Phnomenon: food in Cambodia

Sorry about the writing hiatus, I escaped Phnom Penh for a few days over Pchum Benh: the Buddhist religious holiday wherein you offer food at seven temples to sate the bloodlust of your undead relatives, lest they return to wreak unholy vengeance upon the living. Or something along those lines. I managed to fit in […]

Brewer: Siam Winery Co Ltd
One of my friends in Australia was obsessed for a mercifully short period of time with creating a “lolly pie” by melting down lolly snakes (or Gummy snakes for my American readership) and then pouring the resulting lukewarm mash into a blind-baked pie crust. If I had intervened at some point […]

Delicious Cambodian fish salami. If there are four words that I could never have foreseen myself using, it would be those. These cubes of banana leaf open up to reveal a smaller cube of uncooked white fish paste, lime and chili mix, protected by a neam leaf. Scrap the banana leaves, eat the rest, neam […]

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

Sensing the imminent threat that Cambodian food poses to the one party system, the PRC Government banned Phnomenon in mainland China this morning. They must have taken umbrage to the statement that I made a few days ago that “democracy does not work“.
As the Cantonese say, 背脊向天，都可以食.

According to Wednesday’s New York Times, Cambodian street food is hitting the Lower East Side:
KAMPUCHEA NOODLE BAR
In the 1970’s and ’80’s, Cambodia was known as Kampuchea. Ratha Chau, a native of that country, who was wine director and manager of Fleur de Sel, will feature street food from Southeast Asia at this Lower East […]

Gourmet mag correspondent and ex-Cambodia Daily journo Karen Coates is currently in Kep collating communiqué for a new edition of Fodor’s, while I’m still in Phnom Penh, honing my alliteration skills for no particular travel guide. So far highlights from her blog include Starfish Bakery and Café in Sihanoukville, pizza at Veiyo Tonle in […]

Two new trends spotted this wet season in Phnom Penh: firstly, the practice of flying cheap fluorescent kites near the Independence Monument, sold by cyclo-borne vendors. Secondly, there seems to be an increase in the number of steamed corn carts. I’m positive that these two trends are interrelated, possibly some sort of kite/kernel dumping […]