Author: Staff

Keyed in

TUESDAY 22 | He’s tinkled the ivories for former US President Bill Clinton; performed in the home of Quincy Jones and shared the stage with King Crimson drummer Ian Wallace. Tonight, Scandinavian master pianist Mathias Aspelin – a University of Oxford philosopher with a taste for metaphysics and aesthetics – performs a collection of modern jazz pieces, ‘merging an American soundscape with the Eastern and the Nordic; urban, rhythmic momentum meeting the tranquil and the lyrical’.

WHO: Mathias Aspelin (piano)
WHAT: Modern jazz
WHERE: Doors, St. 84 & 47
WHEN: 8:30pm July 22
WHY: “Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.” – Tom Lehrer

Hitler on ice

TUESDAY 22 | Adolf Hitler ingested it daily in a cocktail of more than 80 drugs, turning him from an egomaniac into a sadistic mass murderer. Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and the Beatles warned against it during the late ’60s as flower power gave way to rampant consumerism. And in 2003 the US Air Force was forced to defend its use after two pilots under its influence dropped a bomb near Kandahar in Afghanistan that killed four Canadian soldiers. Methamphetamine – known variously on the streets as speed, meth, crystal meth, ice, shards, shabu, glass, jib, crank, batu, tweak, rock and tina – is today considered by many to rank among the world’s most dangerous drugs. And where heroin was once the most profitable narcotic produced in the remote labs of the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Burma, Thailand and Laos collide, a complex sequence of political events has spurred the rise of what is now a multibillion-dollar meth industry here in Southeast Asia (worth $8.5bn last year, according to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime). Two very different documentaries, Hitler’s Drug and Asia’s Speed Trap, investigate.

WHO: Meth heads and tweakers
WHAT: Hitler’s Drug and Asia’s Speed Trap screenings
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 7pm July 22
WHY: The real Breaking Bad

Guilty pleasures

If you’re ever 12 hours deep into a rice wine slizzerfest on the banks of a rain-swollen Mekong with a rowdy clowder of shitfaced mates, and a cobra swims past minding its own business, and y’all decide it’s a good idea to catch the bugger so you can sell it later at the market to buy even more rice wine and some of those hot pickled clam things, here are some tips you might consider.

I can’t give you any sage advice on how to catch the cobra while hammered and up to your armpits in one of the world’s landmark waterways. Really buddy, no one can. But once you’ve taken off your pants and tied up the legs and put the snake in and then tied up the waist so it can’t escape, it’s probably going to be livid. For sure it will have its teeth pointed directly at you, dripping with neurotoxins. Best not to taunt it then, no matter how hilarious smacking funny old Mr Hissy Pants with your Angry Bird flip flop is. And when you and the lads cosy up to the ‘I love you, mate’ stage of the evening, resist the urge to give the snake a cuddle too. Sure, it’s been through a lot tonight. We all have. If needs must, give it a cheers from a safe distance. But honestly it’s not your best friend forever. It won’t take care of your wife and kids should anything happen to you. Like getting bitten to death by a fucking cobra.

Unlike the infamous figment about a local lion maiming 42 midgets in a ring fight, this trouser snake story did actually happen – and right here in CharmingVille. I’m reminded of it since we had that monsoonal shit soup barrelling through our streets the other week. Snakes ache for a robust, rat-thick body of water. Unless your house is ankle deep in racist limes or you’ve got a bunch of mongooses, you’re up shit creek in the viper department.

Or not, apparently, if you’re a single gal or guy looking for love. According to my personal oracle of Cambodianness, aka The Hubster, snakes in a dream mean someone likes you. Snakes chasing after you means they really, really want to have sex with you. Snakes in real life means you’re already doing it like a boss. In the last three weeks my friend has had three snakes invade her actual kitchen. She’s a good sweet girl, but her parents have grounded her just in case.

