sure where Mike sources these wonderful things as I haven't seen them elsewhere in town, but they're good. Also, toasted.

3. Special sauce. I don't care if it's actually ketchup, mayo, and mustard with some pickle juice, or whatever, it is of vast and all-encompassing import.

4. Size. Burgers that are actually American-sized are a true rarity here. Actually, I'm pretty sure these burgers are bigger than Inn and Out's stuff. Also, thick, non-frozen beef patties are always nice, especially in The Country of Suspicious Cow Meat.

5. Plenty of crisp iceberg lettuce and, if you ask for them, grilled onions. Grilled onions always make a cheeseburger better. I can actually show you a scientific equation to prove this if you give me an hour notice.

If you're some kind of Hindu or something, you can get a chicken sandwich, though it is by no means any better for you than a cheeseburger. Cheese, chicken breast, special sauce, grilled onions, green grilled chili and lots of lettuce. Pretty good and simple.

It's pretty damn hard to take a sexy photo of a chili burger without some serious cosmetic alterations, but I tried. The chili burger is a very LA sort of thing (well, according to Californians) and this is a worthy effort, though I will and always shall be kind of a chili snob.

Excellent fries, the finishing touch. Some places have good burgers and distinctly mediocre fries, but you'll still eat there - fries are sort of the finishing touch. I think he hand-makes em', which is all the better. They're salty, crispy, and thin-cut, and Jesus Christ there are a lot of them.

It's a hike out here, which means the clientele is mostly expats, Cambodians with a taste for American food, and a whole bunch of missionaries post-church on Sundays. Sometimes crowded, but seats always open up fast, as is the way of fast food giants. There's even serve-your-own condiments. Man, be still my heart. I love you, Mike's Burger House.

Warung Bali: Cheap Indonesian Eats

2011-09-22T04:07:00.001-07:00

Warung Bali
#25, Street 178, across from the National Museum
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I love Indonesian food, but it's extremely difficult to find in the USA, even in the multi-cultural hodgepodge that is Northern California. I'm certain someone can tell me why the Indonesian diaspora doesn't tend to open restaurants in the USA, but, whatever: there's excellent Indonesian food right here in Phnom Penh.

Warung Bali is an Indonesian food specialist with extremely cheap prices - it's hard to top $10 - and a pretty extensive menu, with a particular focus on interesting soups and tempeh dishes. There's also lots of fruit drinks, including a great tamarind shake with brown sugar.

Everyone loves meat on a stick, those without horrifying peanut allergies love peanut butter (those WITH horrifying peanut allergies should stay five feet away from Indonesian restaurants), and the combination is pure magic.

This is definitely the best satay in Phnom Penh, and, at the princely sum of $2.50, a real deal. The peanut sauce is also absolutely superb: perfect, flavor, texture, crunch everything. Hoard the plate and toss it on your rice when your main course comes.

I hadn't really known that glass noodles were an Indonesian thing, but these stir-fried glass noodles with chicken and vegetables are a big favorite with my boyfriend and are indeed excellent, a slightly more delicate riff on the thicker, denser noodles that keep a healthy majority of Asia on its feet.

Beef rendang, stewed meat in coconut milk and spices served with coconut rice, is one of Indonesia's most iconic dishes and is something I occasionally really, really crave. Good thing is that this stuff is delicious - even the rice is good enough to warrant eating on its own.

I should add that it is impossible to attractively photograph beef rendang, but I tried.

I've also had the beef and coconut milk soup, and the beef, sweet soy sauce, and vegetable soup, both of which were excellent.

It's a great budget option and quite popular with both Indonesian and Western expats, and conveniently located near the tourist mecca of Riverside.

Warung Bali is a family restaurant in the most classically Asian sense of the word, which means various relatives amble through the restaurant and everyone lives upstairs, or at least I think they do. You walk through the rather close kitchen to reach the bathroom. Someone's kid might come over and stare at you. This is all part of the charm for some.

Shawarma: One of Lebanon's Better Innovations

2011-09-19T09:35:00.001-07:00

Shawarma
Sisowath Quay, near Mao's bar and the Night Market
023 720 011 for delivery
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Shawarma are a staple of late-night drinking life throughout much of the world - though curious enough, not the USA - and Phnom Penh's barhoppers have taken to these Lebanese pita bread sandwiches in a big way.

Which explains the two PP outposts of Shawarma, specializing in various riffs on the theme, along with a variety of Lebanese snack items, all at delightfully cheap prices. There's chicken, beef, kafta, shish taouk, kebbe, and lamb varieties on offer, as well as whatever specials strike their fancy. There's also hummus, feta cheese salad, falafel, and some phyllo-dough Lebanese pastries on the menu. They also deliver for a buck, which is convenient when you want to eat something incredibly messy at work.

Chicken shawarma with garlic sauce ($3.00) is pretty much my simple-and-good standby, and, as the place is apparently owned by Genuine Lebanese People, it really is good. Fresh pita bread warmed on a griddle with marinated chicken, fried onions, creamy garlic sauce, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and mint. Yum. Shawarmas fall apart within about five seconds of being bitten into in my experience, especially when you're drunk, but they provide plates.

Shawarma also offers excellent fresh hummus, served with pita bread. A drizzle of olive oil and some kalamata olives on top. Definitely satisfies my occasional, profound hummus cravings. Very smooth and not grainy like some efforts around here.

Vegetarians will be happy to know they are adequately provided for here in the Lebanese junk food department. The falafel, as is to be expected, is excellent.

It's a little restaurant with overly bright lighting and some cool paintings on the wall, and you can watch the cheery waitresses make your sandwiches while sipping on an Orangina. Music wise, there's always either Akon singing about how he wants to fucckkk you fucckkk yooouuu in autotune, or sentimental 70's music on in the dining area. It's almost to the Pavlovian point where listening to Akon makes my boyfriend and I really want to eat shawarma.

There's one outlet on Sisowath Quay, open all day and until around 9:00 PM, and another outlet on Street 51, across the street from the Heart of the Darkness, that opens around 9:30 and closes at - sometime really, really late, as I've seen them still putting shawarmas together in the vicnity of 5:00 am. (Admitting freely I have spent time wandering the skeezy environs of Street 51 at unholy hours of night here, but I think that's a rite of passage for new Phnom Penh expats....right?

Freebird: Americana, Anyone?

2011-09-15T02:05:00.000-07:00

Freebird Bar and Grill
#69, Street 240
+855 23 224712
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Cambodia has a thing for American-style bars. My theory is that they exist to make mostly-male-expats feel slightly more comfortable: something about a place with license plates and movie posters on the walls and TGI Friday's-like red lighting makes em' feel like they're not in a small and mostly ignored Southeast Asian outpost. This is where Free Bird on tourst-friendly Street 240 comes in.

Free Bird is American and wants you to know about it - it's like walking into a Chilis or something, down to super friendly (and cute) Khmer waitresses, beer on tap, really high tables with barstools attached and dark, reddish lighting.

The menu hits all the American classics, along with some Italian and Mexican food (also American) - there's biscuits and gravy, chili dogs, pretty good cheese burgers, burritos, pizza, and even, so help us God, make-your-own-hotpockets. And buffalo wings. Can't forget the buffalo wings. Most main courses come with a choice of two sides, and portions are generous, in the best American tradition. Prices are moderate by Phnom Penh standards, as is to be expected with foreigner food.

The food is only OK, but I think Freebird functions more as an exercise in ambience than a culinary adventure. It's a comforting place for the American set. Even I admit to needing a little rank Americana in my life sometimes.

They do have pretty good ground beef crispy tacos, which come with pico-de-gallo, sour cream-like substance, and pretty good refried beans with cheese. It satisfied my occasional, embarrassing, Taco Bell cravings.

A chicken quesadilla, the perennial classic, good if you're suffering from some sort of goddamn stomach parasite, as I have been for what, two months now? For some reason, Cambodian restaurants have not grasped that a quesadilla is generally a food that can be picked up, and doesn't need to be eaten with a knife and fork. All right: the filling was an odd, finely minced combination of chicken, cheese, and beans, in a very soft flour tortilla.

My boyfriend rated as acceptable the chili dogs and the sloppy joe, though he did complain to me (in this hilariously aghast voice) that there were vegetables in the sloppy joe, what kind of obscenity against God is that? I suppose you have been warned.

The cute Khmer waitresses are incredibly friendly and constantly, feverishly replenish your complimentary supply of salted peanuts with deep- fried garlic and a dash of sugar, which is far more delicious than it sounds.

Khmer Surin: Everyone Needs a Company Restaurant

2011-09-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

Khmer Surin
No 9, Street 57
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
023/993-163

Khmer Surin is my Company restaurant in Phnom Penh. Set in a beautifully designed Khmer style wooden house with an extensive water garden, the menu has all the Khmer classics as well as more familar Thai dishes, reasonable prices, and good service. It's a great intro to Khmer food for friends - all the flavor without the possible health code violations, since I don't want to send anybody home with THAT sort of souvenir. I'll even eat at Khmer Surin when people aren't visiting, which is quite the testimony.

I was taking my dear Tulane buddy Bojo out for a pre-Tuol Sleng lunch—and you'll need the calories if you're going there. I'm not going to insert some sort of punchy joke line here because 1. out of line as hell and 2. Seriously, I can't do it. Moving on.

My boyfriend and I love the fried squid here. It's a simple dish, but they do it really well. Light crispy batter, nice tangy dipping sauce, and the squid is tender and doesn't require five minutes of chewing to get through. I like fried food that isn't so violently greasy that I can feel my arteries hardening upon consumption. Well played.

Fish amok is served here in small individual servings, which is a bit annoying if you're the type who orders one fish amok all for yourself (usually me) but is very handy if you're 1. in a group and 2. introducing the wonders of fish amok to another person for the first time. This is what I use Khmer Surin for - first introductions to Khmer food for friends - so this serving style works fine for me. It's also good amok, with plenty of flavor and a very uncomposed, soft texture - I don't like it too thick.

Everyone loves satay. Something about marinated meat on a stick in tandem with spicy peanut sauce turns on the synapes of just about everyone I've ever met. Vegetarian? You can do it with tofu. Satay rocks. And this is good satay. Tender, which is the main thing, since bad satay entails gnawing beef jerky off a wooden stick which is never fun. The peanut sauce is a bit oily, but nothing insurmountable.

Want to get your friends to eat water lily? Order the water lily with chicken and peanut sauce, evocatively called "Swimming Rama" on Khmer Surin's menu. Combine two universally loved food products (except for those with peanut allergies, poor bastards) with one certified Weird Thing and you've got a handy loophole. Also, water lily, despite the fact that it is grown in large sludgy ponds by people who live in floating villages (most of the time) is actually delicious, nutritious, and close enough to spinach for most people's needs.

Khmer Surin also makes a fantastic Thai-style stuffed omelette. It's a thin omelette stuffed with diced pork, green pepper, onion, and a slightly sweet ketchup-chili sauce, and it is absolutely fantastic. The Pad Thai is missable - the noodles are too thin and not enough flavor - but don't pass up that omelette.

Khmer Surin is best appreciated at night, when you can dine sitting on silk cushions on a lovely wooden porch while listening to traditional Khmer music. Even if you're a Jaded Expat, it's a nice reminder that you do indeed live in a cool and exotic place. A reminder you sometimes need when much of your average week in said Exotic Asian Wonderland may involve fighting with sketchy mototaxi drivers, killing malevolent insects the size of your goddamn face, and dealing with sudden and brutal downpours. The adventure is still there, you just have to remember it sometimes.

Good Sandwich at Jave Cafe

2011-08-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Java Cafe

56 Sihanouk Blvd,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Java Cafe, a combination art gallery and cafe along Sihanouk Boulevard in Phnom Penh, is a bit of an institution. It's been using the art and chick-food combination successfully for eleven years, and is one of the most recognizable and oft-utilized meet up spots in town.

Walking into the place on a rainy evening, it was difficult for me to believe that I was not in Northern California. Jazz on the speakers, contemporary art on the walls, funky yet tasteful furniture, twee table settings, organic smoothie selection - is this some sort of perverse dream? No, just Java. My boyfriend remains skeptical but I'm glad to have Java. Also, they make good sandwiches.

Like this ham, mushroom, and mozzarella "pizza" panini on herb foccacia, served with home-made potato chips and garden salad. Anything meant to simulate pizza that is not actually pizza fills me with suspicion and revulsion, but this was delicious. Lots of oozy, melting cheese, and a nice, authentically pizza-like flavor. The availability of good bread in Phnom Penh amazes me even now. I should also add that home-made potato chips are always a good idea.

My boyfriend ordered pancakes, which he deemed good. They're not the French style pancakes, which are actually crepes and should be labeled as such on the menu to avoid insurrection, or at least complaints. Java also has a pretty good chicken kebab salad with beetroot and yogurt sauce - sounds weird, is actually excellent. I've heard baked goods are hit and miss, but they make a good cup of coffee.

And you can look at nice contemporary Cambodian art on the walls while listening to Mingus and pretend for a bit that you're living a more sophisticated lifestyle then the one you actually lead (featuring: daily grinds, motorbike accidents, persistent tropical parasites) which is sometimes what you need.

Blind Date: Tibetan Food Proves Surprisingly Good

2011-08-26T10:51:00.001-07:00

Blind Date Restaurant
Fancy Market (Top floor - watch for the sign from the street.)
12, NB Singh Road
+91 35 4225 5404
Darjeeling, India

Blind Date is a small, somewhat creatively decorated restaurant in Darjeeling that specializes in Himalayan food - the common cuisine ground in between Nepal, Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan. The constants? Momos (dumplings), Thukpa (noodle soup), fried bread and fried rice, and more dairy products then are usually encountered in East Asian influenced cuisines. Most importantly: Blind Date is both dirt cheap and delicious. For your buck, it's just about the best eating experience in Darjeeling. Don't miss it.

Just be sure to use the bathroom first, since, like every restaurant in Darjeeling (just about) there's nowhere to go in the restaurant. Not a problem for men, who may exert the Indian males God-given right to piss on anything wherever he pleases at any time, but ladies may want to hold back on the beer. Watch this space for an upcoming screed about Darjeeling's discriminatory bathroom facilities, but, writing about food right now.

I believe this was Chhurpi, the Himalayas' somewhat weird but delicious variant on the West's hallowed cheese soup. (The fact I am unsure irritates me - I lost my notes somewhere, and Google is proving unhelpful). We ordered it with pork, which was the way to go. Although it's made with Himalaya-style fermented cheese - pretty much cottage cheese with a weird name, don't need to delve into it further, do we? - the taste is somewhat equivalent to cheddar. However this stuff is made, it's ideal for a foggy day at high altitude.

Ting-mo, or Tibetan bread rolls, are often served steamed (like the Chinese do) and are a rather inoffensive and basic carbohydrate. Good at high altitude to keep you hiking but not something I'd pick out of a police lineup for supper. Thankfully, deep frying turns the stuff into golden-crispy Grade-A deliciousness. Get two orders.

I don't have a picture of Blind Date's variant on the theme, but momos are just what people in the Himalayas - and at various restaurants in India - call God's Chosen Food, the dumpling. The main way you can tell them apart from East Asian variants on the classic is the shape - momos tend to be rounder. Other then that, they're filled with various kinds of things and served in a dizzying number of ways. I happen to like the variety that are pan-fried and served with a thick chili sauce the best, but I'll eat and adore pretty much anything pan fried and served in a thick chili sauce. You can never go wrong with momos in this part of the world, and thankfully, you'll never be forced to live without em'.

I should add that Blind Date has some of the best chili chicken on the subcontinent. Chili chicken is a much beloved Chindian dish (You know, the bastard love child of Chinese and Indian food) and is sort of like a spicier, harsher, variant on General Tso's chicken. This being India, the chicken is usually served bone-in and stir-fried with a not-fucking-around chili sauce, some whole chilis, and some vegetables. My friend Kiran and I are nuts for it, and this was great.

Fried rice is what Asia runs on. The world will probably run on fried rice in a hundred years. I'm cool with this. Blind Date, true to form, has excellent fried rice. They keep it in the pan long enough to get a little nutty crisp on it, which is essential, and there's plenty of stuff in it, which is also essential.

Gobi Manchurian, another beloved deep-fried and spicy Chindian dish. It's deep-fried cauliflower in a sweet and spicy sauce. Just about ubiquitous and pretty good if you, like most people, prefer your vegetable products crispy and delicious.

I've got a thing for fried greens, which most people think is kind of weird. Whatever. These were really good, and a nice mix of various local-greens varieties - not over or undercooked, nice and fresh, a simple and slightly spicy Chinese-style sauce with some vinegar.

Friends Restaurant: Ladies Lunching for A Cause

2011-08-18T10:04:00.001-07:00

Friends Restaurant
#215 Street 13 Phnom Penh
Tel: 012 802 072

Friends, a training restaurant operated by children's NGO Mith Samlanh, is a real favorite among both tourists and PP's Ladies Who Lunch set, of which there are many. It's so popular that I've actually been turned away during dinner hours, which has never happened to me in Phnom Penh before or since.

It's easy to see why: Friends has a friendly dining space, a cheap-enough menu with a combination Western and Asian menu, a variety of interesting blended drinks and the vague sensation that you're both having a tasty lunch and doing something for the children. The combination is unbeatable.

Parmesan crusted fish with ratatouille was simple and good - reminded me of childhood dinners, in a good way. Nice crispy cheesy crust and a good ratatouille without an inordinate amount of olive oil and plenty of eggplant. They love eggplant here. Portions aren't immense here, as an aside, so you might want to take the ravenous elsewhere.

This strawberry passion fruit shake was on special and was absolutely superb. My mother and I were pretty openly fighting over the last dredges of it. Tourists in Cambodia need to cowboy up and try the occasional fruit shake in the nicer restaurants here - nothing beats the heat better. (Hint: if the place is air conditioned, you're probably going to be okay. Although NOTHING is guaranteed when it comes to food poisoning, but is it in the USA?)

My aunt had the black bean burger, which is very tall and served with a bunch of grilled vegetables. Zucchini on a burger is a bit unusual, but hey, it's black beans. Served with an aioli sauce and nice and spicy. My aunt gave it a two thumbs up.

My mom had Friends reputedly famous meatballs, which were indeed good in that "snacks you eat at Super Bowl parties" way, with a sweet, vaguely Asian sauce. They're served over rice and make just enough for a light meal. Would order again.

Khmer fries? Yeah, that means cassava. I can't say these were great - mmm, starch - but they were definitely different. Also, the curry mayo on the side was good.

Other suggestions here: creamy pumpkin soup with a bit of creme fraiche, pork stir fried with sesame and mushrooms, and the Asian coleslaw. As I write this, I am remembering that I need to eat here more often.

And you are helping the children by eating here, in a more direct way then the usual "10 percent of your bill will go to X foundation Cambodian street kids, who often go on to get well-paying jobs elsewhere. This is verified by the number of lovely restaurant and hotel staff I've met who cut their teeth through Mith Samlanh's training restaurants. Good job, guys.

Rikitikitavi: Chicken Fingers, Goddamit (Also, It's Lovely)

2011-08-13T06:46:00.000-07:00

Rikitikitavi
Riverside Road
Kampot, Cambodia
012-235102

Rikitikitavi is most likely Kampot's nicest hotel, and it's got a lovely upstairs restaurant attached as well. With a view over the river, an all-wood interior, and lots of gently wafting fans, it's a good upscale pick in Kampot if you're willing to pay a spot more for the privilege. The menu is a mix of Western and Khmer food, with an emphasis on charcoal grilled meats - which they do a fine turn with. There's usually a host of specials, and a very good apple pie with ice cream.

Oh, and did I mention the beverage list? That shit is extensive. I don't regret that birthday Pina Colada I had last month there. Although I remember it somewhat hazily.

Rikitikitavi is known for its burger, which is indeed a worthy effort in an Asian nation with a curious preponderance of burgers. This one has pineapple on it, which I think is awesome and my boyfriend approached with great distrust. He ordered it sans pineapple but it was good anyway. Also, highly recommendable french-fries.

OK, yeah, chicken fingers. But when you live in Cambodia, chicken fingers come to take on an aura of exoticism. Can we run down to Chilis or TGI Friday's whenever we get the urge to eat deep fried chicken breast with dipping sauces? No. No, we cannot. The Family Restaurant/Americana Nostalgia Chain Restaurant hasn't quite hit Cambodia yet, though I assure you we are all waiting with bated breath for that day to come. (On that day presumably, the UN will finally stop offering hazard pay to its employees here. Hahahaa, just kidding!)

Therefore, chicken fingers are rendered interesting (really) and these were really good. Nice panko crusted, plenty of meat, a bit of sesame flavor and some sweet chili sauce. Worked for us.

Damn, that was a good salad. It isn't often you get to utter those words, you know? Often a salad is something you resort to because you're not that hungry, or nothing else looks good, or it's Wednesday and you have to eat at your desk and you want to be healthy, stuff like this. But this salad had charcoal grilled chicken, shaved hard parmesan, home-made garlic croutons, and apple alongside the usual foliage, along with a nice mustardy dressing, and it was fantastic. I ordered this twice in four days it was so good. Don't slight the salad.

If you're looking for a place to stay in Kampot that is less....Bodhi Villa like....than my personal favorite (Bodhi Villa!), Rikitikitavi is your number. Friends say the rooms are lovely and nicely appointed, and rates are pretty reasonable. And they throw in breakfast. Hard to beat, friends.

Dried Fish I Have Known at O'Russei Market

2011-08-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

O'Russei has a dried fish theme. Dried fish with ambient lighting.

O'Russei Market is probably Phnom Penh's largest local market. Unlike the Central and Russian markets, tourists are generally an unknown quantity here and no one's selling souvenirs. The patrons are pretty much all Khmers and the occasional expat in need of some practical junk for the home. That's exactly what Phill and I use it for. It's like Home Depot, Circuit City circa-1997, a really convoluted Asian food market, a stationary store, and a twisted variant on Macy's in one convenient location.

O'Russei is also on the large side.

Like most massive, unruly Asian markets, it's a confusing-ass labyrinth, distinctly scented with durian, dried shrimp, and turpentine, and lots and lots of people shoving you aside while carrying enormous boxes of god-knows-what from stall to stall.

