Category: Food

Breakfast: the most important meal of the day. But in the Kingdom of Wonder breakfast can often leave you wondering; when born and bred Phnom Penhites eat their first meal of the day they appear, to expat eyes, to be erroneously chowing down on their evening meal. Rice, noodles, mystery meats – a morning mash-up confusing enough to send even the most adventurous scurrying for the comfortable familiarity of one of the city’s numerous Western coffee shops. A caramel latte, a pain au chocolat, a bit of toast and jam: now that’s breakfast. It will also cost you about $10, thank you very much.

But step outside your air-conditioned comfort zone and you’ll discover that Khmer breakfasts are (despite occasional appearances to the contrary) delicious and, for those experiencing that end-of-the-month penury, dirt-cheap as well.

Bobor 

Touted as Cambodia’s rebuttal to Scottish porridge, bobor does not in fact contain the mighty Scottish oatflake, nor does it come in a box branded with a burly gentleman in a raunchily wind-blustered kilt. In fact, bobor has more in common with gruel than porridge. But don’t let this put you off; it’s a great way to start your day. A simple dish, it consists of soft-cooked rice drenched in steaming broth and spiced up with sundries. In more salubrious breakfast establishments, such as those lining Monivong Boulevard, you can choose whether you want your bobor with chicken (sait mowan), beef (sait gow) or fish (sait trai). But if you’re feeling brave just pull up a stool outside any morning market stall, ask for bobor and get what you’re given. This could range from the tender chicken breast, to crispy squid rings, to the marginally less appetising congealed pigs’ blood or unidentifiable gizzard. Topped off with roasted garlic, diced mint leaves and freckles of onion leaf, bobor is truly the monarch of the porridge glen. And this is coming from a Scot.

Bai Sait Chrouk

Cambodia’s answer to the bacon roll. You’ll spot a pork and rice vendor by the billows of smoke emanating from their street-side charcoal grills and, of course, the irresistible whiff of bacon. Pork and rice, like Ronseal, does exactly what is says on the tin: it’s just pork and rice. But the meat is consistently well-seasoned, oscillating between sweet and sour and complimented perfectly with a heaped spoonful of pickle or sweet chilli sauce. If you’re really ravening you can request a fried duck egg to top it all off. The breakfast of kings, and those with moderate to severe hangovers.

Num Banh Chok

If you’re one of those people who has ever, in a moment of weakness, found yourself at the fridge consuming last night’s cold curry with your bare hands, then prepare thyself for a new dawn. Num banh chok, Cambodia’s breakfast curry, is a national treasure as unique to the country as Angkor Wat or Howies Bar. Recipes vary noticeably from province to province, but the heart of the dish is constant: a whorl of thick rice noodles unceremoniously dumped in a bowl, fresh bean sprouts, chillies and herbs, ladled with a mild fish-based coconut curry. This is topped by wild herbs, long beans and lotus stems. A twist of fresh lime completes your breakfast curry.

Kuyteav

A Phnom Penh breakfast icon which, according to legend, cannot be truly replicated outside the capital’s environs. Of course, kuyteav is offered at roadside stalls from Poipet to Bavet, but what makes the city’s version special is its direct provenance from the first influx of Chinese immigrants centuries ago; the dish has remained unchanged ever since. The premise is simple: vermicelli noodles dipped in pork bone broth, and mixed with whatever remaining bits of said pig are to hand. The secret of kuyteav’s success is in the seasoning – an array of lettuce leaves, bean sprouts, herbs and caramelised garlic can be added during the cooking process, or presented separately for your individualised dining pleasure. Recipes are handed down as heirlooms and range widely from family to family, making kuyteav the adrenalin sport of breakfasts. But if you want the real deal, head to the corner of street 107 and Oknha Tep Phan: Phnom Penh kuyteav was born in this area, and it was here that it was first resurrected after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

A bite of world history for breakfast? All of a sudden that caramel latte starts to look just a little less tempting.

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is practically impossible to talk about French food without coming off like a pretentious wanker. Mere iteration of words such as rillettes, escargots and worse, coq au vin is often sufficient to leave many non-Francophones scurrying for the hills, or at least in search of their dictionary. It is thus with some trepidation that we embark upon a review of La P’tite France, which has recently relocated from the Riverside to BKK1: writing about food is hard enough; writing about food which puts the haughty in haute cuisine is, to say the least, intimidating.

Entering La P’tite France, all such trepidation fades. This may be something to do with the immediate arrival of a carafe of crisp rosé wine ($10) and a continually replenished plate of homemade crisps (whether crisps are a quintessential element of French dining is a moot point, but free crisps rarely elicit complaints from anyone). The outside dining area, overhung with tropical greenery and tinged with the fragrance of frangipani flowers, completes the relaxation process; the chocolate box Monet prints which adorn the interior are less pleasant, but hardly offensive.

As should be the case in any French eatery, the alcohol menu is extensive. Aperitifs take up a page of their own, as do digestifs, with Armagnac, Courvoisier and calvados nestling up to bottles of Muscadet and Chablis. The Kir Royale is oh-so temping, but at $7 seems a little decadent. There are of course non-alcoholic drinks on offer, but people, we are in France!