I personally haven’t seen any snakes in my dreams for a while, or real life for that matter, unless you count the lame puffy one the Sofitel Brunch Clown made me last Sunday. It was a consolation prize following the untimely demise of Pootle, the balloon dog he’d fashioned for me earlier. I loved that crazy Koonsian pooch. But, like those lavishly inebriated sods with the cobra, it’s amazing what a heroically boozy afternoon by the river can make a person do. While my Life Partner distracted the carvery chef, I Instagrammed little Pootle next to the suckling pig like they were old mates from back on the farm days. But as I leant in to give Piglet’s little tail an extra twirl for the money shot it all went downhill, though mercifully quickly. In my rush to art direct the delightful tableau, I knocked poor Pootle too close to the heat lamp. Like a hot pink canine Icarus he exploded all over the gravy station with a loud bang that caused half a dozen tooth-sucking bodyguards to draw their service revolvers and push their designated generals face down in their foie. Every cloud has a silver lining, I guess.

But back to those other legless reptiles. I don’t have too many issues with serpents per se as long as they don’t eat my rabbit. If I walk into Marital HQ one day and there’s a fucking smug python flat out on the couch with a dislocated jaw and a huge lump halfway down, I’m not joking: there’ll be hell to pay.

 

Dish: Red heaven

Sometimes you find great little restaurants in out-of-the-way places and that’s precisely the case with The Spot, a new eatery where Occhuteal beach meets Otres beach in Sihanoukville.

Owned by a Dubai/Russian couple and ably managed by veteran Aussie Dave, the star of The Spot is their Uzbeki chef, Kar. His fine pedigree includes being private chef for a Dubai-based millionaire for the last six years and Kar has now brought his skills to sleepy Snooky. The restaurant is already a hit with the local Russian community and it won’t be long until the rest of the jet-set catches on.

The menu revolves around beef and lamb: all top quality meat imported from Australia, which is reflected in higher-than-average prices, but boy oh boy is every extra cent justified. It’s a Bring Your Own Bottle restaurant, but offers a wide range of mocktails and Dave, a trained barista, offers a range of coffees, including an amazing peppermint mocha.

And so to the food. I had high expectations for the menu and wasn’t disappointed. I tried a sample menu; small portions of some of their best dishes. The only problem: what to choose on my next visit.

First to arrive were the Samsas, a sort of Uzbeki pasty made with the most amazing pastry and filled with chopped beef, onions and other vegetables. I have no idea what seasoning Kar uses, but these were delicious and served with a tomato dipping sauce: a filling starter that will have your taste buds vibrating in ecstasy.

Next up were the Kazan kebabs. I’m not a huge lamb fan, but this dish converted me. Succulent, perfectly cooked chunks of lamb coated in herbs and spices and served with the roast potatoes cooked in lamb fat. I could have happily sat with a plate of these all night: the phrase ‘taste sensation’ is used far too often, but in this case it’s justified. You have to order 24 hours in advance because the lamb is slow cooked, but it’s well worth the proper planning.

Beef stroganoff is a fairly standard dish, but can be hard to get just right. Kar takes it beyond right, into some corner of orgasmic culinary heaven I want to live in forever. The beef is melt-in-your-mouth good; cooked and seasoned better than any other stroganoff I’ve ever tried, and served with a mashed-potato pancake that complements it perfectly. Plus the restaurant plans to make this and the eggplant caviar available in local supermarkets.

Last up was the plov: fluffy rice with a blend of vegetables and seasoning and more of that perfectly cooked lamb that seems to be an Uzbeki staple. This dish is so well balanced with flavours that it could walk a tightrope, though in this case it dived straight towards my stomach.

The menu offers plenty more to explore, from soups and salads to pastries, plus there’s a vegetarian version, so don’t think it’s purely a carnivore’s paradise. Prices range from $1.50 for a Russian pie to $9 for the Kazan kebabs. The venue is low key with a wonderful ambience for dinner with friends or a romantic night out.