Draperies are useful in many guises in Cambodia, especially for those ceremonies - weddings, funerals, what-have-you - that are often held in the street. O'Russei is your ceremonial regalia emporium of choice.

You might want to consider wearing closed-toe shoes, lest you get your digits smashed by some dude going 10 miles an hour down the aisles with a rusty pushcart full of hacksaws.

Sometimes I think I should just do a photo book called "Dried Fish I Have Known." Of course, who the MARKET for this would be....

You can buy spring rolls and noodles and dumplings and other somewhat mysterious food products from ladies in pajamas squatting in the stairwell, and there's usually someone wandering around with an ice-chest with accompanying massive ice block with beverages inside in case you find yourself in need of electrolytes, and God knows you will.

There's also fruit stands and candy-makers and lots of ladies wandering around with durians, which can be a bit difficult to divert yourself around (they are spiky). It's a good idea to keep your eyes on your feet at all times in this place.

And down the stairs we go.

O'Russei is especially useful because the lack of tourists means prices are reasonable, and if you speak a smattering of Khmer, it's even easier to get things cheap.

My extremely tall boyfriend looking somewhat out of place while negotiating for a backpack. The good news is it is absolutely impossible for me to lose him in a crowd.

Recent finds included a black bag that says GIANT SPIDER: SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER on it (with a picture of a neon tarantula), cardboard photos of the King and Queen of Cambodia that now hang in reverent positions in our home, and a hacksaw for whatever the hell my boyfriend gets up to when I'm not home.

An entire floor of O'Russei is devoted to women's clothing and shoes. So many shoes. A vortex of shoes. Thankfully, mostly in my size. 5 1/2 size feet are finally paying off. Bless ya, Asia.

Cambodian retail tends toward hyper-specialization. As this photo may illustrate.

Also, if you were wondering where Cambodians buy those t-shirts that make no sense whatsoever in English, this is the place. (I really want the shirt that just says PERCENT: % but have resisted the urge.....so far).

More hot wild dried fish action.

Restaurant BBQ Party: Cambodian BBQ, Live Chickens, Is That a Seagull?

2011-08-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

Restaurant BBQ Party
Street 65
Phnom Penh

Cambodian's are big proponents of what I think of as the cook-your-own genre of food. We've got shabu-shabu joints, catch-all "soup" establishments where you cook raw ingredients in a large pot of broth, and, perhaps most characteristically, Cambodian BBQ, or Chhnang Phnom Pleung.

In English, the cooking device is often referred to as a "volcano pot," which does make a certain amount of sense when you look at the thing, which cleverly combines soup and BBQ into one handy location. You're usually given a piece of pork fat to rub over the hot sides of the conical grill, and then grill or boil the raw ingredients at your leisure.

For my friend Jet's birthday, we headed to the neighborhood Cambodian BBQ buffet joint, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A rather creatively decorated and profoundly orange room houses a wide assortment of raw ingredients and some cooked stuff to go along with, as well as desserts (mm, black grass jelly. No, actually, not mmm. More like a foodstuff out of "Alien." Albeit pretty much tasteless.)

You pick out your raw foodstuffs - I tried not to think about who exactly had been touching the tongs used to handle the raw chicken and pork - and then take them back to your table to grill them. You can also mix up your own dipping sauces from a healthy array of choices. Naturally, they'll ply you with pitchers of cheap Cambodian beer, and will look the other way if you are, say, drinking a lot of birthday whiskey (because we totally were).

This particular Khmer BBQ restaurant features a not-very concealed kitchen, where you can pop your head around the corner and see a rather sweaty teenage boy burning down charcoal for the grills. There are also a couple of caged chickens in the corner of the restaurant. No effort has been made to conceal them.

During our long and progressively more sloshed meal, we occasionally would hear the call of what sounded like an anguished seagull coming from the back of the restaurant. I looked around but couldn't find whatever poor critter was making the sound. (Was that REALLY chicken?)

And none of us got food poisoning! Khmer BBQ is the best.

On another note, these little cockles are a Cambodian favorite, and I've developed a taste for them, after finally getting over my fear of flesh-eating shellfish borne micro-organisms. (Good god, don't even consider googling the photos of THAT. Of course you probably just did. Sorry.) They're usually stir-fried with holy basil and chili, and you often have to pry them open yourself, which takes a little technique. Worth a shot for the brave and gastrointestinally resilient.

Le Marmite: Thank God for the French (Well, Sometimes)

2011-07-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

Le Marmite
#80, Oknha Ing Bun Hoaw, St 108, Corner of Peam (St 51)
023 998 161

Phnom Penh has a lot of French restaurants - not surprising, for a former French colony. A French friend of mine, who lives in Thailand, says he comes to Cambodia mostly to eat good French food. I'm certainly not complaining about the ready availability of boeuf bourguignon, crepes, and steak frites in this part of the world.

Le Marmite is a rather worthy contender in the PP French food scene, located in a somewhat out of the way spot close to Wat Phnom. It's on a kind of seedy looking block and looks less than sexy from the outside - which kept me away for a while - but is very salubrious and contemporary on the inside.

The menu hits up all the usual French classics—alongside a good selection of pasta— with a lot of revolving specials, and is quite reasonably priced. Naturally, there's a good wine list.

These little pastries containing gorgonzola and ham were absolutely fantastic, served alongside a small, garlicky salad. Buttery puff-pastry and a healthy amount of cheese: would order again. I'm kind of fantasizing about them right now.

My tragically lactose-intolerant boyfriend went with the spaghetti bolognese, which was quite good and prepared in the traditional (read: not painfully saturated with tomato) style. Portion sizes are not huge here, as my boyfriend observed, although nothing is ever quite large enough for a very tall Iowa boy transplanted to the Land of Tiny Things (and people).

More buffet coverage coming soon to a blog near you. Actually, Phnom Penh has a pretty healthy number of all-you-can eat places, though they must be hunted for, at least more so than in the USA.

Naturae: Raw Organic food in Cambodia, Go Figure

2011-07-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

Naturae
Street 240
+855 17 368 937

I like to tell people back home in the USA that Phnom Penh isn't exactly a hardship post. "Seriously," I say. "We have French bistros. We have artisan flat crust pizza. You can buy five different flavors of Pop-tart. We have organic grocery stores. More than one. "

"No waaaayyyy," they say. But I'm right. And here's Naturae, an organic grocery store with a mostly-raw restaurant attached to it. This kind of place wouldn't bat an eye in the most dangerously hipster-infested bits of San Francisco, and here it is, slap-dab in the middle of Phnom Penh. I guess it'd be offensive if I didn't find it comforting.

The menu is mostly raw and revolves around hippie chow like cold soups, salads, sandwiches, and a variety of smoothies and juices, along with a couple of outliers.

Perhaps most significantly, you can get smoked salmon here, which is always nice when I'm suffering pink fish withdrawal.

This is chilled asaparagus soup with gobs of cream, and not unexpectedly, it's pretty delicious.

I had the frisee salad with scallop and hard parmesan cheese. Well, it did come with a couple of bite sized scallop morsels, though I guess I was expecting a bit much for a salad served in Phnom Penh.

Frisee is a rather unfortunate choice when paired with scallops, mainly because it's bitter and chewy - I'd choose a leafier and less in-your-face green for the job. I say a little prayer every day for the availability of hard parmesan in the wilds of Cambodia. Oh, life is hard these days. (Speaking of: First World Problems?)

We also shared the "Away to Norway," a rather creatively named plate of smoked salmon with dijon potato salad. It's a nice combination, though that's a lot of potato in one location - admittedly, I never really got potatoes. I know, I'm going to hell.

I haven't perused the organic grocery store bit of the shop, mainly because I'm 1. poor and 2. poor, but I imagine they will have things like sprouted wheat and interesting flavors of jam if you're the kind of person who needs that stuff in your life.

I could insert commentary on how, well, isn't it a bit odd that we have organic grocery raw-bars in Cambodia these days, when it's technically an impoverished third world nation where a lot of people don't even get enough non-organic food to eat, never mind sprouted wheat vellum or whatever, and maybe this is all a bit....decadent?

Nah, it's a sign of economic growth. That's my story.

"We even have smoked salmon," I tell My Fellow Americans, about Phnom Penh. "We have andouille sausages, and a Chilis knock-off restaurant, and salad bars, and pretentious cheeses that smell funny."

"Nahhhhh."

Shabu Shabu and Sushi Buffet: Raw bacon on a conveyor belt!!!

2011-07-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

Shabu Shabu and Sushi Buffet
City Mall Shopping Center
Sothearos Boulevard
855 12 208 383

Food served on a conveyor belt has always held a profound fascination for me. Admittedly, a lot of people really enjoy eating food in motion - maybe it appeals to our primitive hunting instincts, grabbing moving plastic trays of food. Phnom Penh, in yet another indication of its growing economic power (or something) now has its own place to get food on a conveyor belt: Shabu Shabu and Sushi Buffet.

My boyfriend is really tall and chronically hungry so the word "buffet" tends to get our attention. At Shabu Shabu, you pay $7.80 for 80 minutes of stuffing your face, which is a pretty good deal by Phnom Penh standards. You're led to a table and given a choice of broth for your personal-sized hotpot.

You then grab raw ingredients off the belt and dump them in the soup. Simple enough. There's also an assortment of sushi, cold dishes, some hot stuff (spring rolls and the like), ice cream, soda, and other food products. The decor is somewhere between Asian-futuristic and 50's buffet, with sappy Khmer music playing in the background. Personally, I find it rather charming. You can also mix up your own dipping sauces which is always endlessly entertaining for me.

The sushi is only okay, but there's a lot of it and they do make an effort to keep the variety up. If you are like my boyfriend and messily devour all of the crab-stick and shrimp sushi as soon as they set it out, they'll probably stop making it for a while. "They see me COMING," he's started to complain to me. Ah, Sushi Buffet, thou art a cruel mistress.

Admittedly, they may not be equipped for the appetites of 6'6 22 year olds at Shabu Shabu. The shabu-shabu element is quite tasty, mainly because shabu shabu is pretty hard to screw up due to its rather simple, interactive nature. There's usually a healthy variety of raw ingredients, some of them amusingly difficult to identify for your average Westerner. (WHAT ARE THOSE CRACKER THINGS I DON'T EVEN).

On the whole, the Shabu-Shabu Sushi Buffet is an entertaining change from the usual in Phnom Penh, as long as you're not out to experience the Art of Sushi or anything and derive as much pleasure as I do from grabbing little plates of uncooked bacon off a conveyor belt. Just don't stay past 80 minutes. You won't like what happens.

Okay, they actually just charge you a few bucks more, but it sounds cooler like that.

Luke New Orleans: Mmm, Oyster Salad

2011-06-29T02:54:00.000-07:00

Luke Restaurant
333 St Charles Ave
New Orleans, LA 70130
(504) 378-2840

I would like to draw your attention to the tastiest dish at New Orleans' Luke restaurant, celebrity chef John Besh's stab at a French lunch joint. Luke is a good restaurant, the kind of place me and my friends go to a lot out of force of habit - Besh with somewhat reasonable prices, and a nice, rather roaring-twenties atmosphere. (They do serve wine in glasses. I don't approve).

The best thing on the menu if you're going around asking me (you fool) is the fried oyster salad with bacon and avocado. Something about the synthesis of flavors is absolutely perfect, combining three of my favorite foodstuffs in the world into one single, delicious dish. Do not fail to order this. With a cup of (dark, rouxy) gumbo, you won't break the bank and have a very tasty meal.

They also have really good, double-fried fries (frites, whatever) which are served in a paper cup so you know they're fancy. But they are indeed delicious, possibly the best in town, and complement well with the enormous Luke burger. They serve it on a wood block.

Luke is populated mostly by business people doing deals and people staying at the Hilton it's inside of. Service can be hit or miss - our most recent visit was rather slow, and the AC, like many New Orleans ACs, seemed to be intent on killing us. But that's the nature of the beast. Go and eat that salad.

Rum House New Orleans: Jesus, That Salad is Huge

2011-06-29T01:53:00.000-07:00

Rum House
3128 Magazine Street
New Orleans, LA 70115-2305
(504) 941-7560

The Rum House Caribbean Taqueria is one of those twee looking joints that opened up last year on Magazine Street in New Orleans. I always regarded it with healthy suspicion because it just looked so goddamn cute and concepty on the outside and it made my eyebrows raise up a little. Still, I was doing some shopping on Magazine, I needed some lunch, and I decided to give it a shot. I ordered the jerk chicken salad with a side of coleslaw. Turns out that was a helluva good salad, with a lot of tender jerk chicken meat, an interesting papaya-salsa relish, and plenty of avocado.

The coleslaw was also pretty good too - I've been on a coleslaw tear of late, what can I say. The main thing I'd forgotten was how shockingly huge American entree salads are. This by no means a bad thing. (I'm having an increasing number of Bumpkin Expat who Lives in a Developing Country Moments when I head home. Guess that does happen).

They've also got a ton of varieties of tacos, fried snacks like conch fingers, jerk chicken, some fancier entrees (curried lamb shank sounds nice) and other Latino-Caribbean influenced dishes - and naturally, a hellaciously long listing of rums, organized by place of origin. Think I'll be back.

Cuban Chicharrones: One of Cuba's Primary Gifts to the World

2011-06-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

Cuban chicharrones in a gas-station where we get our Cuban sandwiches in Tampa, Florida.

I'm a Cuban sandwich freak and I think Cuban food is pretty good too, but holy crap, these chicharrones were GOOD. My dad and I put a bunch of lime on them and topped them off with some Tapatio hot sauce - freshly fried, a little bit of meat hanging on them - and inhaled them in roughly five minutes while waiting for our sandwiches to be made.

I am now desperately seeking a Cambodian equivalent. As for where this place is in Tampa? I think somewhere off Hillsborough. But honestly, I think that as far as neighborhood Cuban delis go, sometimes you just gotta find your own.

St James Cheese Company: THE REVENGE (of good sandwiches)

2011-06-21T01:28:00.000-07:00

St James Cheese Company
5004 Prytania St
New Orleans, LA 70115
(504) 899-4737

So my trip to New Orleans turned into Greatest Sandwiches Tour: 2011. I don't exactly mind. After all, this is the city of Great Sandwiches, or at least one of the greatest sandwich cities on the planet.

A great place to eat a great sandwich is St James Cheese Company, New Orleans's beloved neighborhood cheese shop. I used to live right up from St James, on St Charles, and it was awfully convenient. They do cheese-and-wine special dinners on a regular basis and I'd head up to those with friends sometimes.

St James isn't just a restuarant,after all - it's also a Cheese Education Center of sorts, and the staff will answer esoteric questions about the origin and provenance of any given dairy product. There's other stuff on offer as well - artisan pickles, deli meats, cheese boards and other speciality kitchen equipment, Mexican chocolate, all manner of preserves, and a lot of other items that could conceivably go nicely with cheese. It's all twee enough to belong in the Bay Area, I'm not gonna lie, but it's also a damn good cheese shop. They did a plate for my graduation dinner and it was a big hit. A certain professor of mine likes picking up one of their big catering samplers with cheese and bread and bring it to the last day of glass, outside on the lawn. It's probably an effort to get awesome performance review sheets.

They have a order-at-the-counter cafe that enjoys extremely popularity among society types in New Orleans, as well as a smattering of hipsters with incomes (well, it's true), and people like myself and my friends going out for an occasional splurge. The menu is sandwiches, cheese and charcuterie boards, and salads, and they'll slap a cheese on a plate for you with a knife and some bread if you find one you like behind the counter. It's a simple affair, and pleasantly so. Sometimes they take a bit. One wonders how long it takes to assemble a cheese plate.

There's a dreadful lack of avocados in Cambodia, and I ate a hell of a lot of avocado back in the USA. The Beecher's Cheddar sandwich ($8.95) is my favorite here, mainly because it's got avocado, turkey, some good sharp cheddar, tomato, and a little bit of basil, all on chewy ciabatta. Get them to melt that sucker for you, and you'll be in heaven.

We also got a free cheese plate - they do that kind of thing - and that's one of the best things to order here. ($10.50 for 3 cheeses, $16.50 for five). A selection of good cheeses dependant upon what the stafff feels like feeding you that day, and they'll explain it to you when you bring it out. On a recent visit, we sampled some fantastic goat cheese rolled in cracked black pepper, some gouda, a couple of interesting sheep's milk cheeses and a couple other selections (yeah, should have kept notes). They switch up the accompaniments from fig jam to blueberry jam to walnuts to whatever is on tap that day, which keeps it interesting. It's a cultural experience and it's also eating cheese. They've been doing a cheese-and-chocolate plate of late to be different and that sounds entirely promising.

The salads are pretty great as well. I especially like the manchego with pear, Spanish almonds, and quince dressing ($9.50) mostly because it reminds me of having breakfast in Spain, assembled into a single entity over some greens. (And pears are great. As my friend Kelsey observed, "The closest thing the fruit world has to candy. That's why I actually like them). The parmesan reggiano salad with salami, artichoke hearts, and olives is also formidable, though be careful because those son-bitches have pits.

They've got wine and a lot of different kinds of artisan beers, since this is New Orleans, and there must be libations. It's a nice way to pass a hot afternoon, killing a bottle of white and eating an inordinate amount of cheese. I suggest it.

Squeal Barbeque: It's No Barbeque Town (but this is good)

2011-06-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

Squeal Barbeque
8400 Oak St
New Orleans, LA 70118-2046,
(504) 302-7370

New Orleans is no barbeque town. This comes as a bit of shock to many who assume that everywhere in the South boasts an abundance of smoked pig products, but NOLA is (as it is with most things) an exception to the rule - here, Creole and Cajun food and crawfish boils are king, not smoked-meat-in-your-backyard, and that's how it's been for a very long time.

Thankfully, Squeal Barbeque opened up on Oak Street in New Orleans a few years ago, providing a respectable outlet for smoked BBQ to an appreciative audience. Tulane kids love it, mainly because you can get enough food to surfeit yourself and a friend for like two days here (if you supplement with ramen and jello shots).

The menu has the expected selection of pulled pork, ribs, beef brisket, and chicken, as well as some more ambitious stuff - there's tacos, fried boudin balls, the house's take on shepherd's pie, pulled pork nachos and some other stuff that is switched out on a regular basis. There's a bacon brownie for dessert, as well as bread pudding. Bacon desserts are, to no one's surprise, a huge hit in New Orleans.

I like the experimentation these guys perform within the remarkably diverse world of smoked animal products. This is, needless to say, not the place to take your vegetarian hot date. Well. You can order the nachos sans meat. Also they have a salad. There's totally a salad.

I always get the combo plate with chicken and beef brisket, mostly because I like beef brisket and my North Carolina father refuses to make it for reasons of ideology. The chicken is also tasty and more importantly they give you half of a whole entire animal, which is great for reasons of both frugality and sheer gluttony.

Pretty good ribs here as well, although could be a bit more tender and juicy - don't know if this is a batch thing or what. There's only one sauce here, a thick tomato based variety, and you do have to ask them to bring it to you on the side which is a bit of an oddity. They should get a few more BBQ sauce varieties in here - mustard sauce, vinegar, maybe some of that white, mayo based Alabama stuff - and give you some options, says I. There's no shame in doing that in an urban setting. Also, I just really like regional variants on BBQ sauce.

They also pay attention to the side dishes here, which is a good thing, as they are often sorely under-utilized at some BBQ places. They have absolutely superb cheese grits here. I went here for my first dinner in New Orleans after about a year and almost got misty-eyed over the cheese grits and hush-puppies. It was a profound moment. The collard greens are also excellent, primarily because they put a LOT of pork in em'. They double-fry the fries for maximal crunchiness. I always make sure somebody else orders them so I can eat theirs. That's thinking ahead.

It's nice to sit outside on a tolerably breezy day at Squeal - watching the Oak Street evening traffic go by is always fun, and there's the Maple Leaf right up the street. One of the servers last time I was in had in fact just got back from Cambodia - we had probably overlapped in Phnom Penh - and pointed out his Angkor Beer shirt to me when he overheard me discussing Angkor with my friends. It's a small world. A small world that, in my experience, is extremely fond of grilled meat.

Return to Cochon Butcher: Bacon BLTs Basically Best Thing Ever

2011-06-11T04:14:00.000-07:00

Cochon Butcher
930 Tchoupitoulas, New Orleans LA
70130 504-588-PORK

I have to say, this trip to New Orleans was less of an exploratory venture and more of a Greatest Hits Parade. I was more interested in eating things I knew were good and that had occupied my mind over the past year, and less interested in the dark art of "experimentation." I knew Cochon Butcher was good, I wanted a delicious sandwich, and my boyfriend and I were meeting my parents for lunch. Done and done and done. Also, I was in dire need of a mimosa.

Cochon Butcher is beloved NOLA chef's Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski’s venture into the sammich shop and artisan meat genre, and it is has been pretty strikingly successful in the couple of years it's been open.

This is probably because 1. it's good, and 2. the prices are reasonable and 3. it's casual, order up at the front dining, which New Orleans doesn't have enough of.

Once you get past the hipsterish vibe and clientele (but NOLA hipsters are a lot easy to swallow then the regular kind), it's likely to be one of your favorite places to eat in town. There's also pick-up-yourself catering (they did a fabulous job for my graduation party last year) and a full assortment of cured meats, made in house. It's the South's riff on an old-world butcher shop, and it is good.

The menu revolves around a standard complement of sandwiches, boucherie sampler plates, a bunch of small-plate specials and some other random stuff they put on the board when they come up with it, as well as some side-dishes. There's also a full complement of alcoholic beverages - I mean, this is New Orleans - and some very interesting beers if you're into that sort of thing. We got mimosas. I love mimosas.

I had the pressed bacon and collard green BLT. A scandalously good sandwich, like the best grilled cheese ever, with big-thick bacon and lots of oozing, delicious Swiss cheese and some softly cooked collards to add a little bit of bite to the entire affair. I could eat this everyday.

My mom and my boyfriend both went for the North Carolina style pulled pork sandwich which my father, a Real Live North Carolina Boy deemed to be authentic - had a vinegar sauce on it and pickles and some coleslaw and a large soft bun, following protocol. Obviously slow-cooked for a long time. No bullshit involving cheese. Nicely done.

