Phnomenon: food in Cambodia

Nhoam svay trey chhaoe (Green mango salad with smoked fish)
I spent a whole lot of time in Phnom Penh reliving my old life. I had plans to cover a few new restaurants but the holiday temptation to slide back into the old ways was too powerful.
Part of that life is Sweet Cafe. Sweet is […]

I leave Phnom Penh for a month and a half to discover that firstly, there is a microbrewery that has been in operation for four months and secondly, that it is located not more than 200 metres from my house. There is some injustice that I leave Cambodia in a few days time.
Man Han Lou […]

Outside of Cambodia, Cambodians are practically invisible. When I tell people in Los Angeles that I live in Cambodia they tend to mention The Killing Fields movie rather than Choueng Ek; Princess Di’s work with landmines and Angelina Jolie.
When overseas Cambodians in the USA do get a mention, the press focuses on gang crime, deportations […]

Along with bringing ATMs to Cambodia and destruction to the Bassac Theatre in Phnom Penh, Kith Meng’s Royal Group is set to unleash Kentucky Fried Chicken on an unsuspecting Phnom Penh in a new joint venture, according to the Malaysian Star.
QSR Brands Bhd is expanding its restaurant business under the KFC brand to Cambodia.
The […]

I missed rice.
Three weeks of nothing but beef, microbrews, Texas-style barbecue and varying shades of Mexican had begun to take its inevitable toll. I’d had a recommendation from a Phnom Penh friend that Angkor Borei Restaurant in the deep, deep south of Mission Street in San Francisco was the real deal for Cambodian food. […]

One of the most frequent emails that land in my inbox is the “I’m coming to Phnom Penh, where should I eat?” question. I hate recommending restaurants to people when I don’t know them, but it does seem to be the question everybody does ask. To save me venting my hatred in a shirty reply […]

The Nehru jacket. The jacket so nice that they named a Pacific island after it. The crisp battle armour of Third World service staff. Beige. The person inside it greets you in a characterless patter that suggests you’ve arrived in a non-place, a refuge from whichever city the hotel is located. It is a garment […]

I’ve been reticent about reviewing Cambodian wedding cuisine because regardless of how tenuous my link is to the happy couple, I’m still wary of reviewing private events lest friends stop inviting me to their houses to sample their attempts at cooking and imbibe their booze. If you spend any length of time in Cambodia, you’ll […]

The above photo is the fish amok from Malis restaurant in Phnom Penh – the same amok that I shot for the Wall Street Journal article. I expected that they’d use this photo rather than the one that they did – this is about as well as I can capture gratuitous, selectively-focused food porn without […]

I’d started my day with a heartening trip down Victoria Street in Richmond: noodle soup breakfast; harassing local Vietnamese grocers for Khmer ingredients; and an unexpected and typically Cambodian street food snack. There exists a good potential to cook “authentic” Cambodian food in Melbourne. You’d need a hook up into the underground Cambodian expat network […]