The Spot, Kakda Street, Sihanoukville (open 1pm to 11pm Tuesday to Sunday)

 

Last chance to see IX

Continuing our series on the region’s rarest weird and wonderful species, a tribute to the conservation work of British author Douglas Adams, meet a jungle VIP plus a very peculiar reptile, who one conservationist believes could hold the key to evolutionary history

The missing link:
pig-nosed turtle

Unique among its freshwater brethren, the pig-nosed turtle (Carettochelys insculpta) is a rare creature indeed. As embryos, whether they become male or female is determined by the temperature of the ground in which their eggs are laid, and fully developed embryos have the extraordinary ability to delay their own hatching.

This conservation icon also occupies a unique position in the turtle family tree: it’s the sole survivor of a once widespread family called the Carettochelyidae and is today found only in Papua New Guinea and northern Australia. For how much longer is a matter of growing concern: over the past 30 years, scientists have recorded a steep decline in their numbers.

This turtle, which scientists hope might explain how turtles gradually evolved from land-lubbers into seafarers, is on the cusp of being eaten into oblivion. Demand for its meat and eggs mean it’s being hunted in ever larger numbers by indigenous people. Recent research by the University of Canberra in Australia found that villagers were harvesting more than 95% of all monitored nests.

Thus it came as no surprise when wildlife police discovered more than 2,000 ‘crammed like sardines’ into suitcases at an airport in Indonesia a few years ago. The turtles were concealed in plastic containers en route to Jakarta, a major hub for the illicit wildlife trade, many of them destined for the dinner table.

“Authorities in Indonesia have all the legal tools at hand to put an end to this trade, yet it appears that protection for the pig-nosed turtle is often on paper only,” says Chris Shepherd, deputy regional director of Traffic. “A few significant seizures have been made in Marauke recently, yet no arrests leading to convictions. Why not? The people involved know full well that what they are doing is illegal. They are criminals, robbing Indonesia and the rest of the world of our wildlife, and need to be punished. Little by little, species by species, they’re dismantling and destroying our ecosystems. Imagine losing a species like the pig-nosed turtle. What an amazing animal.”

Let it rain

Embrace the downpours and work your way through our second Interesting Things To Do During Rainy Season list.

Get inked:

Yantra tattooing, also called sak yant, dates back to before the glory days of Angkor, when King Jayavarman VII famously claimed they made the enemy’s arrows bounce clean off his chest. Traditionally administered by hermit sages, witch doctors and Buddhist monks via a sharp metal or bamboo stick, they’re believed by many to ward off evil, but The Advisor makes no guarantees. Or you could go the modern route and opt for simple Khmer script (Just make sure you know what it says – The Ed.). Among the most reputable tattoo parlours in Phnom Penh are Black Star, #5a Street 90 (070 200900) and RSD, #30 Sihanouk Blvd (016 787816). Recently opened is Maroo, #93 Sisowath Quay (066 412151).

Build your own bike: 

In 1953, the sight of a young, leather-clad Marlon Brando astride a motorcycle in The Wild One sent most decent folk into a self-righteous tailspin: the movie was immediately outlawed in the UK, where it stayed on the black list for the next 14 years. Too late! Biker-gang leader Johnny Strabler, the ultimate-for-the-time icon of restlessness and rebellion, had burned deep into the collective subconscious. Replicating the kind of stripped-down cafe racers he and other greased-up rockers rode is what Moto Cambodge, an expat custom motorcycle outfitter, does best. Drop ‘em a line: info@nullmotocambodge.com.

Go back to school: 

Want to improve your night photography? Need to polish your skills as a sommelier? Know how to use a sewing machine but can’t quite make a finished item of clothing? Have you ever tried sculpting a human head? Fancy yourself as an Apsara dancer? The evening classes and weekend workshops on offer at Phnom Penh Community College are limited only by your imagination. Brush up on everything from self defence and ‘wine and chocolate indulgence’ (must we?) to the Khmer language and drawing for beginners. Details at phnompenhcommunitycollege.com.

Travel back in time:

Forget the horrors of Cambodia’s recent history; don your Indiana Jones hat, and head straight for the most ancient artefacts in the National Museum’s rather compact collection on the corner of Street 178 & 13. Looming sculptures chiselled out of stone by the hands of Khmers from millennia past; carved wooden artworks dating to the country’s 15th-century transition from Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism to the Theravada Buddhism still practised today. Take that, Tardis.