And then we ordered a muffaletta, as one does in NOLA, and it was also enormous, as they are supposed to be. I was never a huge muff (teehee) fan, mostly because they're too damn thick to get into my mouth, but this was a nice effort - I like how they get the bread a little toasted before slapping the entire affair together.

They also had boudin - Lousiana's beloved and somewhat curious sausage composed of rice and pork and spices - served with pickles and mustards, and it's some awfully tasty stuff. Something about the starchiness of the rice really works. They also had the relatively un-attractively named "beanie weanie" special - okay, did anyone else grow up with an intrinsic, horrified revulsion of beanie weanies? - but in this case, it was just red beans and andouille cooked together in a smoky barbeque sauce, and it was good. I just found it sort of hard to get over the name.

They didn't have them this time - damn it to hell - but the bacon praline they sell here occasionally is the most obscene thing I've ever put into my mouth. Interpret that as you'd like. Seriously, it's like watching an X-rated movie with really questionable morality, eating this thing. You're really enjoying it but you feel awful at the same time. You have to try this, just to say you did.

South Beach Grill: Boca Grande is Hell on Earth

2011-06-08T04:05:00.000-07:00

South Beach Bar and Grille
777 Gulf Boulevard
(941) 964-0765
Boca Grande, Florida

Ah, Boca Grande. It's a little island about two hours or so north of Tampa, and it is absolutely beautiful, the kind of place that gets slapped on tourist brochures - or would, if the people who own property on the island weren't clever enough (or well-heeled enough) to keep it off the beaten track. My grandparent's owned a condo here when I was a little kid in Florida, and I went there yearly every year until I was about 11 or so.

They sold it when my aunt and my cousin's moved away from Florida, but family members still come back here - my mom has been coming here since she was a kid, as well. For my cousin's graduation, we came back once again. A home-coming of sorts. It's funny how me and my two cousins remembered almost every inch of even the drive - the mangrove stands, the little podunk towns you drive through, the massive, yellow Sunshine Skyway bridge, the tragically now-closed Dairy Queen with the barbeque sandwiches - and then crossing the tollbridge to get to the island.

No color manipulation needed. God, it's nice.

The island is all white sand and beautiful sunsets and one large lighthouse, and people riding golfcarts, except not many people, because they really do manage to keep the riff-raff out. We had rented a very large and lovely vacation home and a bunch of us arrived to hang out and eat tamales and wander around.

Not that I really appreciated it, this go-round - you see, I was flying to New Orleans the next day to see my boyfriend, who I had gotten back with over the Internet (sort of) over the course of a couple months, and now he was moving to Phnom Penh.

And we were pretty certain we were going to still like each other, but how could we be certain? It was terrifying. I believe I spent about half the day at Boca Grande hiding under a blanket on a couch, squinting to read my new Kindle, but not really reading, more just being trapped in a haze of existential, relationship-and-future-of-your-life based terror. The timing in other words was a bit off, but it's not your fault, Boca Grande.

(My boyfriend is moving to Phnom Penh in less then a month. I had nothing to worry about. But you never know that before.)

Awful place.

Oh yes, this is a food blog. I did eat one meal "out" on Boca Grande, which was at the South Beach Bar and Grille (with the obnoxious e). It's right on the beach and serves slightly fancified Florida beach shack fare. Think lots of grouper, fried seafood, pastrami sandwiches for the NY transplants, salads of various kinds, seafood chowder, hamburgers, and other seafood-themed stuff. It's expensive as hell, but food on Boca is expensive.

Curiously enough, despite the awesome location, the food is really, really good. (Just don't try parking there then hitting the beach, apparently, judging from Tripadvisor. Seriously. They don't like that.)

What is it with me and grouper? To me, it's like the madeline of the fish world, the protein that takes me back to childhood. My dad used to fry grouper at the beach all the time when I was a kid - some of my earliest food memories involve getting grouper sandwiches after preschool with my mom at this colorfully decorated restaurant in Tampa.

Whenever I'm in Florida, I eat prodigious quantities of the stuff. This was an excellent grouper sandwich, a good specimen of the genre: Plenty of fish, lots of mayo, lettuce and tomato, keep er' simple. I prefer my grouper sandwiches fried - doesn't obstruct the flavor profile - but some would beg to differ. Liked the coleslaw fine. I'm on a coleslaw kick lately. $15. Can be done reuben style. I almost went for it but decided that would either be perverse or awesome, and I didn't feel like wasting my one shot in 2011 for a grouper sandwich.

Must add that the fried grouper fingers were also very good, as determined by myself and my cousin. My mother was also very pleased with her seafood chowder, which was thick, Boston-ish, and absolutely terrible for you, as it should have been. We hung out for a bit and watched people on the beach. I worried about my boyfriend and worried about sun protection - oh god, what if I get a cold sore? - and worried about the universe and my job and probably individual atoms if I got right down to it.

I'm not very good at beaches.

Jacques-Imos: Big Ass Food in New Orleans

2011-06-04T00:55:00.000-07:00

Jacques-Imos Cafe
8324 Oak Street
New Orleans, LA 70118

So I lived in New Orleans for two years and never ate at Jacques-Imos. As Jacques-Imos is one of New Orleans' new classic restaurants, it was a bit of a sin of omission. Beloved for its massive portions, funky interior, proximity to the Maple Leaf and eternally creative truck-bed outside table, it's in every guidebook and is beloved by both tourists and students alike. After all, Jacques-Imos is pretty much Tulane's campus go-to restaurant. End of the year club dinner? Jacques-Imos! Parents in town and want to eat something that ain't ramen? Jacques-Imos!

So how's the food? Pretty good. Pretty good and served in massive portions. Allow me to elaborate. My buddy Raj is leaving for school in the wilds of Ohio and invited a big gaggle of us out for dinner at J-Imos. We booked an outside table - it was a lovely May evening - ordered some champagne, and ordered an impressive array of stuff off the menu.

Which is a very long menu, featuring some classics - alligator cheesecake, fried chicken, the infamous carpet-bagger steak, etouffee, and so on - and an array of seasonal specials. All entrees come with a choice of two side dishes, which makes the rather steep entree prices a little easier to swallow. Those without massive appetites can take solace in the knowledge that there will be plenty left over.

Everything comes with these buttery corn-bread muffins, which are scandalously good. I know many college students who could happily subsist on these suckers.

I ordered the escargot with pasta, half out of a desire for snails (they're good) and half out of a desire to skeeze out my non-snail eating friends. Somewhat out of left-field snail presentation, though the pasta the snails were served in was quite pleasant, the snails being mostly a chewy sidenote. Personally, I think they're better off served in cute little ceramic containers with butter.

These beast is the eggplant Jacques-Imos - fried, covered in mushroom sauce, and served with oyster dressing (stuffing with oysters in it for you Yankee savages). It's pretty good, albeit for a bite or two. More then that and you start to feel the heart-pangs, and I'm not talking about emotions.

My friend Miranda ordered the fried green tomatoes with grilled shrimp, which were very good and exactly what one would expect. Crisp fried tomatoes, big old grilled prawns, and a spicy remolaude sauce on top, along with an interesting garnish of ribbon potato chips. Worked for us.

My boyfriend ordered the grilled duck with orange soy glaze, shitake mushrooms, and pecans. This was pretty excellent and had a lot of rich, oaky flavor - the mushrooms (not surprisingly) go pretty well with soy and duck. (My boyfriend also fed me all the duck fat because He is The Best).

I had mahi-mahi with avocado, which was a nice, light counterpart to the cardiac-arrest inducing other option on the Jacques-Imos menu. This was pretty good, if not great. Could have used more avocado. I must censure Jacques-Imos on their collard greens, which possess no visible bacon. Squeal Barbeque right down the street does a much better job on the collard front. The thin-cut shoestring fries are pretty tasty, however.

And on the left......Raj ordered the carpet-bagger steak with bleu cheese, onion, oysters, and Hollandaise sauce, a monolithic slab o' cow that was prepared admirably rare. This was passed around the table between roughly five people and no one could quite finish it. At $21.50, that's technically a deal.

Then on the right...there was this Thing on the menu called, I believe, the Soft-Shell Crab Godzilla or something of that nature. What you need to know is that this arrived to my friend in the form of a softshell crab stabbed completely through with a knife on top of fried eggplants with sauce. As long as you're okay with eating something that sorta resembles an alien, this was pretty good, as fried soft-shell crabs always are.

Our server was a great dude with the requisite "I'm an alternative New Orleans waiter" type-look and a friendly attitude. We were comped a bottle of champers when he realized that Raj was going to a great grad program, two people had graduated, I was in from Cambodia for the first time in a year and my friend Bojo was headed to Shanghai for a prestigious fellowship. Gotta love that.

Alley Cat: Mexican food in Phnom Penh, Go Figure

2011-05-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

Alley Cat Cafe
#42, off Street 19 (before National Museum)
Phnom Penh

A brief review for a brief day. I'm headed back to the US - more specifically, New Orleans - for a three week long and somewhat sorely needed vacation. Many many many food photos to follow. For now, here's PP's Alley Cat, a pretty good little Mexican/burger joint in a somewhat weird spot.

That up there is the pork chili Colorado, a surprisingly good variant on a classic Mexican stew. It's pork chunks with onion and green pepper in a nice, smoky sauce - hit it with some hot sauce and you can almost imagine you're somewhere in North America. The Navajo fry bread is excellent and a bit of a curiosity, as it's hard to find this stuff in the US outside of Utah and areas around Indian reservations. They should do the right thing and serve it with honey, sez my lovely dining companion, and she's probably right.

The menu has fajitas, tacos, enchiladas, tostadas, good ol' beef chili and a number of other Mexican Restaurant Type Things. Haven't tried the salsa but will report back promptly. Hurley at Cantina makes good salsa, if you're jonesing, you poor sad West Coast expats.

As someone who's spent time living in California, I think I miss Mexican food the most - though then again, at least we have Alley Cat and Cantina, two pretty decent Mexican spots - in downtown PP. Shame that it's a bitch to get half decent avocados, though.

The other thing Alley Cat is known for is burgers, and it does these very well - and on a large scale. You can get them to put somewhat poorly advised amounts of stuff on it. This here is a bacon cheeseburger sans-super-sizing - and they do use good bacon. The fries are awful, which is a common plague in Phnom Penh. Just get a side-salad or something.

Alley Cat is a teeny little place that's cooled by fans and features a surprisingly large bar for such a hole-in-the-wall. It's a bit basic looking but is a nice place to hang out and talk about stuff that may be slightly too offensive for the middle-age-aid-worker saturated spots around town. It's one of my favorite lunch-meet up spots. There's a sign outside the alley it's on, so keep an eye out for it - you'll miss it.

Sea Creatures I Have Et in Kampot and Kep

2011-04-26T03:00:00.000-07:00

I have this backlog of photos on my computer, staring at me, and they're from the Kep Crab Market. And I wanted to share them with you. They relate to no particular restaurant but do give some impression of Cambodia's pretty remarkable array of edible and (mostly) delicious sea creatures - and what goes into catching them and bringing them to market.

A bit of complicated and death defying Internet Research revealed this strange creature is a Melo miltonis sea snail, also known as the southern bailer or "bailer-volute." It is named "the bailer" because the (de-snailed) shell apparently is extremely handy for bailing out a sinking canoe or small water vessel. Like everything else that draws breath on this planet, Cambodians eat it. How's the taste? A colleague of mine noted, "I thought something that looked that freaky had to be delicious. I WAS WRONG." Noted.

All this dazzling sea-life is brought to the surface by means of rather small and basic boats, which troll the waters near Kep daily and bring the goods back to the market. Crab traps are ubiquitous, and almost all of the seafood sales appear to be conducted by women. Arguments over crab size and quality can get exceptionally heated, and everyone gathers around and begins eyeballing the crustaceans when a trap is brought in from its mooring near the shore.

During the prime-time of day for seafood sales, a number of people will be standing around in the water, waiting to be called in. Kep is tiny and quiet but the seafood market is by far the busiest thing about the place.

This is the standard view from all the Crab Market's restaurants - fishing boats bringing in their nets, and people wading into the shallow water to get the crab-traps out. It is all very bucolic, and only occasionally smelly.

The prawns are gorgeous, of course - wild caught, scrumptious - and kept in large yellow buckets by fearsome looking Ladies of a Certain Age. They do try to convince me to buy a bag or two although I am holding a camera and looking every inch the part of the barang, although half-heartedly, and while laughing. Buying prawns out of buckets reminds me of home, of New Orleans.

The Crab Market's restaurants all seem to feature a grill station of some kind, selling seafood of all kinds on a stick to those who prefer to eat ala-carte, or just prefer to eat things off a stick in general. I prefer to sit down for reasons of air conditioning, but the goods look tasty - and eminently simple.

Cambodia happens to possess an abundance of squid. I hope you like tentacles. I sure do.

And here is the Durian, the most infamous of Southeast Asia's fruits, reputed to taste alternately of paradise, a woman's nether region (a-hem), cheese, something in-between cheese and a nice mango, and three-week-old-ass, depending on who you ask. I haven't really made a call on the flavor as no one has offered it to me and I have not yet bothered to try, though I did enjoy a durian milkshake once, a long time ago. I do know that it smells awful (and is not allowed on airplanes in Southeast Asia due to its potentially nausea-inducing effects in close quarters).

Cambodians find endless amusement in foreigners hatred of durian. "Ah, you like that?" one man said, grinning, as I took this photo.

"No, I don't think so," I said, "though I do like krowd (pomelo)."

"None of you like it! Too smelly," he observed, still laughing as he walked away.

Kampot is proud of its durian crop, and happens to have a massive, ornate statue of one smack-dab in the center of town. It is attractively lit up at night and attracts a large number of families. Adults sit and chat around the Giant Durian, and little children chase each other around The Giant Durian, and a small fountain plays around the edges. If only it possessed the olfactory abilities of the real thing.

The Sailing Club: Relaxing All Classy in Kep

2011-04-23T12:19:00.001-07:00

The Sailing Club
Kep, Cambodia

Ah, the Sailing Club.

There isn't much to do in Kep. There is really, really nothing much to do in Kep. This is, in my opinion, its greatest virtue. The best place to do nothing in Kep is the Sailing Club. It's part of Knai Bang Chatt, a luxury Belgian-owned resort here in Cambodia, and although the hotel itself is rich for my blood, you can hang out as much as you'd like at the adjoining restaurant and small sun-bathing area.

It's called the Sailing Club because they do indeed offer boat rentals and lessons, as well as ski boats and canoes. There's volleyball, ping pong, and petanque too (whatever the fuck that is) if you tire of sitting on a lounge chair, reading, and staring out to the ocean. I am in the latter category. It's a tiny, rather rocky beach here but it is private, no one is selling you stuff, and someone will bring you a fruity beverage within roughly three minutes. Perfect.

There's even a nice pier you can walk out on and dip your feet in the water and watch the sun go down speculatively. I am very fond of this pier.

There's also food. There's an ala-carte restaurant - haven't tried that yet - which is set in the drop dead gorgeous and almost Cape Cod esque dining area. Think white furniture, seashells as muted accents, lots of rope, and windows built wide open to the sea, all done incedibly tastefully. I love that room.

Every Saturday, the Sailing Club does a buffet. Ten bucks a person. It's a fantastic deal. There's a salad bar, a made to order pasta bar, a bunch of hot plates - including Kampot pepper crabs - and a grill station with fish, shrimp, squid, and beef. For dessert, there's cake, fresh fruit, and banana-sago soup (which I love).

It's shocking how rare decent potato salad is in Asia. This was good potato salad. I'm not even that into potato salad but this was delicious.

Khmer-style raw beef salad - it's just ceviche with beef, and just as good. Lime juice, onion, tons of herbs, and all deliciousness.

There's a Grill Your Own Seafood outlet here - all fresh and grilled to order. Beef and chicken too if you're one of those poor unseafood loving bastards. There's also a pasta bar and soups and some big vats of pre-prepared Khmer stir-fries, and Kampot pepper crabs and probably some stuff I'm forgetting. 10 bucks a pop.

Another good point of the Sailing Club? It does give back. Founded by two Belgians, it's affiliated with Hand in Hand Cambodia, which aids in village development, - in affiliation with a couple of other Belgian associations, Knai Bang Chatt has devoted a lot of time and attention to the nearby village of Chamchar Bei. Knai Bang Chatt and the Sailing Club also hires staff trained by charities in Phnom Penh that specialize in giving street kids skills in the tourist industry. One beautifully professional (and kinda hot) staff member was an alumni of Phnom Penh's well known Hagar training restaurant.

Nak Won Korean Restaurant: Family Korean in The Dark Heart of Phnom Penh

2011-04-21T03:34:00.000-07:00

Nak Won Korean Restaurant
Street 222, #40, Corner of Street 63
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Cambodia happens to have a lot of Korean expats, and all those Korean expats need somewhere to eat - which means Phnom Penh is lousy with Korean eateries. From Korean BBQ places to casual lunch spots to fast-food chains of Korean origin, the city is lousy with Korean foodstuff. As for me? I'm thrilled. My mother lived in Seoul when she was a kid and I grew up eating kimchi - Korean is one of my favorite cuisines of all time. So I was happy to run across the Nak Won Korean Restaurant, conveniently located near my workplace.

Nak Won is a small, quiet, and family run place, set inside what is obviously one of Phnom Penh's trademark expat-homes. There is an English menu but the staff's evident surprise when I ambled in indicates there isn't much barang custom here. No one speaks much English, but the photo menu is helpful. (A few visits and some translation from other patrons has ingratiated me with the staff, mostly because I answered the Ultimate Question of "Why is a white girl devouring that much kimchi?" to their satisfaction).

The lunch menu bears the advantage of being cheap and featuring a pretty healthy variety of dishes. There's pork galbi, stir-fried pork with chili sauce, stir-fried beef, bi-bim-bap, kimchi stew, beef soup, Korean pancakes (pajun), Korean "sushi" (gimbap), galbi stew, grilled fish, and a number of large multiple-person dishes. And as you may perhaps be able to tell by the photo above, the banchan (side dishes) are just plain fantastic - and re-fillable. Meals also come with a tasty soy-bean-pumpkin-chili-onion soup I find rather addictive, and watermelon for dessert.

It's definitely the tastiest kimchi I've had in town. Further, they mix it up considerably, which is important for a Korean restaurant's banchan options. (For the die-hards - yes, they've got purple rice. The real deal).

They do a fine turn with the grilled meats here. This is grilled chicken in a typical slightly sweet Korean marinade ($7). Dark meat (the good stuff) and served with lettuce and Korean bean paste to wrap it all up in. A good light lunch. One interesting thing about Korean food is that I stuff myself silly whenever I eat it, but it's inherently reasonably light - well, okay, until you get to the galbi....

They also do a very fine turn with pork galbi. A huge serve at $7 bucks and juicy, delicious, and on-the-bone. I couldn't finish it and was regarded with some concern by the male half of the husband-wife pair that run the place. I resorted to extremely positive hand-gestures. Yum.

I befriended two Korean brothers on my last visit, who spoke English and were amused enough by my enthusiasm for kimchi to get a conversation started. I was quickly gifted some chilled soju, taught some rudimentary Korean phrases and etiquette, we exchanged business cards, and then they gave me a bowl of the excellent spicy chicken stew they'd ordered - a massive, $25 dollar serve that's suitable for three or more. One of the guys ended up †hrowing the leftover purple rice and panchan in with the dredges of the stew, putting the heat back on, and making a helluva tasty impromptu bibimbap. Clever!

Rusty Keyhole: Best Damn Ribs in Cambodia

2011-04-14T03:40:00.000-07:00

Rusty Keyhole
Kampot, Cambodia
Tel: 092 758 536

This is the Rusty Keyhole, one of Kampot's more iconic eateries and pubs. It's been around for a while and has moved around a bit, but it's known throughout Cambodia for one thing: barbeque ribs. Massive slabs of meat. They're known as the best in Cambodia and I believe it - it's kind of difficult to imagine any better in this part of the world. There is a full menu with a number of Khmer and Western dishes if you've got a vegetarian or whatever in your party (sigh), so everyone's bases are covered, but for God's sake get the ribs.

These are my fellow carnivores from Bodhi Villa. Rusty's is popular, really popular - it's smart to call ahead and reserve your personal slab of meat, as they run out a lot. You can reserve a half rack, a full rack, or a "dino" rack of such enormousness that it boggles the mind. The half rack costs $5 bucks, and the full rack $7.50, and it comes with a choice of mashed, baked, or fried potato, along with coleslaw. I love Cambodian food prices so much. Haven't done the dino rack yet — I'm contemplating eating one to say I did, but I might have to take a medical day off of work. (One other woman has done so. The bar has been set).

As may be evidenced by this photograph, these are absolutely delicious. They're boiled beforehand and then grilled, while slathered in a Secret Sauce of some variety. They're served with a big knife, and not sectioned rib by rib - you eat these more like a chunk o' meat then in the US BBQ rib hands-on fashion. (No one's going to care if you do eat with your hands, though. This is Kampot.) BBQ traditionalists in the Southern mode, like most of my family, will raise an eyebrow at the technique, but there are many ways to make a delicious pork rib and by God, this is one of them, even if there is no smoker involved. It

takes a bit for the meat to come out, but there's beer by the pint and economically priced wine to keep you happy, and there's few nicer places to sit outside and talk about nothing in particular in town. You can watch the ladies manning the grill do their thing, too.

Here's the full plate. The mashed potatoes are also fabulous, as is the coleslaw. The baked potatoes are done on the grill, and the fries are pretty good as well.

Here's another money shot, because looking at these photos makes me happy and fills me with feelings of contentment. They play football, which will be nice to hear for those Brits longing for feelings of home. There's also a large Labrador retriever, friendly staff, and good people watching. You really have no reason not to come here if you're in the vicinity of Lao. People who live in Phnom Penh come to Kampot for the explicit purpose of eating at Rusty's. Just be sure to call ahead.

A gecko on the wall at Rusty's because watching geckos eat stuff provides a major component of the day's entertainment here in Kampot. I consider this an asset.

