Provincial foodies descend on the capital

THERE’S SOMETHING IN CAMBODIA that glues people together, encouraging folk to share quality moments or stories about life. This glue that binds – food – is the sticky rice which unites the country. Khmer cuisine is one of the world’s oldest: simplicity, freshness, regionalism, elegance in the use of spices and extravagant presentation are but a few of the traits for which this gastronomy is praised. This month, the Cambodian Cuisine Festival invites you to explore national food treasures firsthand, be they amok and num songvak from Battambang province, mi kola from Pailin, fried frogs from Takeo province or typical street vendor’s favourites.

“Unfortunately, in the 1970s during Pol Pot’s time, nearly all of our cuisine was wiped out,” explains Rano Reach Sy Fisher, from Pour Un Sourire d’Enfant (PSE), the NGO organising the festival. “Behind this festival, there is big research involved. 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 charity party on PSE’s campus eight years ago has since become an institution, attracting more than 8,000 visitors of every hue. “People travel the world and discover new dishes,” Rano explains. “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.”

Unique delicacies from 18 provinces are poised to steal focus, including five newly updated dishes, rediscovered recipes and 20 books representing street food and its evolution. “In England you have Gordon Ramsay,” Rano grins, “but here you go to the streets and you find Ramsay everywhere, creating new things.”

Asked about his favourite dish of previous years, Rano cites stuffed frogs. “They are stuffed with very rich ingredients and then deep-fried. They are amazing!” But the fare which reduces him to Proustian time travel is, of course, dessert: “The gems of Khmer cuisine are desserts. Anything with sticky rice brings me home and to my granny’s cooking.” Care to try your own hand at making Cambodian desserts? A stand showcasing the ‘Sweet Taste of Cambodia’ offers a collection of regional recipes. Beyond the food, expect live music, martial arts, comedians, traditional dance and a kids’ playground.

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

Boss donuts

The name Paul’s BrewHouse sparks images of some funky Manhattan street corner – a la The Beastie Boys’ 1989 album Paul’s Boutique – where low-brow hipsters troll for second-hand baseball jerseys. The local incarnation, with a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the wall and a cellist at the entrance, is every bit as eclectic as its namesake on Ludlow Street. A Leaning Tower of Pisa; a bronzed violinist; a showcase full of sugar hits; cahed rocks. The caffeine is good, the baked goods even better. But the donuts. Soft, moist and rich. Sprinkled, glazed, chocolate. The donuts are boss. Paul’s BrewHouse, #52 Sothearos Blvd.

Boom box

SATURDAY 22 | Few would place Philips, the Dutch appliance maker, among the world’s greatest contributors to global hip-hop culture, but there it most certainly stands. In 1969, Philips released the ‘radio recorder’, a dull grey and matte black plastic audio box with an extendable chrome antennae for the radio and chunky mechanical buttons to record, play, stop, fast-forward and rewind. The boombox was born. “I remember getting my first ghetto blaster as a kid, and using the dual cassette decks to try to make my own mix tapes,” says the Bangkok-based rapper known as Hydro Phonics, a card-carrying medical marijuana-smoker from the US, in a soft southern drawl. The portable boombox moved the party from the living room to the street corner, where rappers and b-boys traded dance moves and beats. It provided the artillery for a generation of freestyle street battles. “Nothing can ever replace that box sitting in the middle of the party and everyone dancing.” These days, Hydro Phonics performs a two-man show under the rubric Ghetto Blasters with regional DJ powerhouse Tech 12. Originally from the UK, Tech 12 claims residencies at Bangkok’s Bed Supper Club and Q-Bar and has worked alongside The Black Eyed Peas, Public Enemy, Grandmaster Flash and Cash Money.

WHO: Hydro Phonics & Tech 12
WHAT: Ghetto Blasters
WHEN: 11pm March 22
WHERE: Pontoon Club, St. 172
WHY: They’re ssssssmokin’

 

Then there were four

SATURDAY 22 | Four of the capital’s most prolific singer-songwriters file onto the Equinox stage tonight, but not as you know them. Jerby Santo (Jaworski 7), Robin Narciso (Sangvar Day), Joshua Chiang (Sonic Detergent) and Richard Marshall (he of the much-loved open mics at Sundance and Equinox) are abandoning their usual band mates and striking out in back-to-back solo shows.

WHO: Robin Narciso, Jerby Santo, Richard Marshall, & Joshua Chiang
WHAT: Back-to-back solo singer-songwriter shows
WHERE: Equinox, #3a Street 278
WHEN: 9pm March 22
WHY: “Solo artists are generally totally insane. Elton John? Slightly eccentric. George Michael? He’s mad as custard.” – Noel Gallagher

 

Gospel Truth

FRIDAY 21 | An intoxicating blend of Congolese gospel chorister and Parisian jazz singer, Esther Mwauka – billed as a vocalist, choir leader, song writer and teacher – is taking a time-out from her duties at the altar to embark on a solo performance that’s equal parts African soul and French ballad.

WHO: Mwauka & The Gang
WHAT: An intoxicating blend of Congolese gospel and Parisian jazz
WHERE: Slur, #28 Street 172
WHEN: 9:30pm March 21
WHY: Hear two very different worlds collide

 

E-Zee does it

THURSDAY 20 & 21 | “Everything starts with an E,” chirped MC Kinky as part of the E-Zee Possee in 1989, homage to the meteoric rise of acid house and, more specifically, a great new drug called ecstasy. BBC Radio 1 promptly threw up its collective hands in horror, banning the song outright. In so doing, the station secured the destiny of the track – penned by Kinky, Boy George, Simon Rogers and Jeremy Healy – to become a global dance anthem. And it set this white female ragamuffin toaster on a course that would ultimately take her – via incarnations as Cantankerous, Feral, The Infidel, and finally Feral Is Kinky – from growing up in a small flat above a London betting shop to cutting a Number 1 hit single with Erasure, the pop duo’s anthemic remix of Abba’s Take A Chance On Me, and beyond. The first MC to chat dancehall lyrics over music other than reggae, Feral’s breed of low-slung ragga chat is a by-product of being obsessed with reggae from the age of eight (she used to get woken up in the middle of the night by the heavy bass pumping from a shebeen next door, the music still thumping by the time she got up to go to primary school) and knowing no racial boundaries. Today, following her first official solo release My Selector last year, a sound system-inspired dubstep banger (“Play one last tune, my selector” she raps over wub wub bass and big beats), Feral can be forgiven for looking back on her rave days with misty eyes. “When I MC’d over Everything starts with an E, I hadn’t taken one,” she tells The Independent. “The track got banned from Radio 1 and TV, but it was massive. I had no manager, agent, nothing. People used to phone up my house all the time and say, ‘Hi my name’s so and so, can you do a gig?’ Me and my mates would drive up to a massive party somewhere. I’d put my hair in curlers in the car, put on mad light-reflecting clothes in pub toilets. When the screechy guitar on Everything began, the crowd would roar like a football stadium. Afterwards I’d get off stage and go and dance for hours with everyone else. People would come up to me saying, ‘I love you. I love your hair. You’ve changed my life.’ I couldn’t believe it.”

WHO: Feral is Kinky
WHAT: Electronic ragga, manic house, Moombahton bass and dub step
WHERE: Pontoon, St. 172
WHEN: 11pm March 20 & 21
WHY: Everything starts with an E