Comments on: Loc Lac

By: Fross

Fross — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:49:56 +0000

After eating myself through loc lacs at various places in Phnom Penh I start to see some common elements and a few twists.

Usually it is served on a bed of lettuce, slices of green tomato and very often slices of raw onion and a freid egg.

When I visited some friends in Kampong Thom they served lok lak with chips (french fries), carrots cut like chips but fried a little less than the chips plus hard boiled egg cut in halves. The chef is from near the Lao border so maybe this version is a northern regional variant.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:40:09 +0000

Ian – I doubt that

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 23 May 2007 01:53:44 +0000

The FCC in Phnom Penh claims to have been the first to have put french fries with their loc lac in order to keep the foreign correspondents from getting homesick. Do not know the verity of this but that is what we were told in December.

By: Dany

Dany — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:38:34 +0000

Loc Lac is very an original one of khmer recipes. It’s usually with thin slice of beef, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, cucumber and hot chilli pepper if desired. Its serve with steam rice. The beef is pour over the bedding of the vegetable, It was a delicious dish.

By: lola

lola — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:48:09 +0000

excellent work dawgs

By: Mary

Mary — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:36:09 +0000

Hmm, that’s interesting. Firstly, thank you for pointing out the Loc Lac is a dish influenced from the Vietnamese. I didn’t know that — I just assumed it to be authentic Khmer too. However, I’ve never had Loc Lac with french fries. My mother always made the beef and surrounded it with lettuce and sliced tomatoes. We then ate the beef, lettuce, and tomato with a lime/salt/pepper sauce (and rice, of course). That was how it was served too when I visited Cambodia this past winter. Interesting, didn’t realize there were two different dishes going around.

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 02:49:06 +0000

As for tiir teum – I haven’t seen it with duck, but have seen something very similar with roast chicken and lotus seeds. Could you hit your step-parents up for a recipe?

The fries with loc lac is typical but not essential. With fries, it tends to be called “loc lac American” or “loc lac barang” (French/foreigner loc lac) to differentiate it from just plain loc lac (and possibly to point out that it is abominable). I still haven’t worked out why loc lac is the only Khmer dish that tends to be served with fries or even when it happened.

By: mama eve

mama eve — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 18:00:22 +0000

Loc Lac – really interesting. thank you for tucking it in!

By: manur

manur — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 18:20:57 +0000

Go figure : here in Paris’ Chinatown (more “Indochina-town”, actually), I’ve never ever seen Loc Lac served with fries. If you’d asked, I’d say it’s an abomination to me
Loc Lac around here is served with rice fried in tomato sauce (maybe ketchup, hard to tell). It’s not that it makes it more authentic, but at least it tries.

Now for something completely different : my Khmer step-parents cook that marvellous dish they call “Tiir teum”, which is duck stuffed with rice noodles and lotus seeds, one of my two or three favorite things to eat on this earth. Can you find it in restaurants in Cambodia and have you tried it ?

By: Maytel

Maytel — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:34:57 +0000

The first “loc lac” I had in Cambodia was in Kratie, except it was made with junngle deer, it was served with french fries and egg and as if my “who killed bambi” guilt wasn’t great enough, it came served with a fork and minature cleaver instead of a knife