Kimly: The Kep Crab Market Ultimate Guide

2011-04-14T03:32:00.000-07:00

Kimly Restaurant
Crab Market (it's a very small town)
Kep, Cambodia

In my bid to produce the World's Most Comprehensive Guide to the Kep Crab Market, I present to you The Kimly Restaurant. I do all this research because I am a giver and I give to humanity. I also spend a lot of time in Kep and possess a profound and personal interest in eating crustaceans. I have nothing against them, but they're delicious.

I ordered the Kampot Pepper Crab, the thing to order here (naturally).

This is what I'm gathering is the traditional method of doing Kampot pepper crab up. A thick sauce with a lot of kreung - Cambodian spice paste - in the mix. It's got a great flavor with a lot of chili, a bit of coconut milk (I suspect), some ginger, and the fresh bite of the Kampot pepper. They use green pepper instead of onion and green onion in the stir-fry mix - I prefer it the other way. I also think the thick sauce is a bit too salty. Ultimately, I like Trei's lighter/less thick version better. Lets the taste of the crab come through

Kimly's interior. It's a nice place to hang out.

The plate of crab cost 9 dollars, which is actually more then Trei down the strip a bit at 7. (The fact that I am quibbling over the price of a giant plate of fresh-caught crabs is technically hilarious as this would cost 30 bucks in the USA, but regardless). Still, the portion size is immense and it's a great place to hang out and watch the fisherfolk do their thing, pulling traps and setting them out again.

Here's a recipe from the BBC (of all places) for Kampot pepper crab. I am testing this out when I get home, though getting fresh peppercorns may prove a challenge. I am not very fond of dry pepper, but I am growing more and more partial to these little green jobbys. You can buy them pickled in jars here at the crab market, along with pickled shrimp and crabs and other sea creatures I find hard to identify. I love the crab market.

The Wonders of the Cambodian Beer Garden

2011-04-14T03:23:00.000-07:00

Sbov Meas
Street 184

Ah, the Cambodian beer garden. Cambodians love to drink, and they especially love beer. They especially love drinking beer outside with all their friends, preferably to the accompaniment of blasting pop music, karaoke, or some sort of over the top live performance. There will usually be a giant screen playing football of some variety, and there will be yelling when a good play is made. Cambodians especially especially love drinking beer with the accompaniment of a massive amount of food.

No, we're not in Germany anymore. The Khmer have taken the beer garden and made it into their own thing. Cambodian commercials feature beer and beer gardens to an overwhelming extent - a favorite of mine involves three hip young dudes helping peasants pull their water-buffalo cart out of a ditch, then adjourning to the beer garden with the hot beer garden girl to unwind. (Unfortunately, beer garden girls are often the victims of the very worst of Cambodian male behavior - read the papers).

You can get a menu at these places, but whenever I end up at our favored beer garden, Sbov Meas, we just order by ways of saying what we want. The menus in these places are usually large affairs, and if you want a specific Khmer dish, they've probably got it or they can rustle it up for you eventually. They'll serve you a dish of pickled cabbage for starters. Dishes come out whenever the hell they come out in the best of Asian traditions.

This is beef with green mango, a delicious dish I've only had in Cambodia. It's sliced beef stir-fried with oyster sauce and served with sliced, tangy green mango. The combination of sour and sweet is pretty superb. Green mango in general is a Cambodian standby and a very delicious thing. Slightly different from green papaya. I'd say more...appley.

If you order fried fish here, that's a thing. We thought we were ordering a whole fish and instead got Cambodian's beloved Little Stinky Fried Fish. I happen to be really into these, having spent my early childhood eating deep-fried smelts in Greek restaurants in Florida, but they've got little bones in them and a certain compelling funk.

They do great fried shrimp at Sbov Meas. Light and crispy, and even the tails get salty and deliciously edible. They serve them with lettuce and sweet chili sauce so you can wrap em' up as some Khmer do. They also serve it with Fishwort, the World's Grossest Herb. (If you ask me).

Sweet and sour? Yeah, man. Cambodians love sweet and sour anything (As does the world) and they've got a good turn with sweet and sour fried pork ribs. Bone in, don't bite down too fast. It's good Dranking Food. As is most stuff here.

You order the beer in massive pitcher-jar things with taps - they give you glasses and ice, so you can refill yourself. The aim is to get absolutely plastered, and this is usually achieved. (Cambodian alcohol tolerance is not superb). It's usually Anchor beer, but you could go Angkor, or Tiger if you're feeling fancy.

The night we were there happened to coincide with a wealthy Khmer woman's birthday party, and boy, was it done up right. Apparently some rich Khmer are turning birthday parties into massive, wedding-like affairs intended to not-so-subtly flaunt one's wealth to your social ouvre. That may have been what was happening here.

Then again, she also seemed to have secured for herself a bona-fide ladyboy show. Khmer find ladyboys vastly amusing, and these were some high-end specimens. They had definitely had The Surgery. Well, at least up top.

There was strutting, dancing, ass-shaking, a staged duet thing between a ladyboy and a boy over Jilted Love or whatever (involving banging on a steel pan) and a ladyboy with bigger tits then my own shaking it to the vast confusion of the male members of our party.

It was absolutely fabulous. Don't miss a good Cambodian beer garden when in Phnom Penh.

Trei: Best Dang Crab Market Seafood in Kep

2011-04-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

Trei
Crab Market
Kep, Cambodia

The view outside the crab market's restaurants. It's salubrious.

Kep is famous for its "crab market," which is what they tell you all about in the guide books. The guidebooks made me think this would be some kind of elaborate affair, but the reality is that the Crab Market is a strip of 8 or so restaurants right up next to one another, all of them serving the fresh seafood Kep is known for, all of them at rock bottom prices, and insofar as I can determine, they're all pretty good. Within such close proximity of each other, they'd have to be.

I selected Trei because they were not playing bad electronica inside and it seemed a tic or two more upscale then the others judging by napkin-folding skill and the furnishings. It's little things like this that stave off the food poisoning when eating crab in a third world country. And it was this I intended to do. Trei means "fish" in Khmer. You learned something, just now.

The menu, as is expected, focuses on Kep's remarkable array of super fresh seafood. There's everything from whole fish (multiple varieties) to skate to squid to crab to shrimp on the menu. As crab is my favorite food, my choice was an easy one. I picked the crab with sauteed Kampot peppercorns. A medium serving goes for a princely 7 bucks. I also chose the stir-fried morning glory with chili and garlic, which is a traditional Southeast Asian accompaniment to crab, and also happens to be delicious.

The restaurant, like all the restaurants here, is built right out over the water, which means you can hear the water lapping underneath you and watch the fisherpeople (mostly women) bring in their nets or traps. The restaurants all keep their stock in little bamboo traps underneath or beside the restaurants. Trei's cooking team seemed to consist of a fat middle aged women in a small open-kitchen off to the side, with a couple other girls peeling things.

The crab was absolutely fantastic. Ultra-fresh. Bits of bright orange roe hanging off the bottom. They're small crabs, and you have to work a lot to get at them, but they are worth it. The fresh peppercorn is really a pretty delightful thing if you haven't had them before - I am not fond of dried pepper but I have a taste for the fresh stuff, which is less harsh and more invigorating. They're also served with a sprig of green onion. The Crab Market's other restaurants prepare it with a thicker sauce with a lot more spice paste in it, but I personally prefer Trei's more delicate, subtle variant on such. You can taste the crab better.

The serve of morning-glory was also immense and also delicious, with plenty of garlic and chili. It's a standard dish and doesn't vary much, but they certainly gave me enough for 2 bucks.

A note must also be made on Trei's green mango salad. It's another Khmer standby and is often treated rather apathetially. This was a revelation: tons of flavor, tons of peanuts and dried shrimp, a sharp and perfectly sweet chili dressing. Fried shallots and the little sweet ones I love so much here. It's perfect on a hot-ass day, which are most Cambodian days.

The inside of Trei has wooden tables and the napkins are folded all pretty. This is why it's the Upscale choice. The prices, however, are on par with the other crab market establishments.

I came back to Trei twice because I felt loyal and because I could think of no ultra compelling reason not to do so. That night, I came back and had the sampler seafood platter. It's a bit of a splurge for a Cambodian-budgeted type at 11.00, but you get: two prawns, fish fillet, squid, and boiled crab, with accompanying sauces. That kind of platter would be $30 bucks and served with attitude in the USA.

To be able to afford all this and a glass of wine at the age of 22 is something of a realized dream - I cannot tell a lie. It's the freshness that really makes Kep's seafood remarkable. They're swimming around in bamboo traps until you eat them. It's all very simple.

Dosa Corner Phnom Penh - South Indian food in...Cambodia

2011-04-07T03:34:00.000-07:00

Dosa Corner
Rue Pasteur (Street 51), #5, near entrance to Street 278.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
# 5012673276
Delivery? Yes.

I've spent some time in Southern India over the past few years. The first time, I was 19 years old and working for a dysfunctional music magazine in Bangalore - the second time I was just passing through. My main impression of Southern India is that the people are nice, the scenery is delightfully tropical, and the food is awesome. It's a real mystery to me why South Indian cuisine hasn't taken off in the USA like the heavier, meatier food of India's north. It's lighter then Northern Indian food, mostly vegetarian, and is (usually) a bit more delicately spiced - and there are a dizzying array of regional variations from state to state throughout the massive area that encompasses India's south. The most iconic dish of Southern India would be, naturally, the dosa, a kind of crepe made from fermented mung bean flour. The dough is spilled out onto a flat grill in the same fashion as a crepe, and then it's (usually) filled with something - most commonly a spiced potato and onion mixture. However, there are roughly a bazillion ways to cook a dosa, varying by region, taste, and what yer mama made when you were a little kid on the coffee plantation (or whatever).

Needless to say, I was happy to find that there's a spot to get a dosa right here in Phnom Penh. It's South Indian run, as evidenced by the menu that covers a pretty healthy array of Southern Indian foodstuffs. They've got a bunch of varieties of dosa, including palak dosa, rava dosa made with semolina, and masala dosa with egg. They've got uttapams (flat South Indian pancakes), vadas (spicy Indian doughnuts), sambar idlis (rice cakes with spicy soup) and even ghee pongal (a kind of nutty rice dish). It's enough to warm the heart of any lonely South Indian expat in Cambodia. There's a couple of lunch-time South Indian thalis on offer, some South Indian-style meat dishes like chili chicken and praw pepper fry, and some good ol' Mughali style curries for those who just can't bring themselves to do the dosa thing. And yes, there's pretty good chai and coffee. These are essential.

The first time I came here, I ordered a masala dosa but somehow managed to convince the Khmer waitress that I wanted it to go. This meant it got brought out to me imprisoned in styrofoam, and by the time I'd communicated that I was actually interested in eating in, the damn thing was cold. A cold dosa is not a particularly pleasant thing. I decided I'd come back.

I returned recently and ordered a mushroom masala dosa. Thankfully, this came out hot and on one of those nice steel plates Southern Indians are so partial to. It's a pretty worthy effort, though it could have been a *little* hotter. The masala mixture inside with mushroom was nicely spiced and there was plenty of it. They've got a good handle on sambar, South India's mainstay spicy soup with potato, tomato, and a ton of spices, and the tomato and coconut chutneys are freshly made and excellent. You're supposed to eat a dosa with your hands, dipping it in the tomato, cilantro, and coconut chutneys according to whim. They'll bring you out a big plate of the tomato chutney if you ask for it. Which I did.

I had the non-veg thali today and thought it was pretty good, and definitely similar to standard fare in South India. You get three vegetables, curd (better this time then last time,) a small pot of chicken curry, rice, chapati, and a papad, along with some pickle. I especially enjoyed the stir-fried beet, which was a new one for me. The carrots and finely chopped green beans are very Andhra Pradesh - I need to ask where the owners are from. Chicken curry was also good too, if not spicy enough, and featured actual chunks of meat instead of the bone and gristle often found in India. $5.00 and it'll fill you up. (There was a fascinating discussion going on over at the next table regarding love, mistrust, and cross-cultural relations between Indian and Cambodian, but I guess I shouldn't go into too much detail. But it was awesome. "STOP WITH YOUR LIES!!")

It's a tiny little restaurant with only a few tables, but they deliver everywhere in Phnom Penh. There's always a large number of South Indian expats chowing down here. Go figure.

Anise Terrace Phnom Penh

2011-04-02T01:59:00.000-07:00

Anise Terrace
#2C, Street 278
Boeng Keng Kang 1

The Anise Terrace is a restaurant on Street 278. You know, the one where all the ex-pats congregate on their free time to get massages, lie by the Elsewhere pool, hit on each other at Equinox, and eat.

It's a gorgeous restaurant inside, and is as French-colonial gorgeous as you could possibly ask for, with big wafting fans and chairs you can sink down inside of. And yes, there's a Happy Hour. Gotta have one on 278.

The menu is international, with both Khmer and European selections. There's also fresh pastries on offer and a lot of fruity drinks. There's a club sandwich, a large and tasty Greek salad, a number of sandwiches, and a bunch of Khmer dishes - it's fusion. There's even fish amok ravioli. which I haven't tried yet but sounds like it'd be an awfully good idea.

They make a fine beef loc-lac and an equally fine mashed potato here - my default hangover food.

The amok is very good, with a heavy reliance on Khmer spice paste (kreung) and an intense flavor. Very kaffir-lime intensive. I approve.

There's wi-fi here, cheap drinks, and big swishy fans. It is, on occasion, hard to leave.

I got to talking to the owner's, mainly because I had overheard them discussing Sacramento and was curious. As it turns out, the female half of the pair is part of the Cambodian disapora to California. She grew up in Long Beach, attended UCLA, and then decided to move to Phnom Penh with her American husband and open the place as a second act of sorts. She also mentioned that her parents live in Sacramento, and they visit up there regularly, and ain't that a coincidence?

The second time we visited, we got to talking again. Her parents were in town, fro Sacramento, so of course we discussed it. As it turned out, they lived near our house in Sacramento. Really, really close. A matter of blocks. "Oh, do you use that grocery store?" "Yes, we do! They've got everything!" "And isn't living near the rive nice?"

This was the discussion we had. "That's such a nice neighborhood, you know. Really convenient."

My mother admired a knick-knack in the shape of a pig on the table, and asked where she got it in Cambodia. The owner said, "I get asked about that all the time. As a matter of fact, it's Pier One. Bought it in Sacramento."

We laughed.

The universe is very tiny.

We then segued into the Cambodian-California diaspora, which I find perennially interesting. Sacramento has a ton of Lao and Hmong people, and there are some Cambodians in town too. However, the majority of Cambodians in the central valley reside in Stockton. Apparently, the owners parents head up to Stockton whenever they feel the hankering for some real Cambodian food. We have Lao restaurants in Sacramento, but insofar as I am aware, no Cambodian food.

Next time I'm in California for a while, I think I'm going to head to Stockton and see if I can write a piece. (Perhaps the first interesting thing I have found out about Stockton).

Romdeng: Grilled Tarantulas for a Cause!

2011-03-27T03:57:00.000-07:00

Romdeng Restaurant
#74, Street 174,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
092-219-565

Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 9pm, closed Monday.

Romdeng is one of Phnom Penh's most popular upscale restaurants among the tourist-with-a-conscience and NGO crowd. Which makes sense: This classy establishment is run by the well-regarded Mith Samlanh charity and functions as a training restaurant for the group's young service-industry students. Eat a good meal, feel as if you're doing a good turn for the universe. People love that stuff. Thankfully, the food is good, too.

The restaurant is set in one of Phnom Penh's old colonial era-houses and is very pleasant, decorated with artwork made by the kids in Mith Samlanh's various projects. You can sit outside or inside (there's fans). It's a popular place, so reserve or try to get there early.

The menu focuses on authentic Khmer dishes, and they really aren't messing around. Impress your squeamish friends back home by ordering up a plate of grilled tarantula or some stir-fried spicy tree ants - be sure to take LOTS of Facebook bound photos while you're at it, too. My mother was not up for the tree ants, I'm sad to report, but I'll be back.

They've got a great selection of alcoholic fruity drinks here, another thing us expat types really really like. This was a rambutan-passion fruit cooler with some kind of booze in it and just a little hit of mint, and it was absolutely divine. Passion fruit laced beverages cause more terrible expat decisions then anything else around here.

Khmer style shrimp curry, one of the region's real favorites. And this is a good one: Big fat prawns in a slightly spicy coconut broth with a lot of ginger. Served with crusty baguette to sop up the juice. These curries are more like a soup (as we consider it) then what you might call a curry, but it's all good.

These are pork rolls filled with fresh coconut. They came out undercooked, which was worrisome in, well, Cambodia. We sent them back and they fixed it up for us. Once back, they were fantastic: really enjoyed the sweet, marinated pork meat with the nutty crunch of the coconut.

Romdeng, being a training restaurant, is manned by enthusiastic but not 100% on point Cambodian kiddos, most rescued from profoundly unpleasant situations and learning to ply their trade. Show a little patience. Don't throw anything at them. They're cute as hell.

They also sent us the wrong dish - fish instead of a vegetarian stir-fry - but the fish happened to be good. One of our local Mekong river fishes sauteed with a slightly sweet sauce with fresh soy beans. Nice and refreshing. Simple fare.

Malis Restaurant, Phnom Penh: Just Plain Awesome

2011-03-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

Malis
#136, Norodom Boulevard
+855 023 221 022
Phnom Penh

Did you know that even Cambodia has/is plagued with celebrity chefs? It's true!

Luu Meng runs Malis, widely touted as Phnom Penh's best restaurant, alongside a number of other upscale eateries. I'd been hoping to try Malis's upscale take on Khmer cooking for a while, and with my mother in town, the time seemed ripe. (There may also have been budgetary concerns. This is one of the primary problems with being 22 years old and running a food blog).

Malis is an exceptionally attractive restaurant, with a Southeast Asian, vaguely Angkorean design theme focused around water and pools with large and satisfied looking koi. It is deeply relaxing, especially when you consider the tuk-tuk and moto hell of Norodom directly outside. The menu is Khmer food, aggressively updated to a more international standard - and the extensive and photo heavy layout of the thing ensures you won't get something unidentifiable on your plate. All the Khmer classics - samlor, banana flower salads, prohok ktis, and amok - are here, along with harder to find stuff like scallops and lamb shank. Prices are high by Cambodian standards and quite reasonable by those of the West.

Service, as you might expect, highly competent and friendly. I enjoyed watching the action in the clean and very busy semi-open kitchen. It's also a place for the Khmer elite to hold dinners and shindigs and one-on-one meetings of various purposes, as was evident by the other customers there at lunch-time. It's fun to imagine they're mafioso, though they're probably just discussing stock futures and plastics.

This is a Cambodian-style salad prepared with local scallops - which may sound like a dodgy proposition, until you taste them. These tiny little beauties have a great flavor, and the salad was absolutely superb, with frizzled shallots and peanuts on otp and a delicious herb-and-lime dressing, with extra served on the side for dipping (and you will want to). This delight probably ranks as the tastiest thing I have eaten in Cambodia. And it cost $12. Oh, the third world!

We decided to sample the boneless tumeric roasted chicken, which was served on a bed of Asian vegetables. I generally consider boneless chicken to be an agent of Satan, but this proved to be the exception to the rule, being dark-meat chicken thigh instead of breast. A very pleasing, slightly sweet depth of flavor with a subtle soy based sauce on top: The vegetables beneath soaked up the chicken juices. It's fatty chicken, but in all honesty, that isn't a bad thing, is it?

Especially good when eaten with some of Malis' home made Cambodian style pickles. Order extra.

Insofar as I am able to determine, Cambodia runs off fried rice: Motodops eat it, students eat it, businessmen eat it, you eat it. Malis serves a tasty fried rice - admittedly, there's only so much gilding of that lily possible - with a freakishly huge and tasty grilled prawn, which lends an entire new element to the thing. Note Malis' creative serving wear. We wanted to take a lot of this stuff home with us.

I am seriously considering devoting a Tumblr blog to Photos of Shrimp Heads since 1. I eat them. A lot, and 2. They are delicious, what with all the fatty bits inside of them, and you should really man up and eat them as well, and 3. I believe they photograph beautifully. I do not know where Malis sources their seafood from, but they are doing a bang-up job in a country with fabulous and woefully under-appreciated fresh seafood products.

This is Malis's signature mousse, prepared with cream, citrus, vanilla, and a little honey. This was really superb and a great, light tropical dessert. They've also got a well-recommended pineapple mousse, as well as some other distinctly Khmer dishes. They were kind enough to send out two separate portions when my mother and I said that we'd be demure and share one: This we did not regret.

Malis is an unequivocally superb restaurant. All the pieces fit: decor, service, and most importantly, sophisticated and delicious food. Malis would absolutely rank as my first choice for high-end dining in Phnom Penh, and it's a must-visit for foodies who find themselves in Phnom Penh's capital. I eagerly anticipate returning again. Preferably on a (modest) expense account.

I would, finally, like to point out that that is Jackie-fricking-Chan on the wall. You can tell that this is a quality establishment.

Touch Restaurant: Free Ride in a Military Jeep Included!

2011-03-12T03:11:00.000-08:00

Touch Restaurant
Siem Riep, Cambodia

Siem Riep is crawling with restaurants, many of them surprisingly good - and popular. (I keep on being amazed when places I want to eat in Cambodia are full).

Our guide, the wonderful Kol Rachan, suggested Touch to us. Which was lucky, since it isn't listed in any of the guides and is pretty much an unknown quantity, located down a small and unassuming street. I couldn't find a website or a listing for it, and I suspect your best bet is asking your hotel or your guide when you get to Siem Riep. Ok, I could probably make a phone call and find out for you, but sometimes I can't be arsed.

We got picked up at our hotel in a very, very old jeep. From the 1960's. "We found it in our backyard, and then, it took a couple of years, but we fixed it up," the driver explained to us. (This summoned up images of scrappy middle-American kids fixing up a found junker with the intention of taking it on a Wacky Roadtrip of Destiny, albeit in Cambodia. Which could actually make a great movie). The driver turned out to be one of the restaurant's owners, the husband of the chef, and very good looking if you're interested in that kind of thing.

The ride was bumpy and dark and very exciting in a seditious way. The driver pointed out landmarks: "There's the hostel. That's the river. And...that's the bad smell." (Living in Asia means you occasionally use smells as geographical markers).

