Author:

Scrumptiously Sumatran

I felt a touch like Jack Sprat and his wife as I surveyed the seven or so empty platters and belched ever so softly into my krama. “Frankly, I can’t believe how much we ate.” “That’s because it’s so good it’s hard to stop,” offered Brad, the photographer. “It was a fantastic feast.” He has spent a lot of time in Jakarta and speaks Bahasa, so his endorsement carries a lot of cred. “Very different from Cambodian food,” Nick – tuk-tuk driver/friend/little brother – chimed in, “and very delicious.” It was his first ever Indonesian meal. It was also his first encounter with passion-fruit juice ($1.50) and he gave it rave reviews. On the topic of drinks, coffee and sodas are $1 and beer ranges from $1.50 to $2.

Tucked away on Street 456, not too far from Russian Market, Sumatra is a gem. The original restaurant opened in June 2009 with two tables and eight chairs. Two years ago Markus, Elly (a husband-and-wife duo) and Sani – Elly’s sister – moved into the current premises. The restaurant now sports 10 tables and 40 chairs. Open from 11am to 8pm Monday to Saturday, its crowd is a mixture of NGO types, expats and locals. High on Trip Advisor, it attracts regulars who have come to know the gregarious owners.

Airy and green, the courtyard is refreshing and the chairs are comfortable. “Nice place,” pronounced Nick, “cool and quiet.” Choices abound: fish, chicken, duck, beef, squid, soup, tofu and vegetables. The flavour influences are Balinese, Sumatran and Javanese. Many of the dishes are balado, a Sumatran sauce of tomato, chili and garlic. Pictures help the uninitiated tell the difference between gado-gado – boiled vegetable salad with peanut sauce for $2 – and cap cay, stir-fried vegetables at $2.50. Or how about tahu isi (four pieces of tofu stuffed with vegetables)?

If you want to start small, check the snack section. Six pieces of tofu mendoan cost $2; four pieces of bakwam – battered and deep-fried mixed vegetables – are $1.50. A bowl of tofu soup – stewed cassava leaves in Indonesian spices with coconut milk – is just $1.75 and virtually a meal in itself.

Recommendations? The beef rendang ($3) is mouth melting and the Indonesian spices, chili and coconut milk have a bit of a tang. The fish pes moll ($2.50/$4) is made from Markus’ own recipe. Eggplant balado ($1.75) is a delish side dish, as is tempe mendoan (six pieces for $2) with a dipping sauce of chili and sweet soy. Those wanting a set meal can tuck into the Balinese chicken with stir-fried veggies and rice. Another poultry offering is sattay with rice, vegetables and a chili dip ($4).

The best approach is to pack a tuk tuk with your friends so you can order widely and share. I asked for a whack of business cards and have since been recommending it to everyone. As we left, Brad summed it up: “Enak sekali!” (‘Thanks!’)

Sumatra, #35 Street 456 (between streets 123 and 135); 016 561980.

 

Penh-Dacity:Bag Man (Mar 28)

Desmond has had a hell of a weekend. At least he has the bag again, and his phone, after leaving them behind somewhere. Now he sits and plots the denouement to this story. Read on and savour the conclusion to our exclusive fiction series by Guillermo Wheremount.

There was something tranquil about sitting by the pool. A young couple was taking it in turns to swim laps and keep an eye on a sleeping child, occasionally murmuring in something like French, but otherwise there was no one around. The garden foliage was thick and shady; the walls were high enough to banish the sound of the traffic. Two staff in white uniforms worked silently or stared at their screens.

Desmond was drinking slowly. Desmond was doing everything slowly now. It helped his hangover, it helped his brain process. It gave him time to give thanks for being delivered from hellishly violent interludes resulting in chronic pain. The beer tasted good, like it does with a hangover in the shade. He flicked through his phone retracing the missing steps of the previous evening, reading a series of increasingly irritated messages from Clarissa, and a couple from the barely recalled Nancy. Ah well. At least I’m alive to try again another time.

Eventually, the call came. Hank must have finally woken up. “Desi, old man!” “Good to hear from you, Hank.” “Let’s meet up, old man. Where are you? I’ll send Vuthy.”

“No, I don’t think so, Hank. I’ll come alone. Where are you?” “Rightio-ho, old man!  I’m at Dirigible.” “I know it. Expect me shortly.”

Dirigible was all white table cloths and balsamic drizzle and reduced duck, but Desmond could make an exception. He strode boldly in and looked around. Hank was seated alone at a table for six with the remains of a large, late breakfast around him.

“Good health to you, old man. Too early to join me in a G&T?” “Why not?” answered Desmond, as he took a power position at the far end of the table. He had lost track of what time it was anyway. “So, how was Bangkok?” Hank looked genuinely surprised. “Bangkok? Haven’t been there since November, old man.” “I thought as much.”