Stock up on Surprisingly Useful Stuff in a 2500 riel shop:

Ice-cube trays that don’t shatter when you twist them; sturdy drinking bottles; funky earrings; USB fans: you’d be amazed at what you can pick up for a few thousand riel at these miniature Aladdin’s Caves, which are dotted all over the city. One of our favourites is next to the main entrance of Golden Sorya Mall on Street 154 & 51.

Have a night at the opera:

Cambodian Living Arts’ Plae Pakaa (‘Fruitful’) shows honour a time-honoured operatic form, although the themes it touches on aren’t altogether unfamiliar to modern audiences. Mak Therng, one of 20 traditional Khmer operas known collectively as yike (pronounced ‘yee-kay’), sounds at first like many a Western soap opera/Shakespearean play: girl loves boy; girl gets stolen by another boy; original boy attempts to reclaim girl; something goes horribly, horribly wrong. In fact, and particularly in CLA’s interpretation, it’s a brilliant piece of social critique examining a) how power corrupts, and b) Everyman’s oft-tricky pursuit of justice. Catch performances of this and other Cambodian dances on the stage of the National Museum, Street 13 & 178, 7pm every Friday and Saturday until the end of August.

Lose yourself in the shadows:

More than 2,000 years ago, in 121 BC, Emperor Wu of China’s Han dynasty was devastated by the untimely death of his favourite concubine. ‘The sound of her silk skirt has stopped,’ the emperor, an accomplished poet, wrote of Li Fu-ren. ‘On the marble pavement dust grows. Her empty room is cold and still. Fallen leaves are piled against the doors. How can I bring my aching heart to rest?’ Grief-stricken, the emperor implored his court officials to bring his lover back to life. Legend has it that, inspired by the lively shadows cast by children playing with dolls inside the court, one of Wu’s aides crafted a perfect replica of the concubine out of leather. Holding the figure in front of an oil lamp, he gently manipulated its limbs to make it ‘dance’. The emperor was delighted – and shadow puppetry was born. In Cambodia, a pre-Angkorian stone carving describes a kutakkta (female puppeteer) performing in a religious ceremony for Svarasvati, the god of art and eloquence. Carrier of myth, morality play and religious experience rolled into one, each performance tells traditional tales embellished with tidbits of village gossip. Known as sbaek in Khmer, the puppets are chiselled by hand out of tanned cowhide. The plays are performed as homage to Buddha, the Hindu gods, and the ancestral spirits they depict, and as a vehicle for communication with them – the point being to elevate performers and audience to ‘a higher level’. Rousing drum beats from the Pin Peat Orchestra lend each play a distinctly tribal feel, from the percussive rumana to the thunder of the giant barrel-shaped skor thom, at Sovanna Phum Theatre, #166 Street 99 & 484, where you can see shadow puppets, a pin peat orchestra and traditional Cambodian drums and dance at 7:30pm every Friday and Saturday.

Revamp your wardrobe on a shoestring: 

It pains us to share this information and thus risk diminishing the gene pool of cut-price steals, but if you haven’t yet ransacked Japanese thrift stores Sakura on Street 488 & 107 (097 4586536) and Toto, #21 Street 47 (020 990087), your wardrobe is missing out. Even a monogrammed tailcoat isn’t out of the question. Just don’t tell anyone.

Take a crash course in Khmer culture: 

Phnom Penh Community College offers precisely that in its five-week Learn Basic/Intermediate Khmer Language & Culture courses, schooling you not only in simple Khmer words and phrases but also in some key local customs (phnompenhcommunitycollege.com). Because when in Rome…

Absolve yourself of sins past: 

Not an invitation to step into the confessional, but rather a nudge in the direction of raw foodies ARTillery, on Street 240&½, who know more than a thing or two about top-notch nutrition. In the event you’ve been on one too many binges, have Your People hold all your calls and book yourself into the Vine Retreat, on Pepper Road in Kep’s Chamcar Bai Village (078 928966), where you can gorge on organic raw food workshops, yoga and massage, and even go picking peppers.