It's a great, intimate little space that you're not exactly expecting when you get out of the jeep. It's quiet, there's mood lighting and interesting original art, and a lot of bamboo. It feels very Khmer.

The menu is all Khmer food, and it's authentic. The family is from Battambang and it's a family operation - the cook, the waitresses, the hostesses, the whole deal. They're all very friendly, all speak great English, and love to banter. (Our driver apologized to us as we headed back: "My sister? She's crazy...ohh," though we'd found her mock-flirting with me and jokes about the food pretty damned amusing).

For a starter, we had the green mango salad. This was made of shaved green (read: unsweet) mango in a sweet chili sauce with the addition of a variety of herbs. I should probably warn you about fishwort. Fishwort is a herb I've only found in Cambodia, which sort of resembles a small, green, gingko leaf. In the opinion of every Westerner I've met, it tastes like some combination of sweetened rotting fish, anise, and ass. Tread carefully with this stuff and, if possible, just make clear that you don't want any of it coming near anything you intend on eating. No offense intended if you're all over fishwort, but, no offense, you're weird. Fishwort aside, it' s a good salad and a very Cambodian kind of thing to eat. I have never suffered gastric issues over Khmer salads, so don't be a wuss.

Although our Cambodian guide, rather ruefully said, "You'll never find a fat cow in Cambodia," when we drove by some beef on the hoof the other day, this isn't really true. This was a very good and very rare steak, coated in Cambodia's distinctive Kampot peppercorns. And it was a big mutah as well. We probably shouldn't have ordered so much food, but then again, we also managed to finish it.

We had a sea bass cooked in a salt crust, another typical Khmer preperation. Lyn's Australian travel doctor told her to avoid fish in Siem Riep since, well, it ain't exactly close to the sea, but she flouted the proscription for this one. Nice tender flesh, and a big old fish to go with it. The salt crust is exactly as described, so no use in eating the skin unless you're into salt-licks, but the meat inside gets tasty.

We also tried the Cambodian style ginger chicken, a very typical dish with a lot of lemongrass, garlic, and yes, ginger. I like the big chunks of spices involved here, though the uninitiated need to realize that lemongrass doesn't chew super well. This is pretty much the Taste of Cambodia for me. (Cambodian food is signifigantly better then you've been led to believe...though you do need to work at finding it more then you do in Thailand).

There is a wine list, including kind of expensive champagne and a decent selection of Chilean selections you've probably never heard of before if you're from the US. Steak does invite wine.

We were driven back in the old jeep and were slightly more lit then we had been before, which was pretty pleasing. I can definitely suggest Touch for an authentic Khmer meal in a slightly secret, secluded location. Complete with a free ride in a military jeep.

Yok Yor Seafood, Bangkok: Beer and Innocent Sea-Life

2011-03-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

Yok Yor Seafood Restaurant
885 Soi Somdet Chao Praya 17, Bangkok, Thailand
#863-0565-6

There's an entire genre of Thai water-front seaside restaurants - an entire genre of Asian water-front restaurants, really. They crop up from Hong Kong to Vietnam to Singapore to Taiwan, and they all specialize in fresh seafood, chilled beer, and some sort of musical "entertainment" (depending on your proclivities). Yok Yor is a classic example of the genre: on the banks of Bangkok's river, it features tanks of live seafood, a very extensive menu, a sappy Thai singer and a karaoeke stand. Oh, and girls in tight-fitting and skimpy beer dresses.

As is the case with most of these restaurants, the food is fabulous.

Yok Yor is right next door to the Millenium Hilton hotel and we could probably have walked, but the guy at the dock said they'd send a boat for us. And it's sort of hard to resist being personally delivered to a restaurant via a boat. The boat, however, appeared to miss us sitting all hungry-like on the dock, so the Hilton guy's agreed to make a special dropoff for us.

We sat by the river and watched Thailand's startlingly glittery party-boats go by. I perused the money. If it swims and is tasty, they have it here, along with the full complement of Thai dishes and some Chinese and Western stuff besides. My mother was on the hunt for prawns - those massive, beefy Thai monsters that lurk in the semi-saline waters of the region. I live for crab, and so I wanted to get a crab (because, well, why wouldn't I). And then, there was the consideration of sea-bass steamed in a preserved lemon sauce.

We threw up our hands and just ordered all three. And a papaya salad for palate-cleansing. Som tum is good for that.

These prawns are Godzilla-like and would probably intimidate anyone with a bit of an insect phobia. They were scandalously good. The meat was tender, pink, and streaked with buttery red roe, and there was a lot of it.

You could suck out the heads like a good crawfish, and these were buttery and delicious also. There was a sweet chili sauce on the side for dipping, but there wasn't really a point, not with prawns that tasted like this.

The crab was a big, meaty local crab cooked in the usual yellow curry and green onion sauce. Big and fresh and with very sweet meat. The sauce was subtle and didn't hide the flavor of the crabmeat. This was a smaller crab and sometimes I wonder what kind of beasts they've got lurking in the back of the restaurant. Do they take off the cook's fingers on a regular basis?

Finally, the seabass. The preserved lemon sauce is something I hadn't tried yet in Thailand, and it was very good: extremely tangy and perfectly suited to the firm fish. Not overdone, as has been known to happen with whole fish, and not underdone, either. Make them blow out the atmospheric flame they stick under the serving plate for you, since it WILL get overcooked if you let it burn.

We somehow managed to devour just about all of it. The boats went by and there were a lot of families around us drinking beer. There were two precocious children singing karaoke inside the restaurant who really should not have been encouraged in this by their families. The beer-girls were here, there, and everywhere. It was, I think, a moment quintessentially Bangkok.

Yok Yor is expensiveish, especially if you get greedy and order everything like we did. It'll still cost less money then a fancified place without beer girls and karaoke and with subdued lighting and hip music, and who the hell wants that when you're getting down and dirty with some seafood, anyway? I mean, really. They'll even send a boat down for you and bring you back if you're staying along the river. Dinner and a Ride.

Pho 24: Upscale Phnom Penh Pho, Pretty Tasty

2011-03-05T23:51:00.000-08:00

Pho 24
Phnom Penh Center, Building A, Sihanouk Boulevard

Pho 24 is a smallish international chain of Vietnamese beef-noodle soup slingers, and they've got an outpost right here in Phnom Penh.

It's Nice inside, which is kind of a refreshing change from the majority of cheap pho slingers in the city. I liked the aggressive air-conditioning and the serene character of the dining room. No violent movies playing here, I'm afraid, but sometimes it's a refreshing change to eat pho without a side dish of entertainment. A lot of business types from the monolithic office block next door eat here—there were a couple of lunch-meeting gatherings going on around me when I stopped by.

The menu has pho - all the beef pho variants, pho ga (chicken), Vietnamese curries with baguette, spring rolls, broken rice plates, and a couple of other rice-noodle centric dishes. Like all self-respecting Vietnamese restaurants, there's a big selection of mixed fruit shakes and coffee beverages.

I am no pho expert, and I am certain my Vietnamese friends/associates would be able to evaluate pho better then I can. The house special pho here suited my needs: a big bowl, a pretty good, if not spectacular, amount of beefy, herbaceous flavor, and a good assortment of mixed cow parts - beef balls, tendon, and brisket, with sliced onions on top. Wish the assortment o' greens brought to the table was more extensive, though they were fresh and appeared to have been recently washed, which is always a comfort. I ordered a side of kimchi for kicks and was somewhat surprised when I was given, instead of a small dish, a plate of kimchi large enough to feed a small Korean family. I love kimchi, but eating an entire plate of it presents difficulties. Share with your friends?

I am somewhat befuddled by how bad the hoisin sauce used in Cambodia is - the stuff used at the pho restaurants in Sacramento is a helluva lot better. It's tolerable mixed with the ubiquitous Khmer Golden Mountain chili-ketchup stuff, but only just. I am considering carrying around a bottle of good hoisin with me for use whenever I eat pho, which is often. Though that might be construed as creepy.

Nahm Bangok: Thai Food by an Aussie? Trust Me.

2011-03-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Nahm Bangkok
Metropolitan Hotel, South Sathorn Road
Tungmahamek, Sathorn, Bangkok
+662 625 3388

World's gone insane when an Australian has one of the most popular Thai restaurants in Bangkok, right?

David Thompson is, occasionally, tongue-in-cheek referenced as the guy who "invented" modern Thai cuisine. He opened Nahm in Bangkok after winning a Michelin star for his restaurant in London - and immediately inserted his foot into his mouth by saying that Thai cuisine was "decaying," drawing the ire of many Bangkok residents.

But he's not a fly-by-night faux Thai chef either. Thompson speaks fluent Thai, appears to have done some interesting research into historical recipes that no one else was willing to do, and is committed to taking a stab at the real-deal when it comes to Thai cooking. (He's in the kitchen, too! We totally saw him!)

Nahm is set in a small and minimalist dining room in the painfully chic Metropolitan Hotel. It's an intimate and quiet space. The tables are a little long, which is good for holding a ton of food but necessitates a bit of shouting while conducting hushed, witty, dinner conversations. The clientele seems to be composed of slightly hip foodies on vacation and rich Bangkokites out for a subdued yet upscale meal. It's all very quiet, which is refreshing if you've spent a bit of time eating primarily out of Thai food carts and quick-nosh joints and are becoming sick of negotiation, chain smoking, and Thai soap operas.

You can order ala carte. Or you can partake in Nahm's set menu for the entire table, for about $50 a person give-or-take. You get a sampler of appetizers and a selection from each piece of the menu - one salad, one stir-fry, one curry - with a separate soup and dessert for each person. I'd suggest this option. Most people take it.

A small opening salvo. This appeared to consist of a sweet and savory type of confit on top of a cracker. It was also aesthetically pleasing. I am eternally grateful to restaurants with good lighting.

A selection of canapes, served on Thailand's ubiquitious crunchy rice crackers. I liked the rich boiled quail-egg in confluence with a dollop of umami-rich shrimp paste.

I really enjoyed the grilled mussel skewers, prepared betwen two sticks as most grilled-stuff in this country is. Spicy, smoky chili-heavy marinade.

Grilled prawns with pomelo, wrapped in a betel nut leaf? Yes, please. I'm a big pomelo fan. Like all pomelo salads, it's a very interesting intersection between sweet, spicy, and savory. I also like the underlying flavor of betel leaf. Wish these were more commonly used.

My mom ordered a Pimms Cup in a fit of colonialist feeling. They have a pretty wide selection of creative fruity cocktails. There's also wine. I had prosecco. For some perverse reason, I really like prosecco with Thai food.

A clear and delicate crab and snake gourd soup with egg. A very mild flavor. Went nicely with the big set of courses, though I found it a bit odd that they brought the soup out along with all the other stuff included on the set menu - gave it potential to get chilly if you're not a voraciously fast eater like yours truly. My mom picked the roast duck soup, which was rich and intense. Made me think of my usual breakfast when I'm spending time in the big city.

Scallop yam - this is a classic Thai-style seafood salad with a bunch of fresh herbs and onion. This was quite tasty. The scallop's creamy, intrinsic meatiness goes very well with fresh herbs and a dollop of crunchy onion. These are not subtle salads, but they are unequivocally delicious and refreshing. Sort of a breath freshener.

This is a Northern Thai-type relish, involving a peanut-and-chili dip, cut fruit and vegetable sticks, and fried soft-shell-crab. Relishes/dips like this are a bit hard to parse out for the Western among us, but are a nice complement to a full meal like this one. It's a good concept. The soft-shell crab was fried to the approximate texture of a potato chip, which was delightful.

Stir-fried fish dumplings with pak wan, a tasty Southeast Asian green. (There are a LOT of varieties of Southeast-Asian-green-thing). I liked the delicate fish dumplings in combination with the greens. It's a good dish, albeit not an incredibly refined one. Then again, refined isn't really the point of Nahm, as Thompson himself would tell you - it's about interpreting and using old Thai recipes. Some may object to this philosophy when dropping down $50 bucks a head on dinner in an otherwise remarkably budget-friendly city, but, personally, I can work with it.

The Massaman curry was very rich and very filling, as Massaman ought to be. I like the thick, dense flavor of cinnamon here - the spicing in this dish was much more complex and interested to figure-out then other Massaman's I've sampled, with an almost Indian depth of flavor. (Not surprising, really - Massaman, after all, directly translates as "Muslim" curry, It's rich as hell and a bit difficult to finish, but I believe we did it justice. It's definitely the chocolate-double-fudge-cake of Thai recipes. Man, that was a weird analogy.

I had jackfruit simmered in coconut cream with steamed sugar palm pudding (a squishy cake, for the non-Anglicized among us). Jackfruit is pretty much like durian's less anti-social younger brother. I really like it. This is a fairly typical Thai dessert, and for good reason.

Finally, another Thai classic - simmered black rice with (more) coconut milk and a side dish of some chewy and slightly jelly-like coconut confection. Thai desserts don't really get enough respect, is what I'm getting at. I like how light and fruit-centric they are when compared to Western confectionery.

We found the selection of Thai sweets fascinating. These are flavors and textures that just don't make it out West much, unless you're going snooping in the Asian grocery store. We were particularly taken by the light, slightly chewy texture of these coconut confections. One beef: Nahm's menu is not posted anywhere on the Internet, which means I can't, unequivocally, tell you what this stuff is. (Other then the extremely obvious - and curiously hollow - meringue.) Considering that one of Nahm's functions is educational - well, fix it, guys.

Needless to say, I can give Nahm a whole-hearted recommendation. What I find most interesting - and appealing - about Nahm is the way all of these dishes work together to produce a fairly traditionally minded Thai meal. I've had all of these dishes (or some variation on the theme) on their own, but I haven't had them all at once in a large, synchronized meal before.

Some Southeast Asians who have reviewed Nahm have noted that it reminds them of home cooking. Which is exactly the point, and something those of us hailing from the West haven't really experienced before. Although the restaurant is a bit spendy for Bangkok (and would be highly reasonable by San Francisco or European standards), it's worth it for an upscale and thought provoking Thai meal. You can get your kicks eating weird things off the street also - I mean, I do - but Nahm could be a nice departure from the norm for food obsessed Bangkok visitors. Try it.

curried crab, bangkok

2011-03-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

Curried crab at Somboon Seafood: One of my life's greater pleasures round' here.

Prom Bayon: The Cambodian Beer Garden

2011-02-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

Prom Bayon
Street 154

Cambodian beer gardens are a very particular and very specific insitution. I should do a real article on them. They're tantamount to European beer gardens in that they revolve around late night alcohol consumption, shooting the shit with friends, and overeating. Except in Cambodia, beer gardens also usually feature a giant roasted calf, a few dishes involving eel/insects (for when you're really punchy) and in the better kind of places, either karaoeke or a confused looking real live singer. Beer gardens are always ferociously rocking with Khmer party-people on the weekends (and most nights, really) and they are good places to eat as well. Gotta wash down the beer with something.

I go to Prom Bayon because it is near my place of employment, inexpensive, and the food is pretty good. I've had lunch here, I've had dinner here. Dinner is when the place comes to life, with packs of heavy drinking and rowdy Khmer's filling the place up, but it isn't half bad for lunch, either.

I get their loc-lac a lot. They have Khmer style, which doesn't comes with french-fries and a more peppery and less ketchupy sauce. They also do it American/English style, which means more ketchup and more french-fries, the tenets of the Western diet. They have tasty stir-fried eel. Good Khmer style raw-beef salads with a ton of herbs and lemongrass. Excellent grilled, rare beef with pepper sauce, which is one of my all time favorite accompaniments to alcohol.

Beware the salad section. I thought I was ordering the tasty herb beef salad one day and got the salad which was "boiled beef organs with an assortment of greens on ice." I ate it - tripe is tripe - but it wasn't really what I was after, if you get the drift.

Service is in the finest beer-garden tradition of "extremely surly." I would expect nothing less. There is usually an offensive or incredibly violent movie playing on the television set indoors during lunchtime, which I consider a real added-value. Your mileage may vary, but you also live in Cambodia, so I can guess at your tastes. I sure can.

Szechuan Restaurant

2011-02-16T02:32:00.000-08:00

Szechuan Restaurant
Street 136
Right off Monivong, on the way to the Central Market.

There is a row of Chinese restaurants very near to Phnom Penh's Central Market. There are probably six or seven of them - I have not performed a full count - and they are all pretty popular with the city's Sino-Khmer population, and with Chinese business travelers. They all look about the same but you can tell the good ones by the number of patrons inside of them. The patrons will be drinking Chinese whiskey and shouting at one another regardless of the time of day, in the standard fashion of Chinese lunches, and they will probably be smoking, which I feel I should warn you about.

I seem to rotate my business between three establishments: Shan Dong, Tian Fu, and the Szechuan. I work nearby to the Central Market. And Chinese restaurants remind me of home. I am from Northern California, and it is a curious fact that inexpensive Chinese restaurants the world over look pretty much the same, down to interior decor, patrons, and menu choices. I step inside these places and instantly feel as if I am out for lunch with my father somewhere where we are the only white people and will get stared at. (I remain the only white person in these places, usually, but the getting-stared-at has lost all of its surprise for me whatsoever). I think the Shan Dong is the best of these, for somewhat sentimental reasons, but more on that later.

I will start with the Szechuan because I feel like it.

There was an elderly and fat Austrian man with white hair sitting at the round table with me. This was normal because Chinese restaurants have no qualms about seating strangers with one another. This is in the interest of commerce and not sociability, I think, but it is there all the same. I spent a moment or two trying to prevent eye contact since I was feeling antisocial but soon gave up. We began talking.

"I am on my holiday," he said, 'but I don't live here. My girlfriend - she is Vietnamese, and she lives here."

The menu was text-book size and there were two of them, some with old and over-exposed photographs of the food and some with a list. I felt pressured into ordering quickly and got rather nervous. I ordered some Chinese greens and a soup that I could not immediately identify the nature of, except that I felt a bit ill and decided I wanted soup. He chose Szechuan beef on a hot plate and some other kind of soup. We were both offered a small dish of very spicy cabbage - this was Szechuan food, after all, the spiciest of the Chinese cuisines - and some peanuts, as are offered at all the restaurants on this strip.

I supposed I had to speak with him.

He ordered a pitcher of beer, which was not all full, and he sent this back and got huffy, which was, I suppose, something an Austrian would do. The girl came back to rectify our order, confused and insolent about her confusion, but brought back the right amount of beer in the end. "I have been coming here for 15 years," the man said, vaguely, "to Cambodia. And always, it is getting worse. Perhaps the people are a little stupid, but before - they were genuine. And now they are just stupid."

I tried to imagine Cambodia 15 years ago. I thought of a New York Times article I had recently read about Phnom Penh not too long after the bad old times, with bones bleaching away in people's side-yards and a central market where no one could even get any soup, and livestock in the streets and a curious aura of deathly silence everywhere, as if half the people had left the room and decided they wouldn't come back any longer (but of course it was more horrible then that).

Probably it had been better 15 years ago, but still, it had been closer to the Thing, the Thing I often tried to think about when I walked around town holding a Diet Coke and looking for something to eat.

"Maybe they aren't stupid," I offered, "but only more comfortable."

"That may be so," he said. "All these tourists." (We who live in a country or visit it very often derive great pleasure from moaning about tourists. It is our shared and greatest pleasure).

"And how about the Chinese New Year?" I said, because it was that weekend.

"Everything is shut," he said, "and my girlfriend is with her mother. It is very dreary."

"Has she been to Austria?" I said.

"She has been," he said. The food had arrived.

"And did she like it?" I asked. The soup turned out to be a seaweed and tomato and egg concoction. It did not look very appealing, but I had ordered it and I would eat it. I found that it had a lovely, delicately briney flavor and was just the thing for someone working on a cold without much of an appetite, which I was. I fell to.

"Did she like it!" he said, as if this was a silly question. "Why, she loved it."

"But it was during the warm months," I said, my mouth full of seaweed. It was the kelpy kind without a lot of chew to it, the kind I really loved. The egg was egg, but not objectionable, and so were the tomatoes.

"Yes, we do not like the cold weather," he said. A royal "we."

The Szechuan beef he had ordered was an enormous serve in the cow-shaped metal dishes the Khmers fancy: it was very good. It was made of sliced beef with a lot of different kinds of peppers in it, including red ones, red bell peppers, and a green and not superlatively spicy one that reminded me of Spain's little pimientos de padron. There were also shitake mushrooms and onions and some other things, and the whole combination was a nice one. The Austrian man shared his food with me: he was friendly, in his way.

He was fairly deaf and could not really understand anything I told him too well, so I mostly listened. Mostly he told me about how Cambodia had degenerated and how his girlfriend was lovely. The food of Vietnam was better then it was here, and the people were kinder as well, but it was cheaper here, and this was his girlfriends home - so what could he do?

The peppers were making him sweat. The girl waitresses talked on their cellphones and remained insolent looking. (Having been to a lot of Chinese restaurants to the room, I should add I hold them to a different service standard then most. If no one slaps me in the face or blows smoke in my eyes when I am in the middle of my meal, then I am fairly content with Chinese restaurant service. But that is just me).

I began feeling sicker, almost a bit nauseous. At least the soup and the greens had helped. "I had better go to work," I said. He looked surprised. I had told him I worked here but I do not think he had heard me. "Yes, I'd better leave," I said. "Ket loy." (Change).

We split the bill without making eye contact - I did not want to pressure him - and I went out the door. I laid down on the couch at the office but felt all right again within an hour or so. I thought of his girlfriend, and being Vietnamese in Phnom Penh, and the small green peppers.

I would go back to the Szechuan Restaurant but I hoped I wouldn't have to talk to anyone next time, all the same.

Frizz Restaurant: Khmer Food for The Masses

2011-02-12T02:41:00.000-08:00

Frizz Restaurant

#67 Street 240

Phnom Penh has a lot of places that do barang-acceptable riffs on traditional Khmer food, and I think Frizz is one of the most venerable of their number, operating since 2004 with a remarkably steady amount of popularity. Easy to see why. It's nice and airy inside. The menu has pictures and explains in detail what stuff is. They offer cooking classes. The wait-staff speak English, are friendly, and keep the place clean and functioning well. It's always packed to the gills with backpackers pontificating to one another about the stuff packpackers pontificate with each other about. The usual.