With what was supposed to be a flourish, but came out as a clumsy move that almost upset the table, Desmond stood up again and deposited the bag just out of Hank’s reach.

“So perhaps you can explain what this is all about.” “Oh, there it is. I knew I’d left it somewhere. Funny, just this morning I told Vuthy I’d given it to him.” “So, like, WTF?”

“I’m sorry, I’m missing something,” said Hank. “What’s wrong, Desi?” “You gave me this bag. Yesterday. This bag, full of money.” “What money?” “A large amount of money. Heartstoppingly.” “Where did you get money from? Can you pay me back now?” “You gave it to me, in the bag! It’s locked! You said keep it.” “Oh dear. Maybe I’ve been experimenting with my medication again. I have blackouts when I do that. I said keep the bag?” “You said look after the money while you’re in Bangkok.”

Infuriated, Desmond grabbed a steak knife from an almost empty plate and ripped a heart-sized gash in the side of the bag. He thrust his hand into the gash and pulled out bundles and shouted: “You said look after the money!”

After that burst of noise it got very quiet in the Dirigible and all they could hear was the sound of some thin Khmer pop floating out of the kitchen. Desmond held in his hand a few well-folded copies of the Cambodia Daily, held together with rubber bands. Bewildered, he scooped out another handful: some old paperbacks and a couple of photocopied editions of Lonely Planet.

“Oh, yes, I remember,” said Hank. “Rough night on Friday. Woke up yesterday convinced I was being followed. I had to throw them off the scent.” “Who?” “The people following me. Turned out to be paranoid nonsense, of course, but better to be safe than sorry,” said Hank, who wiped his eyes, finished his coffee and abruptly changed the topic. “So I wanted to talk to you about coming in with me on a new venture. I’ve decided to open a bar again. Now, where are those jolly G&Ts?”

Desmond arrived home just as the sun set, enjoying the colours of the sky more than anything he’d done all weekend. He managed a wistful status update: Blogpost-worthy sunset. If only I had a blog. Also I’d like to have a balcony. Next flat I’ll try for a balcony. 

There would be no responses apart from a couple of likes, and one of them from his mum. The front gate creaked as he opened it, and the landlord’s nephew wandered out of his lair as it closed.

“My friend come fix water, you not here, you not leave key.”

“Tomorrow come again?” “Maybe come tomorrow.”

Tomorrow could be handled when it arrived, but first there was a need for sleep.

The End

 

Come on, get happy!

Happy Patch, the sublimely named new eatery on Street 63, defies traditional restaurant categorisation. The food menu centres on Asian staples – congee for breakfast, curries and noodles for lunch. But there’s also steak pies, gourmet sandwiches, fine homemade cakes and a big breakfast with bacon, sausage and hash browns. Each of them for less than a fiver. The coffee is as good as anywhere, too; the room spacious, the service friendly.

Happy Patch, #176 Street 63.

 

Krom on

SUNDAY  30  |Darkness and light. Male and female. Fire and water. Dark and light. Life and death. Many natural forces that might at first seem contrary are in fact complementary, a concept embodied in the yin yang of Chinese philosophy. Together, such forces interact to create a sum far greater than their parts. Such is the case with Krom (Khmer for ‘the group’), quite possibly the most reclusive band in Cambodia. Public performances are rare; interviews even more so. In Krom, whose Neon Dark was declared album of the year by the BBC’s Mark Coles last year, East meets West. Mournful delta blues guitar mingles with celestial Cambodian vocals. Tales of human atrocities are tinged with the slightest suggestion of hope. And angelic opera singers Sophea and Sopheak Chamroeun are backed by gravel-voiced guitarist Christopher Minko.

WHO: Krom
WHAT: A rare public performance
WHERE: CTN, Russey Keo (4km outside Phnom Penh on National Road 5)
WHEN: 5:30pm March 30
WHY: They’re elusive, reclusive and exclusive