Get a Buddhist water blessing: 

A water blessing is an ancient Cambodian ritual believed to bring cleansing and good luck and is offered at many pagodas. The timid can opt for a light sprinkling while monks chant, wishing you safe travel and a long life; the more adventurous might try the longer ritual when vessels of blessed water are poured over your head. After all, it’s rainy season. You’re going to get wet anyway.

Experience the unbridled glory that is KTV:

You know you want to. We all do.

Talk in tongues:

On the first and third Wednesdays of every month, the Institut francais du Cambodge hosts its charmingly named ‘Cafe Polyglotte’, where cunning linguists – including but not limited to those who parlez francais – gather in the institute’s bistro, #218 Street 184, to practice the language of their choice (078 883268). The next events are at 6:30pm August 6 and 20.

Live out your fantasies:

The term ‘cosplay’ – an abbreviation of ‘costume play’, or kosupure in Japanese – has something of the geek about it. This Japan-centric comic world, one of giant-eyed heroes and junk worship, was sired by the sci-fi/fantasy universe once synonymous with Star Trek conventions, but seems to be overtaking it at warp speed. Sporting face paint, liquid latex, neon wigs, contact lenses, body modification and outrageous cyber-fashion, the truly committed make their way to the Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Centre every few months to worship at the altar of the weirdly dressed. Keep an eye on our listings: we’ll let you know when the next one’s coming up.

Watch a Cambodian horror flick: 

If there’s one ‘other’ thing Cambodia is famous for, it’s the flesh-shredding gore-fest that is its native movie industry. Horror has long been the national genre of choice, best screamed at loudly from a seat at Khmer-centric cinemas such as Lux, #44 Norodom Boulevard (012 343498). And never mind the script; check out those special effects…

Party like it’s 19:59: 

Cambodian teens can party with the best of them, provided it’s not past bedtime, hence daytime ‘nightclubs’ which recreate the after-dark ambience of regular nightclubs by simply not bothering with windows. Expect to find them in places like the basement car park at City Mall on Monireth Boulevard, next to Olympic Stadium, and opposite the Cambodiana Hotel on Sisowath Quay. Pumping. At 2pm. Yes, PM.

Become a prima ballerina:

Strap on your tutu and point your toes: enlist in classical ballet or modern dance classes at the Central School of Ballet Phnom Penh, #10 Street 182 (info@nullcentralschoolofballet.com), and Dance World Cambodia, in the Cambodiana Hotel, #330 Sisowath Quay (012 634008).

See something – anything – at Chaktomuk Hall:

Designed by the doyen of Cambodian architecture and completed in the still-peaceful Phnom Penh of 1961, Chaktomuk Hall is one of Vann Molyvan’s finest works. Inspired by a folding fan and perched elegantly on the banks of the Tonle Sap, it’s the sort of venue that makes any evening unforgettable.

Unite and conquer:

Test your skills as a champion connector at Raffles Le Royal’s speed networking night on Thursdays at 6pm. Girls only: head to Le Bar at Sofitel at 6:30pm on Fridays.

Get fit:

Because just talking about joining a gym isn’t going to do a damn thing about that belly. We love The Place, on Street 51 & 282, voted Best Gym in 2013 and 2012 in The Advisor awards.

Download the best local bands to your iPod:

From Dengue Fever to the Cambodian Space Project; from Khmerican chanteuse Laura Mam to home-grown deathcore outfit Sliten6ix: Cambodia’s musical diaspora are churning out more releases than ever before – and most of their tunes are now available for download. Support the ones you love by buying their music online. That way, you can sing along at their next gig. Awww.

Stick your head in the clouds:

Set your compass for Kampot, scale the (relatively) dizzying heights of Bokor mountain and marvel close-up at the awesome power of the heavens. Buses and cars are for the faint of heart; the truly brave make the ascent to the Bokor Hill Station ‘ghost town’ on two wheels.