The food is pretty good. Not the best in town, but absolutely dependable Khmer standards with burritos and stuff thrown in for wusses. It's on the Expat Ghetto Road of Street 240, which is full of attractive pastel houses, boutiques selling funky jewelry, and NGO Ladies Who Lunch.

Beef loc-lac, the Eternal Khmer dish. And it isn't hard to see why. The appeal of a bunch of beef stir-fried with a peppery oyster sauce and served on a bed of crispy onion, tomato, and lettuce is not, I think, lost on many people. The version here is decent and a helluva large serve, and they don't forget the egg like many less reputable establishments do. It's the sliced-beef kind of loc-lac, not the beef chunks variant on such. I like the beef chunks kind more, though it can be surprisingly difficult to find. I will, eventually, compile all the loc-lacs I've eaten in town into one gigantic Uber Loc-Lac Post but you know, later.

The fish amok. It's a nuttier fish amok - they use cashews in this stuff. Not really my cup of tea, as I like my amok more light and ethereal and less rich and chewy. The layer of coconut cream they put up top is good - wish more places did that. But this stuff is almost too sweet and rich.

The salads here are quite good, with a lot of flavor and typical Khmer herbs incorporated. I like the Frizz salad with shrimp and chicken. It's one of the perfect dishes for a hot and sweaty day. The standard side-mixed salad is also quite all right. Past couple of times I've ordered it at the office they have brought pure mayo in a bag instead of the tasty mustard-dressing that is supposed to come with it which displeased me, but such are the perils of modern life.

On the cooking classes: my mother and aunt are coming to town next week and the Frizz cooking class experience appears to be on the agenda. Watch this space.

Finally, the eternal question: Why The Hell is It Called Frizz? The website reveals that the Dutch ex-pat who started the place was called Frits. Cambodians couldn't pronounce his name and called him "Frizz." And so it was.

Comme Maison: Francophile Food in Phnom Penh

2011-02-07T04:16:00.000-08:00

Comme a La Maison
#: 023 360 801
#13, Street 57
Open everyday, from 6.00 to 22.30.

Phnom Penh, as you're probably aware, is a relatively Frenchified city. It was called the Paris of the East prior to the wars, known for its long avenues, European-inflected architecture, and wealth of green spaces. That's all faded now, covered in a veneer of grime, vaguely scented of trash, but you can see it sometimes, in snatches, if you look up at an apartment building.

This French background is also reflected in the city's food. Few Khmers are left who speak any French, but plenty of French people visit here and work here, and Phnom Penh hosts a profusion of French restaurants. Comme Maison is among them, and a very worthy contender in a field that occasionally delves into European-inflected horror. It's located in a small and very private garden dining-space on Street 57, near the expat ghetto of Street 278. (Ye shall know it by overpriced NGO boutiques with exotic-patterned wrap-dresses and lots of garden-cafes with menus focusing on mashed potato and alcohol).

You can sit in Comme a la Maison and quite handily forget you are in Phnom Penh, away from the constant sound of motorbikes, back-firing tuk-tuks, and people shouting at one another on the street.. The menu is fairly simple French cafe food, with a very light hand compared to most Francophone restaurants abroad. There are steaks, pizzas of various sorts, quiche, composed and high-quality salads, ratatouille, an extensive dessert list (the chef was an ex-pastry chef), and a lot of wine on offer. There is also an excellent fruit salad. Sounds mundane, can be difficult to correctly execute.

There are usually a number of specials, many of them involving kidneys and other "variety" meats suitable for the hardcore. There is merguez sausage on the menu and exceptionally pricey lamb chops, which I have eyed hungrily but have not quite pulled the trigger on yet. A shame that lamb is difficult to find here.

I shall commend them for a steak both good and economical. You can order it with a couple of side dishes - the first is free, the second costs a $1.50. The mashed potatoes are excellent, and so is the ratatouille. The steak was rare and slightly bloody, just the way I like it, and was offset beautifully with a bit of mustard and a glass of good red wine. The bearnaise sauce was excellent. You can also get a shallot compote, a pepper sauce, and a number of other things. This is an establishment where getting sloshed on red wine with friends is both perfectly acceptable and perfectly normal.

I have also tried a very nice baked seafood casserole here. My friends also swear by the chocolate mousse—my utter lack of a sweet tooth hinders me a bit here but I'll go off hearsay. The bread here, if you're one of those bread basket freaks, is pretty good. If you are one of Those People who demands oil and vinegar with bread, this is possible but will involve the high level interrogation of an innocent waitperson.

Prices are expensive by Phnom Penh standards, but not insane—the quality of the food is high, and the dining room is lovely. I have been told it is a grade A date place, if you were wondering about that sort of thing. It is 100% guaranteed that no street urchins clutching books will bother you while making a move.

DELIVERY FOR THE OFFICE-ENSLAVED: They deliver. It's a bit pricey, but it's the same stuff as at the restaurant, and makes a nice luxurious splash-out during a long day.

Chinese Noodle Restaurant, Phnom Penh, Monivong Boulevard

2011-02-04T04:19:00.001-08:00

Chinese Noodle Restaurant
Location: Street #278, Monivong Boulevard, Phnom Penh (Past the Caltex station. Keep your eyes open. You can figure it out).
Vegetarian Friendly: Enh. Sort of.

Chinese Noodle Restaurant is kind of a Phnom Penh institution. It makes sense: take a budget-fixated community and some cheap, good Chinese food and you've got true love. It's open pretty much all the time, is casual as anything, and attracts an interesting assortment of Chinese-Khmers, locals of all varieties, and the occasional tourist who thinks they are being edgy. It's good people-watching.

The menu is simple and, shockingly enough, revolves around noodles. The noodles are of the justly-beloved hand-pulled variety, and you'll see a somewhat disgruntled looking kid doing the pullin' near the doorway while you eat.

There's vinegar, soy sauce, and Beijing-style chili oil on the table for constructing your own dipping sauce. They will bring you free, tasty iced jasmine tea in an indifferently clean mug while you wait for your food. Everything in here is indifferently clean, but such is the nature of Chinese resturants. And much of China, if we're being brutally honest here.

A bowl o' duck noodles will set you back $1.50 and will fill you up for a while. The noodles taste fresh and are offset nicely by the broth, which has a good rich flavor this is even better when perked up with chili oil and some black vinegar. The duck is fine, albeit a bit sparse. If you're into duck skin, like most rational humans, you'll be satisfied.

I am a huge fan of Chinese stir-fried greens. This will become apparant if you read this blog. They make up about 80% of my daily diet. I am shockingly healthy. These are really excellent - they chop them up in into manageable pieces so I don't have to perform Hilarious White People With Chopsticks tricks for an appreciative audience, which often happens with immense and slippery chunks o' bok choy. (I am good with chop sticks, real good, but even I occasionally encounter unclimbable peaks).

$1.20 for a plate of dumplings? Yeah, I can do that. We went boiled this time. They are pretty good: plenty of leek and pork filling. I thought the wrappers were a little thick and chewy, though. I'd rate Zeppelin's delicate little pork n' leek dumplings higher. The pan-fried variety may change my assessment. Next time.

And there will be a next time, for I am impoverished, like this kind of food a lot, and the restaurant is really close to my place of employment. There will be many next times.

PHNOM PENH: Chiang Mai Thai Restuarant, Sisowath

2011-02-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

Chiang Mai Thai Restaurant
227 Sisowath Boulevard
+855 11 81 1456
7 days a week, 10:00 AM until 10:00 PM. Upstairs seating available.
Vegetarian friendly: Extremely.
Price: $$

Thai food can be surprisingly difficult to get in Phnom Penh. European food of many varieties is easy to get around here, Korean food is rife, sushi is eminently possible and you can't swing a cat without hitting a place serving some bizarre take on French food - but Thai? Like, that country right next door? Harder. (Don't get me started on the curious paucity of Vietnamese food). This can, of course, be chalked up to ancient and historically relevant ethnic tensions, but it doesn't help when I just want some larb-gai.

Ethnic tensions aside, there is a pretty good Thai restaurant smack dab in the tourist hell of Sisowath Quay. It's called Chiang Mai Thai because it is indeed Northern Thai food - there's northern style dips on the menu, an inordinate variety of larb-type dishes (and the real thing) and you can even get an honest-to-god bowl of God's chosen food, Burma's khao-soi.

I eat here a lot because it is one of the cheaper options on Sisowath, the management is nice, and the food is reliably tasty. I also like the Bible-length and decently photographed menu. The dining room is simple and functional, and closed off enough that you won't get too much beggar-harassment unless you are sitting right up against the entrance.

They do fish amok here, but they stir-fry it instead of baking it. Personally, I love Chiang Mai's take on the Eternal Khmer Dish. It's fresher, firmer, and less custardy then some variants on the theme. If you can tear yourself away from a psychological reliance on the cute little banana leaf package, this is good stuff. You can also get it made with chicken or shrimp if you're feeling irreverent.

I usually pair this with mixed vegetables or stir-fried waterspinach. Nothing particularly special though I like the nutrients. Water spinach is delightful and something that makes up the bulk of my diet, like many Cambodians. A tasty, nutrient rich vegetable that can be grown in pretty much any scummy pond is a gift of nature. (Don't think about the scummy part, actually. I mean. They cook it with high heat).

This is a dry, Khmer style red-curry with a large quantity of local vegetables. A really tasty dish that is aggressively healthy without entirely seeming so. I am very fond of Cambodia's tiny, globular eggplants and these are used to good effect here. There is a dash of coconut milk for flavor, and a whole lot of dry, intense spices.

I have also sampled the larb-gai here, which, as previously mentioned, is quite good. As spicy as you can take it, extremely tangy, and plenty of rice powder to give it that nutty and slightly crunchy finish. They do pretty good curry crabs, using Cambodia's particular and stripy crab variety—these are best eaten with a mess of morning glory and a philosophical attitude about getting one's hands messy.

I have not tried the khao soi yet - I got spoiled for choice in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and am a bit wary - but I will eventually once the need for coconut-egg noodle-chicken-pickle soup gets too strong, and it will, it always will.

DELIVERY FOR THE DESK BOUND:

The guys at Chiang Mai deliver and they do it quickly. No screwed up orders to date, and they always bring change. The guy on the phone speaks actual English.

Things I ate in Cambodia

2011-01-30T11:06:00.000-08:00

Rumors of this blog's demise are greatly exaggerated. I will be retooling and relaunching this blog in the next week or so. It'll be about eating in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where I currently live and work. It will probably be called "Things I Ate in Cambodia."

All the old Teenage Chowhound stuff will stay right here for the lookin' if you get the jones.

Godspeed,

- Faine

CHRISTMAS IN CAMBODIA

2010-12-22T10:05:00.000-08:00

From Christmas in Cambodia

Christmas in Cambodia

This is what I've been up to the past couple of weeks. It's a photo-essay in blog format on the somewhat bizarre and rather charming phenom of Christmas in Phnom Penh. Lots of photos of holiday cheer Khmer-style. Pithy commentary. You know the score.

Dinner at the Assam Bhavan

2010-11-13T23:27:00.000-08:00

The Assam Bhavan in Delhi is Assam's official point of representation in the city - sort of like the state's official embassy within the capital. It is of interest to me primarily because it has a restaurant, specializing in Assamese specialities difficult to find outside of the homeland. Jakoi is a restaurant that has gained some popularity among the capital's foodie class. Unlike most Bhavan canteens, it's decorated in a reasonably upscale fashion, and has a rather extensive menu with some pretensions of grandeur. Most people go for the special thali, which provides a reasonably extensive overview of Assamese food for a reasonably low price.

You'll be out 350 rupees for the Paranpara special thali as pictured above, which includes fried fish, fish (hilsa) cooked in banana leaf, a choice of pigeon or duck curry, a couple of vegetable dishes, some Assamese style condiments, and a dessert. Well, in theory.

I sat outside, braving the inevitable depredations of doubtlessly malaria-carrying mosquitos. It's nice out there. Cushions, ambient lighting, and some pleasant decorative accents.

The fried fish in tangy curry (fish tenga) was pretty good, albeit exceedingly bony. The crust was crispy and not too heavy, and it didn't seem to suffer from over-frying as some other reviewers have reported.

The fish in banana leaf with coconut milk and spices might theoretically have been good, but was so filled with tiny bones that I about a nibble or two of edible meat off the sucker. I gave in after a minor but disquieting choking incident. The duck was also a bit tough, though I liked the rich ground spice flavored gravy. Plenty of bones, as is typical with Indian curries. I happen to adore poultry bones, so no complaints from me.

I really enjoyed the pitika, or mashed vegetable, which tasted like an Assamese riff on America's bland and beloved mashed potatoes. The daal and the interesting, semi-powdered Assamese condiments were quite good. I've certainly never tasted anything like some of these Assamese chutneys, which included two variations on kahudi or mustard paste (one with sodium bicarbonate?!), a kind of grated, fermented bamboo shoot (kharisa), and mahor guri, made with powdered gram lentils and chili. Unusual little nuggets, and quite tasty. I'd like to try these again in different contexts. The fried vegetable d'jour was a kind of stir-fried Indian melon whose name escapes me, which I am very fond of. It has a delightfully squashy texture, that crunches with seeds when you bite into it.

I was a bit peeved as I did not actually receive the promised "gooseberry welcome drink" or the dessert as listed on the menu. There was an awkward moment after the main thali plate was removed where I anticipated the arrival of some exotic dessert - and got the check instead. Not so pleasing. If you list a food item on your thali, sirs, you'd best bring it out.

Verdict? Jakoi is worth a visit if you are, like myself, a commited food adventurer who is always up for sampling something entirely new to the ol' palate. However, it's a restaurant with some considerable kinks to work out vis a vis service and food prepration. According to some other online reviews, the kitchen has an unfortunate tendancy to flake out some nights and be fine and dandy on others. If I return, I might give the forgettable meat dishes a pass and go with the vegetarian thali - the kitchen seems to know their way around a legume and a bitter melon a spot better then they do a cut of innocent waterfowl or fish. And ask them point-blank to bring out the dang dessert.

Many of the state Bhavan's have canteens, specializing in foods particular to the state. Not all of them allow outsiders in, but some do. Check before you amble in. If they're amiable, you'll get a cheap and undeniably authentic meal at a very reasonable price.

You may now be asking a fairly simple question. Where in the hell is Assam? And what is it?

Assam is a state in India's Northeast, occupied mostly by the Assamese people, who have their own language and a culture distinct from that of the rest of India. It was a contested region for most of its history - occupied by the Tai people, the Moghuls (briefly) and the Burmese - until the First Bengal War of 1824 to 1826, when the Indians occupied the territory and claimed it as their own.

Like many of India's northeastern states, it's been the scene of separatist violence in recent years, as groups like the United Liberation Front of Asom attempt to secure some margin of self-determination for their land. And nice land it is. Assam's a lush and heavily forested state, with a monsoon climate, incredibly biodiversity, and one of the last remnant populations of the one horned rhinoceros. You may also have hear of Assam before because of its justifiably famous variety of tea. I had hoped to visit one of Assam's superior national parks on this trip, but it was not to be. They were closed for this year's Eternal Monsoon. And as Assam is one of the world's wetter areas, I wasn't eager to test their resolve on the matter. Not interested in swimming to see equally aquatic rhinos. Not really.

Stuff I Ate in Mumbai: Mahesh Lunch Home, Kailash Parbat

2010-11-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

I ate at a lot of places in Mumbai, because there was nothing else to do. Not when it was raining like that. Mumbai rain is singular, that's what any native will tell you, but there's times when it gets worse then that. The rain pounds down so hard on your umbrella, you get convinced the sky is falling in, the End of Things. The wind kicks up real strong down a narrow street, ringed by buildings, and your cheap umbrella blows out and you're soaked to the skin, your clothes clinging to you. (Showers at night become superficial, bandaids become a luxury (they fall right off). I wash swirls of dirt off my entire body at night but I don't know what the point is). Mumbai smells of wet-dog mixed with motor oil, and all the kids with their perfect hair wander around with plastic bags over their heads, looking pissed off. The Monsoon that Never Ends.

I went to go have chaat at Kailash Parbat, because I couldn't go to Chowpatty. Not in this weather. It's a small vegetarian restaurant very close to the center of Colaba, and is very well loved by the young and impoverished of the city. It's open air and gets a decent breeze, especially when the rain is pouring down, and they have every kind of chaat you could want, and tons of vegetarian food besides.

Chaat is the catch-all phrase for "tasty Indian snacks that come from the street most of the time but not always." Chaat is the lifeblood of India, the base heart and soul of the cuisine (in my mind) - it's what plain folks eat. Bhel puri, sev puri, pani puri, aloo chaat, bhala papri chaat, and on and on, too many varieties to name. Common ingredients in chaat are potatoes, dahi (yogurt/curds), chopped onion, mango, tamarind sauce, chili, lentil wafers, tomato, and puffed rice. Many chaats also involve chaat masala, a spice mix usually involving amchoor (green mango) powder, cumin, coriander, ginger, and black and red pepper. They're usually served on disposable bowls made of leaves - don't ask where they came from. All chaats share one commonality: they revolve around some form of fried dough. How can you go wrong?

My favorite chaat is bhel puri. The best way to describe it to a Westerner? Savory Rice Krispies. It's a combination of puffed rice, diced potato, red onion, tamarind and chili sauce, sev (fried strings made from besan powder), and fried papri puris (wheat bread). Most places will toss in chaat masala and chopped green mango as well. Every bhel puri cart makes it a little differently, and that's half the fun of it. No bhel puri is ever the same twice. Bhel puri is the iconic dish of Chowpatty Beach, and you are officially Doing Mumbai Wrong if you leave the city without consuming the stuff on that sandy and infamous stretch, fending off seagulls and souvenir-sellers alike. Use the papri puri as a "spoon." Kailash Prabat is said to make one of the better bhel puris in the city, and I'd have to agree. A great ratio of chutney to crunchy stuff, plenty of sweet and savory interplay of flavors, delicious and savory.

I also ordered a mixed vegetable "tawa". Pretty good, if not exceptional. Didn't really need it. Bhel puri is surprisingly filling. They do a fine thali and pav bhaji (buns with spiced vegetables) here as well. A good spot to try Mumbai-style chutney sandwiches. I've never quite "got" them.

I had come to Mumbai wanting to try Parsi food, but was pretty much totally confused. The classic Parsi restaurants seem to offer monumentally depressing menus of "Continental" stuff -think baked chicken, baked beans on toast, spaghetti Bolognese - and none of the reputed ethnic recipes of the subgroup. I remember eating at one of the supposed Parsi/Iranian restaurants and being primarily impressed by its badness. Sort of a half-assed ripoff of the omnipresent Persian and Lebanese restaurants found in the USA, with hummus that tasted powdered. Maybe the only way to get at Parsi food is to make a Parsi friend. Any takers?

I paid a visit to the Mahesh Lunch Home one day. It's one of Mumbai's rather exclusive clique of high-end seafood restaurants. The interior is futuristically blue-lit and small, and the waiters are friendly in the pompous, overly-sophisticated way of Indian servers in all quality establishments.

I ordered the rawas tikka. Rawas is India's "salmon," and it's particularly beloved here in Mumbai. It's a tasty and firm fish, and I ordered it Hyderabadi style - this means the fish is coated in a spice mixture involving plenty of green chili, and given a quick char. The flesh is firm and has a mild salmon-type flavor. Really quite excellent. Had an extremely butter-centric vegetable jalfreezi with. Bring your ghee glasses.

When I got my food, I, as is usual, took out my camera and began shooting pictures. The waiter grandly came over and asked, "Would you like me to take the picture?" Not sure what he meant. Me with the rawas - a family portrait? Taking the photograph of the food itself?

I politely declined. I always wonder what people in less internet-centric countries and age groups wonder when they see me ardently and extensively photographing my lunch. Kids these days.

I'll put together a Mumbai restaurant suggestions directory in a bit here. Seems like the right thing to do for all the major cities I hit on this here trip.

Moti Mahal: New Delhi

2010-11-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

Moti Mahal
New Delhi, India
Daryaganj, Chandni Chowk

I had lunch at Moti Mahal. The Moti Mahal. It's an absolutely iconic restaurant, considered to be one of the pioneers of the tandoori cuisine that has so efficiently and quickly swept the entire planet. It's said that the restaurant's founder, a Peshawari by the name of Kundan Lal Gujral, actually invented both tandoori and butter chicken. (Apparently, the tandoor oven was previously reserved only for bread, instead of meats). The restaurant began in Peshawar and was moved to its current Delhi location in 1947, after the Partition - and has been plugging on with shocking success ever since, drawing the affection of Indira Gandhi, Nehru, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon - in other words, everyone vaguely important who was sent to India on official business has eaten here.

There was no one there, which was somewhat curious. The interior of the restaurant is a bit 1960's mental hospital. But at least they have lots of fans operating on high-speed. I ordered my usual - tandoori chicken, tandoori gobi (cauliflower) and sat back. The owner of the place came over to chat, in lieu of anything better to do. "Did you know that Gordan Ramsey came and cooked here?" he asked me. No, I did not. But so The Ramsey did come to Moti Mahal. Engaged in one of those celebrity cookoff things that are so popular on food networks. Naturally, the Moti Mahal boys won hands down. The owner came over with a few photographs after I expressed interest. "That's us. When we won," he said, pointing to an image of both himself and Ramsey looking pleased with the universe.

The food was, as expected, excellent. Moti is also known for its Mughali style curries. Delhi is particularly known for curries made from mutton "variety" meats - you can order up goat brain curry here if so inclined. There are Moti Mahal outlets all over India now, although a family argument means that this Chandi Chowk branch bills itself as the One and Original Moti Mahal, Hands Down. I'm not prepared to argue.

The tandoori gobi had the interesting addition of sesame seeds up top. I think it does add a certain nutty depth to its flavor. A delicate yogurt marinade and a lot of spices, heavy on the aromatics. Really addictive stuff - and a lot of it. I couldn't finish it all.

And excellent chicken. Not too heavy on the yogurt - actually, I kinda like that. But juicy, excellent meat with a lot of complexity of flavor.

