Khmer food: what to order, and where

This is what to order, in what order, and where, from the team that runs Cambodia out of our Hanoi office.

The pantry, in four items

Understanding these four explains almost every plate you will be handed.

Prahok. Fermented freshwater fish paste, pungent on its own, and the salt-and-savoury backbone of Khmer cooking. Most of the time you will not see it and you will taste its effect. Eaten straight, as prahok ktis with pork and coconut and raw vegetables, it is a much stronger proposition and worth trying once.

Kroeung. The yellow, red or green spice paste pounded from lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, kaffir lime and garlic. It is what makes amok taste like amok.

Palm sugar. Cambodia is a sugar palm country and the sugar is smoky and caramel-toned rather than simply sweet. Watch it being made near Kampong Speu if your route passes.

Kampot pepper. Grown on the red soil below the Bokor plateau and genuinely different from ordinary black pepper: floral, hot at the back rather than the front. Green peppercorns still on the stem, thrown into a squid stir-fry in Kep, are one of the great things to eat in Asia.

Breakfast, which is the meal to get up for

Cambodians eat their most interesting food before eight in the morning, and visitors who take breakfast at the hotel miss it entirely.

Num banh chok. Fresh rice noodles under a pale green fish gravy made with lemongrass and turmeric, topped with a heap of raw banana flower, cucumber, bean sprouts and water lily stems, all of which you pile on yourself. Sold from a basket carried through the streets, usually gone by nine. About a dollar and the single most Cambodian thing you can eat.

Kuy teav. The morning noodle soup: pork and dried-squid broth, rice noodles, fried garlic, herbs, a plate of extras beside it. Every town has a stall that is better than the others and everyone in that town knows which one.

Bai sach chrouk. Thin pork slices grilled over charcoal, served over broken rice with pickled cucumber and a bowl of clear broth on the side. Around $2, sold on street corners from six until it runs out.

The dishes to order at lunch and dinner

Fish amok. Freshwater fish with kroeung and coconut cream, steamed in a banana-leaf cup until it sets to a savoury custard. The version most visitors get is a thin curry in a leaf, which is not the same thing. A properly steamed amok has a soft, mousse-like texture. This is the dish worth spending a little more on, at a serious kitchen, at least once.

Lok lak. Beef in a dark peppery sauce, served over lettuce, tomato and raw onion, with a fried egg on top and a small dish of lime juice, salt and cracked Kampot pepper beside it. Dip the beef. This is the dish that converts people, and it is on every menu in the country for good reason.

Samlor korko. The national soup, a thick vegetable and fish or pork stew with toasted ground rice and prahok. Rustic, sour, and the thing Cambodian families actually eat at home.

Samlor machu. The sour soup family, made with tamarind or lime, usually with fish. Light, and welcome in the heat.

Cha kdav. The catch-all stir-fry with kroeung and holy basil. Ordinary in the wrong place and excellent in the right one.

Kep crab with green Kampot pepper. Crabs are kept in baskets in the sea at the Kep crab market and cooked when you order. Messy, cheap, and the reason we route people through Kep at all.

Nom krok. Small coconut rice cakes cooked in dimpled pans, sweet and savoury at once, sold in the late afternoon.

Grilled river fish at the Tonle Sap. Simple, whole, charred, eaten with rice and a lime and pepper dip.

Fruit, and one honest warning

Rambutan, mangosteen, longan, jackfruit, dragon fruit and mango, sold from carts by the kilo, are all worth the detour. So is palm fruit in season.

Durian divides people, and Cambodian durian from Kampot has a serious local reputation. Try it outdoors. Most hotels ban it from the rooms, which tells you everything.

Where to eat, city by city

Phnom Penh has the country’s best eating and it is having a very good decade. There is a serious modern Khmer movement here, chefs cooking regional recipes with technique and proper sourcing, at $30 to $60 a head. There is also excellent street eating around the Russian Market and the Central Market, and a strong French colonial hangover in the bakeries. Two nights is enough to do both.

Siem Reap has the widest range and the most tourist-oriented restaurants in the country, which means the gap between the best and worst tables is enormous. The rule that works: walk away from Pub Street. Ten minutes in almost any direction, or across the river, and prices halve while quality rises. Wat Bo and the Kandal Village area are where we book.

Battambang is a working provincial town with the best-preserved colonial architecture in the country and almost no visitors eating in it. Good markets, good river fish.

Kampot and Kep are about pepper and crab, and about the pepper farms in the countryside between them, which are a genuinely good half day and take you into small-scale agriculture rather than a demonstration. Our food and culture route builds this in.

What is overrated

The apsara dinner shows. Buffet food, amplified music, a coach park. The dancing itself is a serious classical form, so see it properly at a dedicated performance instead, or see the circus at Phare, which is trained by the same arts school in Battambang and is very good.

“Happy” pizza and herb-infused menus in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Widely advertised, unregulated, and a bad idea on a trip you have paid for. We would leave it alone.

The Angkor sunrise breakfast box. Not the food’s fault, but eating a lukewarm packed breakfast in a crowd of two thousand is not a meal. Eat properly afterwards in town.

Anything advertised as authentic in three languages on Pub Street. The good version of the same dish is a five-minute walk away and half the price.

Eating safely, briefly

Most advice on this is either fear or bravado. The practical version: the busy stall is the safe stall, because turnover means nothing has been sitting. Anything cooked in front of you off a grill or out of boiling broth is very low risk. The realistic risks are raw herbs washed in tap water and ice from an unattended bucket, not the meat. Do not drink the tap water, including for teeth. Give your stomach two days before you eat four unfamiliar meals in one.

Dietary requirements, honestly

Vegetarian is workable in Cambodia and it needs arranging rather than requesting at the table, because prahok and fish sauce are in a great deal of what looks like a vegetable dish. There is a Buddhist vegetarian tradition to build on, and Siem Reap and Phnom Penh both have restaurants that do it properly. Tell us early and our Hanoi office briefs the restaurants and the guides in Khmer, which works far better than a card handed over at the door.

Plan this trip

Tell us how much of your Cambodia trip should be about the food, and a specialist will build the days around it, with the markets, the pepper farms and the tables booked. Free first outline, no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Cambodia, the complete guide to planning your trip
• Food and culture in Cambodia, 11 days
• Cambodia beyond Angkor: Battambang, Kampot and the coast
• Cambodia for the first time
• What does a trip to Cambodia cost?
• All our Cambodia trips

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