Tour a (micro) brewery:

Beer! ‘Nuff said. Hop on a Kingdom Beer Bus or hail a Kingdom tuk tuk (they’re free and all over town, apparently) and head to Kingdom Breweries, #1748 National Road 5 (023 430180), and join their hopheads for a drink. As you stagger on your way, stop in at the Himawari Microbrewery, #313 Sisowath Quay, and then ricochet over to the Spark & Tawandang Microbrewery on the corner of Mao Tse Tung Boulevard & Street 167.

Take the slow boat to Siem Reap: 

Sipping cocktails and watching the sun set from the top deck of the Toum Tiou II, a 14-cabin luxury river boat, it’s hard to imagine that travelling in Cambodia is anything but blissful. Pretending to be Huck Finn isn’t bad either (contact CF Mekong River Cruises on 023 216070).

Paying culinary respect to cleavage

Thailand’s Khao Nom Sao mountain is named after them. Fierce Amazonian women, legend has it, would slice one off to improve their aim with bow and arrow.  And scientists at New Zealand’s University of Wellington in 2009 finally proved they’re what men look at first. Boobs, knockers, hooters, gazangas: call them what you will, breasts are big business – and they’re taking centre stage at a very unusual event this month.

This equal parts artistic and culinary initiative involves the use of special cooking molds in cast aluminum having the shape of the female bosom to make exceptional dishes. Chefs from local restaurants as well as amateur cooks can join the food making and tasting at Psar Kap Ko restaurant, on July 26 from 4pm. The event – free and open to all – is also a must for lovers of prahok, the main ingredient for these unconventional creations.

Breast Stupa Cookery: Prahok/Plaa Raa is an ongoing, collaborative project started in 2005 by Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak. Presented in nine countries so far, it’s part of Rates of Exchange, Un-Compared: Contemporary Art in Bangkok and Phnom Penh, a six-month series of exhibitions, residencies, gatherings and symposia presented across Cambodia and Thailand, curated by Roger Nelson and Brian Curtin.

But why breasts? Since 1993, while first breastfeeding her son, Pinaree Sanpitak’s primary inspiration has been the female body, distilled to its most basic forms and imbued with an ethereal spirituality. A woman’s body is a temple and, at the same time, it’s a mysterious land that offers solace, pleasure and nourishment. Here, the artist reviews this concept by combining the image of a sacred Buddhist stupa with the female breast, creating a sensual monument to womanhood. “It all started from a personal experience: I was trying to understand myself through the body, something which for me is both mental and physical,” says the artist. “Initially, it was a female body form and then it started crossing gender, relating to everybody.”

The topic of gender is one Sanpitak has been exploring for more than 20 years, using a variety of media and focusing on sensory perceptions. Her installations include soft breast-shaped cushions; sculptures and coloured breast-beads from Murano glass, and a site-specific project involving hundreds of winged origami boxes and glass breast-balloons dangling from the ceiling. “In my installations there is often a calm atmosphere, like in a sanctuary, but at the same time it’s imbued with sensuality,” says the artist.

Sanpitak’s artworks have been exhibited in galleries around the world, including Japan, the US, Australia, Germany, the Philippines and Singapore, but how will a Cambodian audience react in a country where bikinis are considered risqué? “I find that a woman in a wet sarong is even sexier than one in a bikini,” she says. “Thailand is not too different from Cambodia in terms of not showing but sensually revealing and this is extremely sexy.”

WHO: Pinaree Sanpitak
WHAT: Breast Stupa Cookery: Prahok/Plaa Raa art & culinary event
WHERE: Psar Kapko Restaurant, Street 9 & Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 4pm July 26
WHY: “Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually, it’s quite the opposite: a woman having large breasts makes men stupid.” – Rita Rudner

Ginsational

The once anonymous alley that houses Seibur and Meat & Drink is bracing for a downpour of style and booze. Cicada – pronounced ‘see-ka-da’, according to Merriam-Webster – is the latest mini-bar revitalisation project to hit what is now known as Bassac Lane. Twice the size as Seibu, Cicada is a minimalist amalgamation of its boozy brethren (Seibur, M&D, Public House, Bar Sito). There are copper mugs behind the bar, no doubt keepsakes from the polished copper bar at M&D. The bowl of fruit at centre bar is reminiscent of Seibur and Bar Sito. The house speciality is infused gin: chilli, pepper, and lavender, with other concoctions in the works. More alley bars are on the way, too. The place next door should open in the next few weeks, and others (yes, ‘others’, plural) will follow in the near future. Cicada, Bassac Lane, off Street 308.