And, being in France, we must act like proper gourmands. The food selection provides ample opportunity to do so, being replete with meals emblematic of the age-old conundrum of how French women eat this stuff and yet remain thinner than the rest of us. A mere perusal of the starters is enough to pile on the pounds: pork pate laced with Armagnac, chicken liver salad, duck fois gras on toasted brioche… all very naughty. The main courses are a carnivore’s playground: surely it’s illegal to make customers choose between roasted duck in raspberry confit or prime rib eye in pepper sauce? Disappointingly, there are only three fish dishes on offer, unless you count whelks as fish, which hopefully no one does. Pizza and pasta are also available, for the unadventurous.

The Steak La P’tite France, the restaurant’s signature dish, comes perfectly cooked and garnished, although the accompanying skinny fries look less fine dining, more fast food. Maybe a more grown-up incarnation of the humble potato would be more fitting. Big fat chips, for example. The pan-fried red mullet is both crispy and delicate, with just the right amount of salsa verde, providing a perfect excuse for much plate-mopping with the complimentary homemade bread.

No French dining experience is complete without a cheese platter; there is probably some law in France that actually mandates the consumption of cheese after every meal. La P’tite’s comes with Camembert, Brie and a mild blue, alongside slices of apple and walnuts. The cheeses themselves could be stronger, but perhaps La P’tite France is making a concession to palettes not wholly accustomed to cheeses which smell hellish but taste like heaven.

The rest of the desserts are also classiques: chocolate mousse, profiteroles, a hot melty tarte tatin topped with ice cream. And the somewhat mysterious but welcome offer of ‘extra alcohol or cream, $2’ with any pudding; who could resist? To round it all off, the attentive staff deliver a complimentary shot of passion fruit liqueur unbidden to the table. That kind of liberté, égalité and fraternité really cannot be beaten.

La P’tite France, #38 St. 306; 016 64 26 30; laptitefrance.com.

 

There’s no denying it: Phnom Penhites just want to get high. At this very moment in the city’s most salubrious neighbourhoods people are clamouring for hits from the bong faster than the poor bongs can keep up, and the only high worth chasing is of the caffeinated variety. With the approximately two square miles of BKK1 now overloaded with ‘Western-style’ coffee shops, most coffee drinkers, Cambodian as well as expat, seem to be eschewing the traditional brew in favour of frappuccinos, free wifi and, God save us all, endless Michael Buble ear-assaults. The real Cambodian cup of coffee seems in danger of disappearing into this vortex of naff.

For although it can in no way claim the fame of its drippy Vietnamese neighbour, nor indeed the notoriety of that same nation’s ‘weasel coffee’, Cambodia does indeed have a national brew, grown on the red earth of the North Eastern provinces, roasted and enjoyed in its own unique fashion throughout the Kingdom.

Introduced during the French era alongside those two other Cs, croissants and colonialism, the coffee grown in Cambodia is mainly of the ‘Robusta’ variety, which is in flavour somewhat robuster (ba-boom! I’m here all week, folks) than the more highly prized Arabica. These days, according to Phnom Penh-based roasters Three Corner Coffee, around 70%  of beans grown on Cambodian soil end up in the hands of Vietnamese middle-men, whence they are sold across the border and used to bulk up Vietnamese produce.

Luckily, some coffee contrives to remain in-country, ensuring you can find the authentic cup of Khmer coffee if you’re willing to try hard enough. Keep your eyes peeled as dawn breaks and you’ll see tin drums full of steadily blackening beans lining the roadside, with the occasional lump of pig fat bobbling merrily in the mix. Once charred, the beans are hand-ground into fine dust and then poured into the glamorously named ‘coffee sock’, a muslin bag through which boiled water is poured up to three times. The coffee is then ready to pour over the requisite spoonage of condensed milk. For Cambodian coffee can be taken hot or iced, but only a madman takes it without a dollop of My Boy milk; no questions asked, it’s just the way it is.

Curiously, in that very heartland of pseudo-European coffee-shops, BKK1, there exist two mom and pop places defiantly roasting and boiling their own coffee. You have to get up early to catch Mr Dol on Street 51 and 322, whose blue plastic chairs and floral tables unfold with the dawn and whose roasting is done while most of us are still abed. His syrupy 2,000 riel shots come with free Chinese tea and your choice of pork and rice or, well, pork and rice. A little further south working the corners of BKK market there’s Mrs Nuon, who runs a one-woman mobile operation that roasts, grinds, boils and serves all at once, with never a cessation in conversation from clientele or proprietress.

Further afield, a morning cruise round the streets south of Toul Tom Pong market allows you to follow your nose to places that are roasting their own. Should this fail-safe method fail, head for the hole-in-the-wall cafe at the intersection of streets 432 and 163, where roasting pig fat and free-flow condensed milk never smelled so good. And if you’re not an early-riser there’s always Mr Bounnareth’s coffee stall inside the market itself, identifiable by its inexplicable Brazilian flags and jovial owner. While Mr Bounnareth undeniably serves up a deliciously thick and strong double shot for only a dollar, be warned: he and his establishment are teetering on the brink of self-parody. Catch him and his coffee before tradition becomes farce and you have to contend with hordes of snap-happy tourists just to get your iced coffee.

Mr Dol, Street 51 (cnr Street 322)
Mrs Nuon, mobile coffee cart, BKK Market
Cafe, Street 432 (cnr Street 163)
Mrs Bounnareth’s stall, Russian Market