They talked me into ordering roti. However, missi roti are superb. It's a thin crunchy roti prepared with besam or gram flour, seasoned with fenugreek, ginger, nigella, chili powder, ajwain, and sesame. And brushed with an inordinate amount of butter. They are very savory, and incredibly delicious.

After lunch, I was going to go to the Red Fort. Which turned out to be closed.

So I didn't. But I did the next day.

Eating Stuff in the Car: New Delhi Edition

2010-10-27T09:36:00.001-07:00

Hey there. Have been doing all my writing whatnot over at The Long Way to Cambodia. Since I have been traveling in Asia for the past three months. I will be mirroring all specific food related posts over here from now on.

Without further ado...

Delhi, like the rest of India, is a bastion of street food. And the number one Delhi street food is, of course, the almighty kebab. Kebab functions as a catch-all word for a dizzying array of meat products on a stick here in India, but rest assured: whatever it is, it will be incredibly tasty. India being primarily Hindu and Muslim, kebabs are almost always made with mutton or chicken - vegetarian variants with paneer (cheese), potato, and mashed vegetables do exist.

Al Kauser
Off Sarder Patel Marg, near the Assam Bhavan. (Look for the stall with smoke coming off it, and lots of hungry people sitting on their cars. You can't miss it).

Sheila insisted that we try the kakori kebab at Al Kauser one night, and I was of no inclination to defy her. (I am rarely of such an inclination). Sheila, Rajeev, and myself accordingly jumped into the car, wherein Sheila grandly asked the driver to take us to the Kebab Place, and be quick about it. "It's just a stall, of course, but they are simply the most divine kakori kebabs in town. But it's just a stall, really."

(She was looking for an accomplice, in the dark art of Eating In the Car. We both knew it. And I was happy to oblige).

Al Kauser is a bit of a kebab stall institution, beloved by an entire generation of Delhi-ites for its kakori rolls. The kakori kebab roll, for the uninitiated, is made of ultra-finely cut ground lamb, ground to a fine paste and seasoned with garlic, cinnamon, cayenne, cardamon, cumin, and some other tasty aromatics. The result is an incredibly tender kebab that quite literally melts in your mouth, creating a decadently fatty explosion of flavor in one's mouth. As kakori kebabs are delicate things, they are usually served with ultra thin and buttery roomali roti. Traditional condiments are hyperactively spicy cilantro chutney with green chili, and pickled onions. Mix these elements up together and you've got a work of art. Kakori kebab is a foodstuff entirely suited for eating in your car or while standing up - that's the other beauty of them. And did I mention that kakori kebab is cheap?

Al Kauser is best known for its kakori kebab, but they also turn out a popular mutton burra kebab (mutton on the bone with a coating of yogurt and spices). Chicken tikka is on offer for wusses who can't handle mutton, but there's no real reason to bother. (I don't know why people bother with chicken tikka in general). Watching the cooks slap the kakori paste on the table and form it into kebabs at super-human speeds is half the fun. Must not be comfortable to spend all night working in a flaming inferno of a grill stall, but I'm glad they do it. As are a lot of people.

There is something delightful about devouring kakori kebab in the back of a car with a grand dame, dripping cilantro sauce and bits of roomali roti all over the upholstery. Since that is part of the sacred ritual of eating kakori kebab. It must not be abrogated. "God, I do love these!" Sheila commented after we polished off the last batch. She handed me a paper napkin. We both delicately and in a highly lady-like fashion wiped the mutton grease off our mouths. "You have to eat them in the car, darling," she said, as we pulled away. "It can't be done any other way."

Well, I'd concur.

We ended our casual-style dinner at a nearby shopping center, for bhel puri. Sheila has a bhel puri guy there she likes, and the three of us ordered up plates of the good stuff.

A lovely rendition. Plenty of fresh mango and onion, plenty of chutneys. A pleasant overdose of sev and seasonings. Not too dry, not too moist. Crunchier then most. Christ, I love bhel puri.

We adjourned to Haldiram's - one representative of India's ginormous Bengali fast-food chain - to sip on Diet Cokes and watch the locals sink their faces into thalis, samosas, and chaats. Sheila vacillated with the idea of getting some kulfi or some barfi, something like that, but talked herself out of it. "Too fatty," she sighed. "You know that Delhi is in the throes of an obesity epidemic."

Which it is. And we know why.

South Indian Food: Annapoorani in Bangalore

2010-09-06T11:54:00.000-07:00

Southern Indian food is one of the primary delights of time spent in Karnataka. It's completely unlike the heavy, oil rich, and meaty food we commonly associate with USA and English Indian restaurants. That's the food of the Punjab, that's the food of the Mughals - the sort of stuff that originated in Northern India and was disseminated the world over by opportunistic immigrants. But Southern Indian food has stuck closer to home, and has therefore been largely overlooked by many residents of the West. Shame, shame. What's better then a masala dosa (a savory rice and lentil crepe filled with spiced potatoes) with coconut chutney for breakfast? How can you go on living sans sambar (broth with tamarind and daal), avial (vegetables cooked with coconut), Avalakki bath (flattened rice prepared with coconut and curry leaf), and fish moli (fish cooked in coconut milk? Sucks to be you if you haven't had this stuff. Even better? The coffee in Southern India is actually drinkable.

Thankfully, Bangalore has plenty of excellent Southern Indian restaurants. B'lore is a city that runs on dosas, vadais (savory doughnuts) and idlis (rice cakes), and almost every restaurant serves up some variation on the theme. Most of the working-dude class restaurants don't even have seats. Everyone stands up and goes at lunch or supper or snack-time with their fingers. You never see women in these places, of course. Impolite.

My guesthouse was located on Cambridge Road, a remarkably convenient location from a little eatery called Annapoorani.

Annapoorani is one of the finer Southern Indian restaurants in the city, and does a cracking catering business as well, via Moulis Catering. It's a simple joint, but it features a surprisingly extensive selection of speciality food items, and the dining area is spotlessly clean. Further, it's dirt cheap, the coffee is good, and they'll keep on replenishing your sambar and chutneys until you explode. I ended up eating there quite often.

The menu has a variety of tiffins - dosas, vadais, and the like - but I always ended up ordering the set meals. Here's a brief and not particularly well-informed introduction to South Indian cuisine.

This is a mini masala dosa, served with various accompaniments. The dosa was thicker then the norm and had a very flavorful filling - spot on. I liked the green chutney on the side. Tasted like a coconut chutney infused with more cilantro and more interesting spices. Below it, there's a spicy dip, which tasted almost exactly like the famous Turkish harissa.There's the usual delicious tomato chutney in the far right corner. The rice looking stuff is lemon rice, which is a remarkably refreshing and comforting combination of rice, milk, and some very subtle spices, cooked for a bit -this would be great for soothing a pissed off stomach. The red soup beside it is the aforementioned sambar, a lovely combination of slow-cooked vegetables, chili, dal, and tamarind. It's extremely tangy, and the standard accompaniment to a good dosa. The light brown stuff beside it is a sort of sweet, cinammon flavored soup. The white cakes are "gunpowder" idlis, a kind of fermented rice cake. I find their flavor to be remarkably innocuous, but again, they come in handy during episodes of sever stomach upset.

Sometimes, you just gotta eat chapatis. They are, simply enough, an unleaved flatbread exceedingly similar to tortillas, and are usually made of wheat, often referred to as atta. They're extremely good for you. This was served with the usual tomato chutney, which is made with tomato, green chilis, mustard seeds, methi seeds, a smidgen of dal, sugar, and a couple other things. There's also the usual sambar and a dry vegetable preparation. Dry vegetable or subzi preparations are roughly as numerous as stars in the sky in India. Almost all are good. South Indians are paticularly partial to food prepared with drumstick, a kind of vegetable pod with a superficial resemblance to okra. Personally, I find the stuff stringy and hard to digest, but it is theoretically quite good for you. Huh.

This is an adai, or a lentil crepe prepared with masala spices, onions, and some other tasty stuff. There's pachadi (vegetables cooked with coconut) second from the top left. The round thing is a sweet ball with nuts inside of it. Moving clockwise, there's curd rice - a very subtle flavor indeed. The yellow rice is Avalakki Bath, which is beaten rice cooked with a variety of spices. The red stuff was some kind of heavily tamarind inflected veg dish - I believe it had drumstick. Gotta have drumstick.

The centerpiece of this meal is appam, a fermented rice pancake. On the left, there's a sweet short-bread type foodstuff up top. Below that is coconut milk. Apparently, you're supposed to put the vegetable curry at far right on the appam and dip it in the coconut milk for maximal deliciousness. I was happy to find that this was indeed the truth. The beigish looking stuff is pachadi, a slow cooked vegetable stew made with yogurt. The yellow stuff is vermicelli upma, small rice noodles cooked with plenty of turmeric, spices, and nuts - it's slightly sweet.

All these meals come with Indian style filter coffee. It's good, strong coffee, albeit served with enough sugar and milk to give a horse cardiac arrest. A happy horse. I love the stuff. Black coffee drinkers may need to learn a little Kannada or Telugu to get by around these parts.

Conclusion? South Indian food is delicious. Seek it out wherever you are. I found a spectacular South Indian restaurant in the suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky, so I know it's at least possible.....

The Pavlova Controversy and Good Old Lord Lamington

2010-08-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

Australia does have its own culinary traditions, primarily pertaining to baked goods (shocker). Two iconic Aussie treats are pavlova and the Lamington, a couple of snacks that can be found just about everywhere in both Oz and New Zealand. My aunt was kind enough to bring me examples of both the other day. A brief explanation for the ignorant. I like to write about Very Important Things, you see.

A Lamington is, in simplest form, a yellow sponge cake rolled in chocolate frosting and coconut, causing it to resemble a furry brown square. (Charming). Lamington's are often filled with jam or cream - raspberry jam in the case of the specimen you see above. Many people react with revulsion and horror to sponge cake and coconut, which is a bit odd since both are tasty additions to the dessert pantheon and do not deserve the reputation they carry with them. Australians and Kiwis are nuts for Lamingtons and often hold Lamington drives for schools and charities, which are probably like a cake walk minus the pedestrian element. The 21 of July is now designated as Lamington Day in Australia. I love humanities willingness to declare national holidays revolving around cake.

The Lamington got its officious name from one Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, who was the Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901 - not exactly a long reign. One day, Baron Lamington took his entourage up to the hills to escape the horrible heat of Brisbane, and tasked his French chef, Armand Gallard, to produce something exotic and interesting for his pals to consume on very short notice. The chef thought quickly and came up with the Mighty Lamington. There are about a zillion more theories about the Lamington's origin, of course - some say they resemble the hats the Baron used to wear (in which case he had horrible taste in headwear).

As for the Baron himself, he was certainly not a pressure-washed Aussie icon of goodness and light, which pleases me to know. The Baron apparantly disliked the cakes named for him, dismissing them as ""those bloody poofy woolly biscuits". It appears that he was fine with the taste but disliked their fame - doubtless no one could talk to him for years afterward without referring to Those Cakes, the cakes, and no government official is ever pleased with being associated with baked goods forever more. He shot a koala right out of a tree in 1899, much to the horror of his companions. I love this guy.

A Lamington recipe can be found here, if you are feeling exotic.

Pavlova is another hotly contested Aussie baked good, primarily because no one - Australians or Kiwis - can agree on who actually invented the stuff. Pavlova is, simply enough, a meringue in the shape of a cake, prepared with egg white, sugar, white vinegar, vanilla, and cornflour, and is almost always served with cream and some sort of fruit topping - often passion fruit, kiwi, or strawberry. Australians claim that it was invented in Perth in 1953 by Chef Herbert Sachse to recognize famous ballerina Anna Pavlova, but Kiwis beg to disagree. Most research indeed indicates that a Kiwi chef created the dish in Wellington when Pavlova stopped there. Professor Helen Leach, a culinary anthropologist, has even put together an entire book devoted to Pavlova history, called The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand’s Culinary History. Pavlova appears to be Australia and New Zealand's answer to Southern BBQ: universally loved and consumed, and just as universally contested and argued about.

I find the stuff incredibly delicious, and Pavlova carries the added benefit of being pleasingly low in fat and calories. It's a mystery that it hasn't hit big-time in the USA. Hopefully I can get the stuff in Cambodia. Fingers crossed.

Australian Food: A Brief Primer

2010-08-08T08:06:00.001-07:00

Australian food. It's not a topic that really comes up often in the annals of culinary research. I suspect that most non-Australians think Aussie food is some combination of British and American glurgh with a small infusion of interesting "bush" meats - kangaroo meat pies, sandwiches made with emu, so on and so forth. This is at least partially accurate. But I've been pleasantly surprised by the variety, freshness, and flavor of the food I've sampled in Australia. Perhaps the old meat pie and shrimp on the barbie mythos is unfounded and specious after all. Let's take a closer look at Australian food.

But first, some history.

Prior to the arrival of Captain Cook and his merry (hah) band, the Aborigines subsisted primarily on food they hunted and gathered. Australia's warm climate supported a prolific and tasty native flora and fauna, and as a result, the Aboriginal people rarely practiced substinence agriculture as we know it. As the Aborigines have resided in Australia for upwards of 40,000 years, their knowledge of local foods or "bush tucker" remains unsurpassed. Bush tucker has experienced a mild upswing in popularity among outdoorsy Australians, and guides can be purchased at most tourist bookstore. "Bush tucker" can include a startling variety of foods, from Macademia nuts and native fruits to goanna monitor lizard and bacony witchetty grubs. Coastal aborigines subsisted primarily on seafood and fish and lived a stationary lifestyle, whereas inland groups followed the goods from place to place as the seasons changed.

Aborigines also enjoyed feasting on honey ants, whose swollen and enormous rear-ends apparantly make for good eating.

This was, of course, entirely too idyllic and simple to last. In 1788, the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay from England, carrying 751 and 252 marines with them. These British settlers were unused to native Australian foods and had a hard time of it at first, as most steadfastly refused to take note of Aboriginal hunting and gathering technique. Indeed, according to Aussie Info.com, the original British settlers brought with them "familiar dishes such as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, Irish stew and steamed pudding were, for most of the year, totally unsuitable for the harsh climate and conditions." Settlers attempted to transplant English foods onto Australian soil with substantial success - and the introduction of a large number of ecologically disastrous species in the process, from bunny rabbits to deer. They also brought with them rum, which was valuable enough to serve as a currency in Australia's earliest days. (This holds true into the modern era on college campuses)

Some report that food in Australia is incredibly expensive. This is also accurate. Standard issue salads are 15 Aussie dollars, and entrees at "nice" restaurants can get into the mid thirties and forties. Eurgh.

Since the olden days, Australia has undergone a considerable renaissance in terms of fresh and organic ingredients, and its considerable immigrant population has brought a number of new recipes, techniques, and flavors to the table. Downtown Perth's selection of ethnic foods is roughly equivalent to that of California's. There's just about everything on offer, from Korean to German to Portuguese to Chinese. Emphasis on the Chinese restaurants, of which there are roughly a zillion. Local celebrity chefs incorporate native Australian ingredients and preparation methods into their high-end cuisine, producing distinctive and uniquely Australian flavors.

There is considerable overlap in American and Australian tastes. It's not hard to see why. Both are new countries formed from former British colonies, overlayed onto an existing and ancient local food culture. Both Americans and Aussies are incorporating old foodways and new into a harmonious and delicious expression of distinctive local flavor. Both nations, most importantly, have an incredible affinity for french fries (chips) and drive-through fast food joints. (The fast food drive-throughs are on the other side here. This is both mind-blowing and comically obvious when you first notice it)

Incredible looking tiger prawns at the Fremantle fish market.

Grocery stores here have been another pleasant surprise. They overwhelmingly feature attractive, fresh, and seasonal produce. Meats and seafoods are varied, ultra fresh, and appealing, in both appearance and flavor. Specialized butchers, fishmongers, and bakers abound and have set up shop in standard consumer shopping malls, meaning that shoppers can get food prepared and selected by experts, rather then resorting to the catch-all of the supermarket - though they have those, too. Ethnic grocery stores are everywhere and are usually well stocked with all manner of esoteric ingredients. Everything, I reiterate, is extremely expensive. Groceries are at least cheaper then those of any of the countries under the Euro regime at least, which is a small consolation.

Australians love Vegemite. Vegemite tastes like condensed evil and can probably be used to ward off vampires. I can't explain it. It is made from dark yeast extract and its continuing popularity is totally unexplainable by modern science. This is a nation that possess jam, marmalade, and cream. WHY?

Wine is super popular in Australia, and for good reason. Australian wines are often seriously good. Western Australia and the Perth Hills have a number of superb wineries, and most of them offer tasting rooms, high-end restaurants, and special events. (See the truffle dinner I experienced last week at Darlington Estate). The wine region looks eerily similar to Napa. Go figure.

Restaurants are everywhere and are heavily patronized. Australians, like Americans, are fascinated by food, food TV shows, and food journalism, but do very little actual cooking. Fast food is enormously popular, and chains include standard burger n' fries joints such as McDonalds and Hungry Jacks (Burger King) to chicken shillers (KFC, Red Rooster, Nandos) to sandwich shops (Subway). There's also a profusion of cheap and snappy ethnic places - think quicky Chinese food, Turkish bread (pita) sandwiches, and plenty of German sausages.

Cafes and sit down restaurants adhere to surprisingly high standards of freshness and taste. On the downside, almost every non-ethnic restaurant seems to have the exact same menu. There will always be a Caesar salad, prepared with a weirdly sweet mayonnaise dressing and plenty of lean Aussie bacon. There will always be a big bowl of chili mussels, prepared with a spicy tomato sauce. There will always be fish and chips, served with a side of sweet chili sauce and sour cream. There will always be fried salt and pepper squid with herbed aioli, and there will always be some variation on the burger, made with chicken, beef, or whatever the chef feels like at any given time. There will almost always be a pumpkin soup, some sort of berry cheesecake, and an in-house cappuccino bar. The list goes on.

Italian style coffee is extremely popular, especially in the Perth areas "cappuccino" belts. Many Italian and European refugees settled in the region after WWII and bought their food and love of caffeine with them. This historical incident means that excellent coffee and tea is available just about everywhere, often in scenic coastal spots.

Ethnic restaurants, as previously mentioned, are all pervasive and have just about every cuisine you can think of on offer. They're a great option if the tasty yet exceedingly derivative offerings of the continental joints are beginning to get to you. They are also (usually) the more economical choice, although it pays to look at the menu first.

Farmer's markets are common and feature a healthy variety of seasonal produce. In other words, they are exactly the same as farmer's markets everywhere else. The farmer's market near Applecross in Perth is excellent: fresh fish, locally raised meats, organic fruits and vegetables, and a profusion of coffee stands. And the Best Croissant Ever.

A final quirk of the Australian restaurant experience relates to service. In other words, there is not much of it. A healthy majority of restaurants, even the high-end types, require you to order and pay up front. Sometimes you take a number and the food is delivered to your table, and sometimes, you go up and get it yourself. This all becomes a lot more pleasant and understandable when you remember that no one expects you to tip, or at least not tip more then a buck or two. Australian servers are, after all, paid a living wage.

As far as expense goes, I can offer no recourse to those horrified and disgusted by the sheer expense of Australian food. Prices are driven up primarily by geography. Australia is an isolated nation with a relatively small population and not a lot of land suitable for agriculture or ranching. Perhaps an Australian visit is a good time for a budget motivated diet regime. Just an idea.

Next post will feature some common Australian food products. Shockingly enough, kangaroo is not among them.

Heading to Australia...

2010-07-26T23:24:00.000-07:00

I am flying to Perth, Australia tomorrow. I will be there for a while and (at least in theory) internetting. Apparently Aussies do not understand the concept of bacon, so my aunt and I will be attempting to produce some ourselves. I am eagerly anticipating the results.

Teenage Chowhound will remain an account of my adventures in eating, but I've begun an all purpose travel blog as well. Click below.

The Long Way to Cambodia

The Presidency and Really Big Cheese

2010-07-20T00:34:00.000-07:00

I cannot actually vouch for Jefferson's opinion on the Packers, but I do know he looks hilarious in a cheese head hat.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson was gifted a 16,000 pound cheese. Cheshire's Baptist pastor, one Elder John Leland, brainstormed the effort as a way to show his appreciation to the Republican President he had worked to elect - and also as an effort to stick it to his Federalist enemies. Baptists, at this particular juncture in American history, were both a beleaguered minority and ardent supporters of the separation of church and state. How things do change.

The cheese was created from the milk of every single cow in the small Massachusetts town of Cheshire, barring, of course, the Federalist owned bovines, "lest it should leaven the whole lump with a distasteful savour." At Leland's direction, the immense chunk of dairy bore one of Jefferson's own mottos: ""Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

Leland, however, did not consider the issue of transporting his cheesy monstrosity all the way to the Capital. As it turned out, the cheese was simply too big to be transported on wheels. But the cheese was created in winter, and Leland found a way. The dogged pastor ended up transporting his highly patriotic cheese on a sledge, all 500 miles to Washington. The cheese was delivered, appropriately, on January 1st 1802. Although the cheese garnered criticism from Leland's Baptist hatin' enemies, Jefferson was properly appreciative. He deemed the big-ass cheese an "extraordinary proof of the skill with which those domestic arts...are practiced by [the citizens of Cheshire]." In a private letter to his son-in-law, Jefferson went even further in his praise of the delicious gesture. "It is an ebullition of the passion of republicanism in a state where it has been under heavy persecution." The cheese remained in the White House as late as 1806 according to some accounts, at which time it was (shockingly) "very far from good." Perhaps Jefferson grew attached to it.

A statue saluting Leland and his magnificent cheese was erected in Cheshire in 1940. I smell a photo op!

But this was not the only incident of giant-cheese-making in the history of the American presidency.

I'm surprised no one lost a limb in the melee.

The populist Andrew Jackson featured 1,400 pound block of cheddar cheese at his last open White House party. Gifted to him by a supportive New York dairy farmer, the cheese was allowed to age for almost two years in the White House. Although the cheese was vast, the appetite of the people was greater. It is rumored that the cheese took no more then two hours to entirely disappear, and that the White House stank of cheese for week on end. (Incidentally, does Jackson remind anyone else of Sarah Palin? Run to Wikipedia real quick, then get back to me).