 

Guilty pleasures

At 5.30 this morning I woke up to the sound of banging. Not the saucy type. Or next door refitting their fine wine cellar. With a thrill I realised it was me, or at least one of my alter egos, Hot Stevo, knocking about my cranium. Hot Stevo’s a hunky handyman and jack of all trades who lives in one of my mental cul-de-sacs right next door to my inner talk-show host, Lafawnda Jones, and my tortured but brilliant other self, a forensic detective called Linus Novak. This balmy AM, Hot Stevo had on a faded navy wife-beater, short shorts and a pair of steel-capped Blunnies rimed with sweat salt. He waved me a cheeky G’day, slammed shut the tailgate of his muscle ute, and drove off in a cloud of cement dust and vintage Acker Dacker.

It was an unexpected pleasure to see Hot Stevo up dawn’s proverbial with his toolbelt abulge. It augured well for my idle hands and manual cortex, both of which have been a bit rusty lately. Before Hubster and I tied the knot, I was a hammer-savvy single gal who travelled the world fixing her own fuses, sealing her own leaky shower cubicles and rewiring a flat-pack wardrobe with grow lamps. But that’s a whole other packet of TallyHos. Anyhoo. I’ve been known to run like a chunkier Julie Andrews, arms outstretched, down the paint-chip aisle at the nearest Home Depot, my fingertips setting Madder Lakes, Midnights in Vegas and Flouncing Gazelles aflutter. Nothing beats hanging at the charity sausage-sizzle outside Bunnings talking dimmer switches. Unless it’s glues, putties, sealants and solvents. Don’t get me started. Araldite was my crack.

But since I’ve domiciled in CharmingVille, my veteran red tin toolchest – a brimming, fold-out Pandora’s box of hardware porn – has gathered dust kitties propping up the cookbook cemetery under my hand-lathed kitchen island. I’ve lost the will to tinker.

For starters, it’s fucking hot. DIY accoutrements are not mapped out in an easy-to-navigate, one-stop Megamart with air-con switched to Arctic Vortex and bossa nova remixes of Lorde playing while you swap reno intel with a cheery tile fogey in company King Gees. There are no sat-nav trolleys here, let me give you the tip. Looking for that thing for the thing in the bowels of O’Russei is as exhausting and futile as, well, looking for that same thing in the bowels of Tuol Tompong.

Granted there’s that air-conned, reasonably well-lit and organised electrical place on Monivong that’s sometimes got the thing you want. But mostly they’ve got 99 other things and the thing you want ain’t one.

If it’s not scorching, I don’t mind a circuit of Mao Tse Tung when I want to drop a couple of bucks on a brand spanking bidet or backsplash tiles in my favourite shade of Tiffany Dusk. But spare me the fly-blown indifference of those shuffling Dementors at that multi-storey bed ‘n’ bath Bermuda Triangle next to the Bentley ‘n’ Beemer emporium. Hengs. Hangs. Whatevs. If you want to watch someone’s eyes glaze over while they simultaneously rob you of your very being, go there. Fuck. Me. Green.

If I do need anything done around Marital HQ, I generally pay the famous Mr Deth and his assistant, a skinny dude with a BOY cap and an extra-long fingernail to fix whatever needs fixing. That nail. It’s like a Khmer Swiss army knife. I can’t tell you.

Anyway. So how come Hot Stevo’s back in the perfectly dovetailed frame? What awoke my inner handyman and gave me mental wood?

The culprit is my new favourite four-letter word: Aeon.