Urban jungle

SATURDAY 29 & 30  |Yes, she’s looking at you. Charming and mysterious, she’s one of the inhabitants of Christian Develter’s Asian urban jungle, a creature of beauty and contradiction. She has a warm sensuality, but also a touch of android severity; her face wears the signs of an ancient culture, but she looks modern. Traditional and revolutionary, wild and spiritual: how can so many opposites mix so beautifully? The isolated mountains of Burma’s Chin State are home to tribes separated from the modern world for centuries. Chin women are renowned for their 1,000-year-old tradition of facial tattoos. According to legend, a Burmese king once took a beautiful Chin girl as his wife. The unhappy bride eventually escaped, disguising her face with deep incisions. Belgian artist Christian Develter met the Chin: “The faces in the paintings represent contemporary Asian women,” the artist says. “They have traditional Chin tattoos which refer to animistic patterns based on nature. Some are called spiderweb tattoos, while others remind of tigers or lizards. I wanted to bring this old tradition into a modern world.” Peter Smits, Christian’s business partner, says: “What struck us is the fact that only females endure the pain. ‘Men are weak,’ they told us. ‘After all, who’s giving birth?’ The tattoos empower them just as the right make-up empowers city women… their sisters in the Asian urban jungles.” The artist’s creations are among a slew of works going under the hammer to support Amrita Performing Arts. Other pieces include Matthew Cuenca’s Sylvia: a woman painted on a piece of luggage, suggesting the permanency of our emotional baggage. Thomas Pierre, meanwhile, portrays a decaying Versailles, imbued with melancholy, in which tourists wander like lost souls. “I alter perspectives to make the work timeless,” he says.

WHO: Christian Develter and other artists and designers
WHAT: Christie’s charity art auction
WHERE: Raffles Hotel Le Royal, Daun Penh Blvd.
WHEN: 5:30pm March 29 & 30
WHY: “There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

Reinventing reggae

SATURDAY 29  |‘Dirty’ and ‘raw’ are adjectives that sit well with the sound of Dub Addiction. From the moment the speakers burst into life, sights and sounds familiar to Phnom Penh long-termers ooze through the mixer to create a distinctly Cambodian soundscape: Jamaican reggae meets Khmer sarawan, with incendiary results.

WHO: Dub Addiction
WHAT: Reggae reinvented
WHERE: Equinox, #3a Street 278
WHEN: 9pm March 29
WHY: Somewhere, in that great dancehall in the sky, King Tubby should be smoking a fat one and smiling

Def busta

FRIDAY 28  |He’s Japanese DMC champ and has spun for James Brown, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. What more could you possible wish for?

WHO: DJ Ta-shi
WHAT: Japanese DMC champ
WHERE: Pontoon, Street 172
WHEN: 11pm March 28
WHY: See ‘WHAT’

Burn of hot wax

FRIDAY 28  |At the heels of the late-1980s UK club scene, the truly rebellious were breaking into abandoned school buildings in Brixton, wiring the places with jerry-rigged sound systems and shaking the windows with music that didn’t suck. Paul Adair was a 20-something college radio DJ from small-town New Zealand. London was the fount of all music. Vinyl was the substrate. “The ’80s,” says Adair, who spins under the name Dr Wahwah, “is completely underrated… it was a time when a lot of musical genres that dominate now came to the fore”. Untethered in the Big Smoke, Adair fell in behind the turntables at London squat parties. Twelve-inch wax became his currency. Adair recently started buying records again, hence Vinyl Mania: a party for Dr Wahwah and fellow wax lovers to spend the night together.

WHO: Dr Wahwah and DJ Nicomatic
WHAT: Vinyl Mania
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard
WHEN: 9pm March 28
WHY: Sounds from the European underground have never been so accessible

Beat dis

FRIDAY 28  |Formed in 1964 and regrouping exactly 20 years later, Jamaican ska band The Skatalites, of Guns Of Navarone fame – along with Studio One in-house bands the Soul Vendors, Sound Dimension, Soul Defenders and Brentford Road All Stars – laid the foundations for modern reggae. Mixing their danceable rhythms with popular jazz tonight are some of Phnom Penh’s most talented musicians, promising an evening of “infectious beats and tasty horn lines”.

WHO: Jahzad
WHAT: Jamaican ska meets jazz
WHERE: Equinox, #3a Street 278
WHEN: 9pm March 28
WHY: Infectious beats and tasty horn lines

Provincial foodies

FRIDAY 28   |The Cambodian Cuisine Festival invites you to explore national food treasures firsthand, be they amok and num songvak from Battambang, mi kola from Pailin or fried frogs from Takeo. “Behind this festival, there is big research involved,” explains Rano Reach Sy Fisher, from Pour Un Sourire d’Enfant. “We combed all of the provinces and sometimes we stayed in a village for a few weeks to get to know local people, particularly women, since in Cambodia the passing of recipes is transmitted from mother to daughter.” What started as a small event eight years ago has since become an institution, attracting more than 8,000 visitors. “People travel the world and discover new dishes. Here it’s the same, but on a small scale. For Cambodians, it’s a way to rediscover their own identity; for foreigners, a way to know more about the country.”

WHO: Anyone with an appetite
WHAT: Cambodian Cuisine Festival
WHERE: Olympic Stadium
WHEN: 5pm March 28 & 29
WHY: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world” – JRR Tolkien