A detailed description of this magical event is found in "Real Life in the White House" by John and Claire Whitcomb.

""Shops and offices closed early, and a throng descended on the White House. The marshal of the city and his deputies screened people at the front door, but what a contemporary called 'rag-a-muffins of the city' got into the gardens, climbed to the terrace, and entered through the East Room windows to mix with congressmen, officers in dress uniform, and elaborately arrayed diplomats. The rooms overflowed with people, until the hall, the doorway, every possible space, were filled...The cheese was demolished in two hours; the White House floors and carpets were likewise demolished, and the mansion reeked of cheddar for months."

This is Calvin Coolidge. And this is his cat. Cats have nothing to do with cheese, but the Internet sure seems to like them.

One more big-ass cheese has entered the glorious gates of the White House. In 1928, "Silent Cal" Coolidge received a 140 pound Wisconsin made Swiss cheese - rather dwindling in comparison to the behemoths of his predecessors, but still worthy of eating with crackers. . Coolidge doubtless appreciated the gift, being an ardent cheese lover himself. He maintained a private stash of the stuff at the White House, nipping into it occasionally, one imagines, when the stress of farm subsidies became too great. (Seriously, his presidency was just that boring).

In more recent times, "Big Block of Cheese Day" was referenced on the White Wing. Apparently the ever-dashing Martin Sheen, in his simulated presidency, would host a day for usually over-looked interest groups to enter the white house, and presumably, nibble on the metaphorical cheese of Presidential attention. Or something like that.

It is evident that ridiculously huge blocks of cheese have played an important role in American history. Indeed, we may credit giant blocks of cheese with many of our successes as a sovereign nation. The great pageant of American history may not have been possible without the existence - and service - of these gigantic congealed chunks o' dairy. It is certain that these cheeses provided comfort and nutrition to both Presidents and common people, in need of savory succor in times of hardship, depression, and uncertainty.

So who wants to go in with me on a monstrously huge chunk o' Brie for Obama?

Anyone?

Stop making cricket noises.

Kaiko's Sushi: Back to Basics Japanese in Clearwater

2010-07-15T00:57:00.000-07:00

Kaikos
2475 North McMullen Booth Road
Clearwater, FL 33759
(727) 791-6640

The sushi disease has infected Tampa, just as it has pretty much everywhere else, barring (perhaps) certain grasslands in Nebraska and the wilds of Upper Mongolia. There is a sushi restaurant on just about every corner, sushi at the grocery store, and sushi-making classes on offer at your nearest convenient library location. Most of this sushi is absolutely horrible. Thus, I'm happy to relate that Kaiko's Sushi in Clearwater is tasty, fresh, and suitable for human consumption. Back away from the Publix stuff. I mean it, you dirty little animal.

Kaiko's is what I'd call a traditional style sushi bar, Thank God. This means the rolls are

1. Small enough so that they can be fit in a standard-issue human mouth.

2. Not drenched in mayonnaise based sauce in wacky colors.

3. Put together with an eye towards fresh ingredients and the interplay of flavors, not with an eye toward "How much random shit can we stuff in this sushi roll for ten bucks? And how much sake do we have to sell to the pale-faces to get em' to eat it?"

All of these elements are Good. The menu is short and exists in the form of a piece of paper on which one marks off one's choices.

Sunonomo salad with seafood. Fresh and a good selection of fish - that's a plus here. Too much vinegar.

The Tampa roll. People in Tampa are nuts for fried grouper, totally nuts and thus this roll - fried grouper and onions, no more, no less. Too simple for me - grouper isn't exactly a hyperactively flavorful fish - but certain family members go nuts for it.

Ah, that's the stuff. I liked the 7-ingredient futomaki, which featured a whole bunch of crunchy vegetables, some preserved, and was very refreshing indeed. Also liked the simple unakyu with avocado and eel. The chopped conch special was all right, but not sure how I feel about the (thankfully not over the top) mayo mixture. Conch on its own is an interesting sort of flavor experience - not sure if that lily needs to be gilded. A very nice sashimi selection - these guys are sourcing and cutting their fish well. I can't stand sashimi that's been cut so thickly and so poorly that one needs a steak knife to get through it.

The two guys next to us were friendly in that older-guys hitting on you in a courtly fashion way to me and my cousin, and we shot the shit merrily throughout dinner. It's a convivial place, and the older guy manning the sushi bar is funny as hell, berating a regular who identified himself as "crazy, just crazy." (Not in my eyes: a lot of middle aged guys trying to seem wacky have this habit of identifying themselves as Crazy, as if I will leap back all astonished and horrified but at the same time aroused. I have (I think) looked into the Eye of Crazy on a couple occasions on my life and you sir, wacky as you may be, do not qualify as bona-fide crazy. That is darker and much more complex. Such things do not need to be discussed over austere and good sushi somewhere in the depths of Clearwater.

I have forgotten where I was going with this.

I recommend Kaiko for back-to-basics sushi in the Clearwater area.

Franciale: Good God I Love Cuban Sandwiches

2010-07-12T00:39:00.000-07:00

Franciale
5635 Memorial Hwy
Tampa, FL
813-249-7227

My earliest food memory involves a Cuban sandwich.

I was out in the wood-chipped and (to my four year old eye) extremely large backyard at the Learning Tree Preschool, and for some reason, someone, somehow, had brought Cubanos. The Cuban is Tampa's most beloved native culinary treat, surpassing snackies like deviled crabs, Cuban bread and butter, and Hooters chicken wings, and they inevitably show up at any social event or gathering in the region, cut into triangles and laid out on the table. In any case, I vividly remember eating this thing, and I remember the flavor of it - new and unusual indeed to a person who has not yet been properly introduced to concepts like "mustard" and "pickles - and I was immediately charmed, devoted, pleased. Salami, cheese, roast pork, ham, pickles, mustard, and cuban bread, pressed and toasted until melty and delicious - this might indeed have been the very gnosis or beginning point of my life long food obsession, the point from which all else radiated. Maybe I should credit the sandwich itself as one of my very first mentors.

Okay, that could be going too far. Long story short. Them things taste good. Real good. I was in Tampa this June, visiting my grandparents (who live off Dale Mabry) and I had to get myself a Cuban. There was a second motivating factor: i had just survived a particularly aggressive bout of food poisoning, and I felt a powerful and near reptilian urge within myself to restore my fluids, to bump-up my electrolytes, to heal myself. What better food to do that then a ridiculously huge sandwich? Thought so.

Franciale is located in a Shell station. When you pull in, it doesn't look like a damn thing like a restaurant. In fact, it looks more like a front for a cunning yet down-trodden Cuban drug running operation. The front is a standard 7-11 type food shop with a bunch of dusty candy bars and a startling selection of pork rinds. The actual cafe counter is near the back and seems to be staffed exclusively by one Umberto, a highly energetic and extremely friendly Cuban-Italian guy, who has decorated his three table dining room with romantic 1970's posters of Pisa, Rome, and Sicily. There's a selection of Cuban dishes on the menu, but you should probably go for the Cuban.

Which is a fantastic Cuban, the best I've ever had. The pork is slow roasted in citrusy mojo sauce and falling-apart tender, and when combined with a giant hunk of buttered Cuban bread, nice quality ham, cheese, and salami, a boatload of mayo and mustards, and some crunchy lettuce and tomato - heaven on earth. Umberto makes the sandwich and presses it right in front of you so there's no doubt about the vintage of the ingredients. "You gonna eat that entire thing?" the high school football coaches (as I'd figured out by overhearing their conversation) asked me, when the puppy-sized monstrosity was handed to me.

"I can try," I said, vaguely. I figured I would eat half.

But I needed to restore my electrolytes and animal spirits, so I fell to the sandwich with an almost obscene vengeance. It was gone in about four minutes, the entire damn thing. The football coaches were sharing a single, and looked at me with something close to horror in their faces when I was done. "Good lord, you did finish it," the older one said. "That's incredible."

"I was very, very hungry," I said. This was probably obvious.

Umberto high-fived me on the way out.

I felt infinitely better, as if the dismal day of food poisoning had not actually happened but was in fact an unpleasant memory belonging to someone else. I drowsed the rest of the day, in the manner of a golf-course alligator that has just gorged itself upon a fat and complacent Labrador.

I love Cuban sandwiches.

Liuzza's By the Track: I Thank My Various Gods for Gumbo

2010-07-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

Liuzza's By The Track
1518 North Lopez Street
New Orleans, LA 70119-3029
(504) 218-7888

Liuzzas by the Track is over by the fairgrounds, in the leafy, green, and blissfully ambling tourist free environs of Midcity. Liuzzas bills itself as a neighborhood cafe, and, unlike most joints that claim this status, actually is one: locals shoot the shit and watch sports on television here and get out of the heat. The kitchen speciality is po-boys and gumbo, with the barbecued shrimp po-boy given particular emphasis on the menu: I came here to try out the gumbo.

And I was hungry. I'd ridden a ways here from my apartment in the Garden District on my trusty and only slightly embarrassing BMX bicycle. More importantly, it was late May and New Orleans summer weather had really kicked in, inflicting Mumbai-like levels of blistering heat and humidity upon us poor permant residents. Not that I'd be a permanant resident long: I was packing up my apartment and heading back to Sacramento, prior to moving to, well, Cambodia. Long story short, this gumbo was sort of a last-gasp gumbo, a paen to New Orlean gumbos (if you will). That makes it sound real important.

Luckily, Liuzza's gumbo is awesome. It has a distinctive oregano heavy and very Italian flavor that works perfectly with the fatty and delicious andouille and shrimp and oysters. It's a light-textured gumbo with a lot of meat and a lot of delicious animal fat, and a good level of built in spice: I was pleased to find that I only had to add a smidgen of Crystal instead of my usual vigorous and extended shake-shake-shake. I dumped some saltines on top and horked the gumbo down, listening to folks around me discuss the oil spill, the horrors of the weather, and The Crazy Ass Things We Did Last Weekend You Won't Believe It: now that's what I call home, or at least something approximating a spiritual base, with gumbo at the center of it. I could see my bike outside. I had to sell it the next day. I didn't want to.

I am going to miss New Orleans, and I am going to miss gumbo. Maybe I can make it in Phnom Penh. Well, maybe.

Boucherie Again: Mmm Duck Confit

2010-07-08T13:46:00.001-07:00

Boucherie
8115 Jeannette Street
New Orleans, LA 70118-2851
(504) 862-5514

I've reviewed Boucherie before. Boucherie is, after all, one of my favorite neighborhood spots in New Orleans garden district. It's easy to see why the restaurant attracts crowds of local food obsessives: it offers high-end dining with interesting preparation methods, a highly seasonal menu, and surprisingly reasonable prices (especially in New Orleans, Land of the Expensive-Ass Dinner). Located in a tiny old house right off St. Charles, the dining room is classy but cramped, and reservations - or at least calling ahead- are very important indeed, unless you're the kind of person who is perfectly okay with mooning around waiting for your table to come up. That sort of thing happens to make my eye twitch and my tiny and desiccated heart fill with a profound and totally unjustified rage. You know, different strokes, blah blah blah.

We made this visit at the end of May, and thus our choices reflect that seasons menu.

Blackened shrimp on a grit cake with a bacon vinaigrette. In all honesty, I've never loved blackened foods. They always taste too salty to me. This was the case here, although the shrimp are nice and fat. I find it rather difficult to distinguish "grit cakes" from "unsweetened cornbread". Maybe someone can help me.

Steamed mussels with collard greens and crispy grit crackers are an eternal fixture on the house menu, and it's easy to see why. I really like the unique, vinegary broth the mussels are cooked in, and the rich vegetable flavor of the collards gives the mussels a distinct, but just subtle enough flavor. The crispy grit crackers are all right. Better when soaked in the broth for a bit.

Boucherie makes a fine duck confit, with crispy skin and a lovely, rich, interior. This was served with a fairly simple bread salad and a light reduction sauce. A good thing: no need to gild the lily with this stuff.

Smoked scallops are omnipresent here, but the dish seems to change twice a month. This go round wasn't all that successful: the scallops themselves were good and prepared correctly, but the pasta was overcooked and the smoky, slightly spicy cumin scented sauce was simply too robust for these tender little guys.

Service here is usually pretty good - hard to lose track of someone in such a small dining room. I'd suggest Boucherie for a casual-upscale near the Tulane campus - the eternally changing menu provides a pleasant change from Riverbend's endless armada of sushi and Lebanese joints, and you can feel fancy without starting up a side business in drug trafficking. Win win!

Pine Tree House: Korean Food, Pork Belly N' Oysters, Angler Fish Optional

2010-07-06T00:22:00.000-07:00

Pine Tree House
9205-D Folsom Blvd
Sacramento, CA 95826
(916) 366-3323

Sacramento's Folsom Boulevard is our Korean food gulch, boasting a number of tofu-soup joints, Korean grocery-video store-lotto ticket emporiums, and the mysteriously titled "Chicken and Pizza Love-Letter" shack. Among all this is the Pine Tree House, a Korean restaurant considerably more upscale - and tasty - then the exterior might suggest. Turns out the owner of the Pine Tree is the brother of the man who owns Arigato on Howe. We discovered this because he recognized us from Arigato (land of the temptingly bargain-basement priced half off sushi roll) and thanked us personally for patronizing his place. He's a nice guy.

The menu is extensive and has some dishes beyond the usual bi-bim-bap and bulgogi selections, including an interesting seafood selection - angler fish was on the menu last time I stopped in. Prices are high for what most Californians have come to expect from Korean food in the wilds of suburbia, but portions here are somewhat monolithic and ingredients quality is high. Regardless: don't come in here expecting the bargain of the century.

The Pine Tree house offers a truly impressive assortment of banchan, brought out on a special cart and replinished if you ask nicely. All the usual suspects are on offer (read: copious amounts of kimchi), and other treats include a savory egg custard, a Korean style potato soup, and a romaine salad jazzed up with an absolutely delicious sweet red-bean and chili dressing. The only thing missing were those odiferous and delightful dried fish, the stinky little bastards I recall horking down in my youth as I marveled at their little sugar glazed eyeballs - why don't restaurants around here offer them up with the banchan plate? Is it because I am whiter then the Stay-Puft marshmallow man? Is that it? Sometimes I buy them from the Korean grocery store and merrily eat them in front of the TV. I brought them to a class once and well, never repeated that particular experiment again, since I had to spend the day with tiny little fish spines caught in my teeth and breath that could actually summon housecats from the air itself.

Pork belly BoSsaam with napa lettuce and oysters

Pork belly is all the rage right now, but the Koreans have been slinging the stuff for generations, and in high style to boot. This dish, needless to say, is Weird. Whoever first thought of combining pork belly, spicy slaw, oysters, and cabbage must have had a hell of a empty refrigarator (or larder, or whatever Koreans used back in the day in their hill-side shacks). The result is in my opinion curiously delicious, but your mileage may very well vary. Certainly the combo of fatty five-spice flavored pork-belly (boiled) wrapped up with spicy slaw and cabbage, punctuated with the occasional mildly shocking flavor of a nicely sized raw oyster is a different taste sensation from the usual. Goes well with beer, of course. Korean restauants may actually just be a means via which proprietors sell lots of O.B. More research is needed.

Korean soft tofu soup with seafood (Soondubuchigae)

Korean soft-tofu soup is one of the cuisine's standbys, and I always love to get it. The combination of soft and creamy tofu with seafood and spicy red chili broth is a near perfect one, and produces a rich and delightfully slippery textural experience. This is superior winter food, but I'll take it any time of the year. Pine Tree House also offers Korean beef soups, as well as gigantic seafood stews that can feed three or four eaters. The big soups include sea-squirts. I wish there was a sea squirt in the smaller version. There are few more amusing things to have at the dinner table then a sea squirt, let me tell you. The restaurant's version could stand to be a little spicier. Ask them to bring out some spice-enhancing agents if you're like me.

Stir-fried squid with hot bean paste (Ohjinguh bokkeum)

Stir fried squid is real Korean drankin' food, and this was defnitely the best rendition of the classic I've had in Sacramento. A good combination of not overcooked squid bits, green onions, and a spicy and slightly sweet sauce made this a truly addictive dish. Of course it's not good for you, but again, we are discussing Devices That Makes You Want to Drink Beer. This is not the point.

The Pine Tree's wood interior is scrupulously clean. Korean reality TV series and news shows play on the interior flat-screen TVs - the last time I came in I was transfixed over my kimchi by a period style soap opera featuring a bunch of Koreans in traditional dress shouting at each other in a stand of perfect, swaying, pine trees. Last time featured remarkably gender ambiguous youths shaking their groove-thang in the most sparkly fashion imaginable. You won't be bored!

The Pine Tree House is definitely my new favorite place in town for Korean food other then grill-it-yerself BBQ. The combination of high quality, interesting menu choices, non-snarly staff and a nice dining room make it a real winner on Folsom Boulevard. Now go out and order the angler fish and tell me all about it.

Red Lotus: Billy Ngo Makes Dim Sum Cool

2010-07-03T23:32:00.000-07:00

Red Lotus Kitchen and Bar
2718 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95816-4314
(916) 231-0961

Red Lotus is the latest Midtown venture of Kru chef Buu "Billy" Ngo, whose fascinating riffs on Japanese food have won him a not-inconsiderable following at his J Street sushi joint. Red Lotus represents Ngo's decison to apply his creative hand to dim-sum, an Asian food genre that hasn't quite managed to transcend the old carts-and-Cantonese-verbal-abuse dynamic. (Course', that's part of dim sums charm for some of us infidels, but, regardless). The menu features a bunch of old dim-sum standbys updated for the late-night hipster army, alongside some specifically Ngoesque dishes. The result is a fun and undeniably interesting evening out on the J street strip, albeit with the ambience of P.F Changs done through some sort of hipster filter. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we want to eat upscale dim sum in a nice clean place where no one will shout at us in machine-gun bursts of Cantonese while we desperately attempt to hold onto chicken-feet with plastic chopsticks, okay? Is that really so wrong?

(Good lord, the entire culture is obsessed with hipsters, my generation is obsessed with hipsters, we engage in hipster witch-hunts although it is entirely a given that we are all hipsters, that our status is both unchangeable and endlessly embarrassing. How sad.)

Green papaya salad with ika, carrot, mint, water cress, and fish sauce (6.50)

This is the kitchen's version of the dearly beloved som tum. It's a lovely palate-cleansing dish, but this ultra light version was barely there, both in terms of portion size and taste. I really do hate to use this phrase in polite company, but perhaps Red Lotus should contemplate kicking it up a notch. You know how we do.

Silken organic tofu with baby shrimp, avocado, snow crab, rice puffs, wasabi, sweet chili sauce, and a soy reduction (8.00)

Silken tofu doesn't exactly get most folks palms sweaty, but this was the standout dish of the evening. The creamy block of tofu melded perfectly with the salty baby shrimp, the sweet snow crab, and the creamy avocado. The various sauces on offer mean that every bite of this "salad" is different from the next, producing a real adventure in texture and taste. The soy reduction sauce should rightly be sold in bottles so fans can spread it on anything they desire, from fairy cakes to pliable Argentinean pool boys. Delicious.

Spiced beef marrow bone with Chinese red vinegar, Sichuan pickles, mustard, and crispy five spice flatbread (11.00)

Marrow bones have experienced a helluva revival thanks to the ongoing Offal Revolution, and Red Lotus is serving up the tastiest version I've found in Sactown. The fatty, chunky interior is seasoned with five spice and cooked until bubbly and delicious, served with various accompaniments and condiments. You're supposed to spread the marrow on the flatbread crackers and doctor it up with pickles, vinegar, and mustard, but I'm perfectly happy to denude these bad boys straight. You are doing it/Red Lotus wrong if you fail to order this dish. (I'll be in my bunk. With the marrow bones).

Salt and pepper soft shell crabs (11.00)

Salt and pepper soft shell crabs are beautifully presented in this dish, and they tasted pretty good too. Lightly fried and obviously fresh, I enjoyed the creamy and spicy sauce pool the little crustaceans were served in. They came out hot, which is the usual horrible and depressing downfall of soft-shell crab dishes.

Chinese broccoli in garlic oyster sauce (7.00)

Chinese broccoli sounds fairly pedestrian but is among the foods closest to my heart - the sort of thing I seem to cook on a tri-weekly basis to devour in front of my laptop in my college apartment. (Good lord, those days are over). Red Lotus serves it up with a soulful and extremely strong house-made garlic oyster sauce, and the result is pretty old-school Chinese delicious. Avoid if you're not the sort of person who does backflips for in-your-face servings of oyster sauce.

Mongolian glazed oxtail (7.00)

Oxtails are done beautifully in Chinese cooking, and these sweet-glazed oxtails were a lovely specimen of a classic dish. Very rich and very meaty, these guys justify the foodie world's recent and single-minded allegiance to less-charismatic animal parts. Tasty.

"Yee Sang" thinly sliced albacore with popcorn shoots, Chinkiang vinaigrette, and crispy garlic (12.00)

I think the Sacramento City Council actually shuts down your restaurant and breaks your knee caps if you fail to include at least one raw tuna dish on the menu. It's true.

Regardless. This was a perfectly fine Raw Tuna dish, and the addition of popcorn shoots (whatever those are) lent it an interestingly grassy flavor-kick. There's more interesting stuff lurking on this menu, though.

Pork and shiitake dumplings "Siu Mai" with soy cured salmon roe (6.50)

We decided to have some siu mai for dessert, served in the traditional and adorable little bamboo steamer. The kitchen brings out vinegar and Chinese mustard in twee serving devices for these little guys, which tasted no different from other dim-sum parlor siu mai I've had. This is by no means a bad thing.

Billy Ngo has done a fine job of domesticating dim-sum, turning China's beloved Sunday morning-scrum cuisine into refined bites suitable for both J Street-crawling foodies and those hipster palates only slightly dimmed by endless, endless packs of Pall Malls. (If you've been to China, well, you've seen how they smoke). The menu is interesting, and due to the restaurant's extreme youth, will doubtless be changing in interesting ways over the next year or so. If Ngo's creativity and competency at Kru is any indication of Red Lotus's upcoming trajectory, the future is bright indeed.