I was ready to hate the place and follow-up with a scathing diatribe about the beginning of the end for CharmingVille’s charm. I still might. But like every man, woman and child in the universe, I went there on opening day and the first thing I saw was the fresh cactus section, right next to the miniature trowel department. I burst into tears of surprised relief. There was a whole wall of reasonably priced Bosch power tools. New. In boxes. Not hanging by their cords at head height, ready to brain you because you’re too busy scoping for fire exits, just in case.

Barely sensate with unexpected joy, I bought some wood putty. It came with a little spatula snapped into the lid. The polite and well-informed salesperson stepped up to help. They had shoes on. I hyperventilated with happiness and had to go to Burger King to comfort eat. After that it was the $1.90 shop where I bought the Bunster some self-stick carpet patches for his disabled stairs, cup hooks, and a set of mini wrenches for the bike. Later I got some hot Japanese guy to give me handy tips on smoke alarms. It was right then I noticed Hot Stevo doing some landscaping with his shirt off. He was beaming. He told me he was planning a sausage sizzle later, and I should bring a slab. Youse are all invited.

 

Dish: Simpler times

Alongside swollen hippocampi, the polymorphic 7R variation in the Homo sapiens D4 dopamine receptor is associated with an increased propensity for novelty seeking, often credited with our evolutionary march out of Africa (until, presumably, its more prudent 4R cousin convinced us to settle in Sumer). Still, compared to our conservative Australopithecus ancestors, modern humans are natural-born neophiles. That is, before we all naturally morph into my father and begin favouring nostalgia and routine. ‘Oh, for simpler times,’ we’ll say. Again and again.

So while microcosmic Kampot has mirrored to an extent Phnom Penh’s recent advance over the global plains of gastronomy, a newly slated eatery here can still cause quite the expectant stir among the chattering masses. Open for six months so far, Ellie’s Café has managed to sustain the merry hoo-ha by servicing our conflicting human instincts for both the fantastic and the familiar, weaving itself into the lazy workaday routines of a devoted roster of regulars while providing plenty of scope for ongoing epicurean explorations across a broad but measured menu.

Spread over two shop-houses and complemented with natural light and an easy aesthetic, Ellie’s is like an enticing slice of open savannah, evoking a warm sense of sanctuary and that comfortable hint of ‘home’. The laidback, welcoming vibe is backed by the affable and accommodating administrations of its charming young proprietors, the eponymous Ellen and business partner Bob, along with the café’s catalogue of homemade goods – from spot-on cookies and cakes to in-house spreads and breads. And although ‘homemade’ has always seemed a somewhat suspect claim of quality to me, especially when I’m familiar enough with the lax sanitary conditions of my own domicile, here it adds a touch of class to the array of fresh items on offer, including that peculiar icon of British nostalgia that is the Scotch Egg (served with potato salad and home-made chutney for $4.50).

But I’m rarely out of bed in time to squeeze three square meals into a day, so ‘lunch’ gets the flick in a Foucauldian middle finger to the socio-normative dictation of specific food groups for specific o’clocks (Ellie’s brazenly serves all-day breakfast to abet my rebellion). My personal go-to is the emerging people’s choice, the vegetarian breakfast ($5), a bona fide king-slayer of seriously good value: one massive plate of straight-up fried eggs on sweet-corn fritters jam-packed with grilled tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, home-made hummus, wholemeal toast and a heap of wildly more-ish hash spilling from its rim.

Dopamine-flushed hyperbole aside, this dish is no less than a coming of age for flesh-free fare: a hint of a future world where vegetarian cuisine has evolved beyond its primitive opposition to beast-based chow (think quinoa-encrusted seaweed cakes as a reasonable alternative to meat before midday). The veggie brekky is simple, unpretentious and symbolic of the restaurant as a whole. Or, to stretch an already tenuous Sumerian thread, Ellie’s Café doesn’t set out to reinvent the wheel, just to ensure it’s perfectly rounded without unnecessary over-inflation. Do your D4s a favour and make the migration now.

Ellie’s Cafe, #42–44 Street 726, Kampot; 088 4884953.