Cambodian Cuisine

As we were on our way to Cambodia, I finally opened the food and drink section of our travel guidebook. One of the first paragraphs went like this “…also popular are rice noodles in a clear broth…you might wish to decline the other ingredients, namely sliced up intestines or gizzard and a slice of congealed blood, which the Khmer’s slurp up with relish, as it’s said to make you strong.” With that sentence alone, I concluded that:

1) If it says it’s supposed to make you strong, it must be really bad...and I’m okay with being a weakling.
2) I didn’t pack enough granola bars.

As our bus pulled into a local Khmer restaurant that had awnings for walls and a thatched roof, I was certain the menu would be filled other things I'd read about - like ptong dteer gowne (ducks eggs with unhatched ducklings…also said to be for good health and strength) and prohok (salty, fermented fish paste)…

The first good sign was that there were no weird smells. The next was that the place was spotless. When the menu arrived, there were dishes none of us had ever heard of, but the ingredients listed were all recognizable. We ordered things like curry, stir-fry, and fried rice and it was all very tasty. All eleven of us were pleased with our meals…we were even more pleased when we got the bill – less than $80 US for all of us, including LOTS of bottled water, Coke, beer, and the tip!

Turns out, that was the norm for all the meals in Cambodia. It was easy to get accustomed to good $3 meals! I should mention that the weirdest thing we saw on a menu was “blood cockles”, which no one was brave enough to try (or, frankly, to ask what it was!). Many people really enjoyed the Cambodian specialty, fish amok. It’s a coconut fish curry that is served in banana leaves or cooked in a coconut.

We had lots and lots of choices in the Old Market area, especially along what’s known as Pub Street (it was actually very family friendly, unlike our Patang, Thailand experience):

I’m sure you can guess what most of the adults drank at lunch and dinner. Of course, Dave logically pointed out that it was safer than drinking the water.

A lot of restaurants didn’t have walls:

At the Khmer Kitchen, none of the generously portioned meals was more than $3:

Fish amok:

We didn't eat at the Funky Munky on Pub Street, but we thought it was funny:

Of course couldn’t pass up a chance to eat Mexican food:

No one went hungry or thirsty on this leg of the trip. I sure was glad to have some extra snacks set aside for Vietnam…but that’s a story for another day.