Angkor What?
A disclaimer: Cambodia is one of my favorite countries in the world. I spent three weeks there in December 2003, and fell in love with the landscape and the people, and developed a long-standing fascination with the country’s painful history. I will add that although it is not one of my top 5 food destinations in the world, I have some great culinary memories from Cambodia: fresh crab purchased right off the fisherman’s boat; whole grilled frogs; a chicken nabbed from the yard, plucked, and served piping hot 20 minutes later; fruit shakes at roadside stalls; lots of cold Angkor beer. Now, I assure you I was not expecting to re-create these experiences on a cold rainy fall day in NYC. But maybe I was just hoping for a few reasonably priced dishes, an un-pretentious dining atmostphere, and warm Khmer smiles. Too much to ask?
produce market in Siam Reap
market in Phnom Penh
buying crab for our dinner straight off the boat
I had a sense that there were a few Cambodian restaurants in town, and after doing just a little bit of research, I found out I was right: there WERE a few Cambodian restaurants in town, but as of late 2009, there appears to only be one — Kampuchea, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Cambodian Cuisine (turn down volume before clicking link), formerly in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, and most recently on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, closed early this year. Looking though forums and comments on articles like this one by Matthew Fishbane at Salon.com, I found that a number of people had come to the Internets before me looking for an answer to the same question: isn’t there any authentic Cambodian in the city? What about the outer boroughs? What about the supposed Cambodian community in the Bronx? What I could gather was that there are a couple of Cambodian markets in that area, but it seems that the only restaurant in town right now is Kampuchea. So we figured we had better give it a try.
Kampuchea sits on the corner of Allen and Rivington Streets, a constantly changing area where Chinatown and hipster-LES push against each other, vying for dominance of the neighborhood. We arrived early on a Saturday evening, and since the dining crowds don’t arrive until much later, were promptly seated at a choice table. The restaurant has a warm atmosphere, perfect for fall: beautiful long dark wooden tables, wood walls, a soft glow from candles at each table, the open kitchen, small seasonal squashes decorating the bar. One of the flanel-shirt-and-black-jeans (the uniform and current standard issue hipster wear) clad servers brought us menus and took our drink orders. The drink menu featured a number of yummy sounding cocktails, regional beers on tap, and a nice wine list. Noticeably lacking from the menu were any Cambodian beers, or even any common SE Asian lagers. No Angkor beer, no Tiger, not even Singha! I ordered a cocktail called a Bon Om Tuk, not because it sounded more authentically Cambodian (Bom Om Tuk is the name of the Cambodian water festival) than a lychee martini, but because the combination of ingredients were curious: cachaça (Brazilian sugar cane liquor), chili puree, lime brown sugar. The result was something like a caipirinha with a hint of chili. Not bad, but not Cambodian. Noquar satisfied himself with a Sierra Nevada, and Supereg seemed to enjoy his Troeg from Harrisburg, PA.
Since the cured duck salad wasn’t ready yet, we started the meal with a spicy chicken salad and grilled fall vegetables. The chicken salad was tasty — a mixture of shredded chicken, cabbage, bell pepper, sprouts, and crushed peanuts. The small order of grilled fall vegetables were doused in olive oil and pesto, and nicely presented. Nice flavors, not Cambodia.
Our main dishes arrived a few minutes later. I ordered the pork katiev, hoping it would resemble the Cambodian kuyteav or kuy thiew depending on your preferred latin spelling. The $13 bowl of rice noodles in pork broth came topped with a few choice pieces of Duroc pork, sprouts, and some sort of green paste. Again, tasty, but definitely not any better than a $4.50 bowl of pho from one of the Vietnamese joints a few blocks away. Authentically Cambodian? Doubtful.
The most disappointing moment of the night was when Supereg’s crispy pork belly arrived. You know when you go to a really nice restaurant and the very expensive main dish comes out and its a beautiful presentation of three pieces of meat, and that’s it? That was the pork belly. I thought the server said he was coming back with the rice, but what he actually said was he was coming back with Noquar’s chilled rice vermicelli, a cold dish of thin rice noodles, grilled pork, Chinese sausage, egg, sprouts, and seasoning. Luckily Supereg had ordered a side order of pickled vegetables, or his meal would have consisted of just three little pieces of juicy, delicious, where’s-the-rest pork belly.
So what am I trying to get at here? The food at Kampuchea is undoubtedly good. But it is about 8,000 miles from authentic Cambodian, so don’t expect to satisfy your urge for noodles like you had at stalls in Phnom Penh. And apparently, the owner, a Cambodian but raised from a young age in America, isn’t going for authenticity at all. As he told Fishbane for the Salon article, “I was born in Cambodia, I love my food, I love my country, I eat my food, and I interpret it my way. I grew up here in the United States, and I want to move my flavors along.” He calls it a “tribute to street food” but is the first to admit it’s not the real deal. Ok, at least no one is trying to dupe us.
Not quite satisfied with our meal at Kampuchea, we decided to drive up to Battambang Market II in the Bronx the next day. Our goal was to find out if maybe, just maybe there was a hidden gem of a Cambodian restaurant in the area, and if not, to purchase the appropriate ingredients for creating a Cambodian meal at home.
The small but well-stocked Battambang Market sells all sorts of fresh and packaged foods from Southeast Asia. Since the ingredients in Thai and Vietnamese cooking are similar to those for Cambodian cuisine, you are likely to find what you need to cook meals from these countries as well. Chili and curry pastes, enormous bags of rice, and dried noodles are opposite fresh produce of familiar and unusual varieties. In the refrigerator, fresh items shipped all the way from SE Asia are kept fresher for longer, including a few on my shopping list: kaffir lime leaves, holy basil, and galangal. We stocked up on what we needed for our dinner and then some. Some experimental durian popsicles were added to the cart (not so good) along with chili spiced pickled mango (surprisingly delicious).
At the counter, we finally found the warm Khmer smile and friendliness that we were looking for. The owner, a sweet middle-aged Cambodian woman, asked if we had been to her country. When I replied yes, she proceeded to ask me where I had been (all over), whether I’d liked it (are you kidding, I loved it!), when I’m going back (soon, I hope). We asked how long she has lived here (30 years) and how often she goes back (went back for the first time in 2004 and again this year). She just recently opened a hotel along the river in Battambang, and recommends we get in touch with her about accommodations before our next visit. She also told us that there are no Cambodian restaurants in NYC. Bummer.
With everything we needed to make a delicious Cambodian dinner, we headed back to Brooklyn and I began preparing the feast. I made two dishes, and found both of the recipes online. The chicken soup is from Frizz restaurant in Phnom Penh and the crispy noodle salad from the aforementioned Salon.com article by Matthew Fishbane. Despite the fact that it took me 4 tries before I could get the crispy noodles right, everything turned out fantastic in the end. If only we could have enjoyed all that food with an Angkor beer. We’ll keep looking.
three attempts at not burning the crispy noodles
I think your durian popsicle is still in your freezer. You’d better get on that before I feel like I’m ready for seconds.
Hadn’t been on the site in a while. You guys really do an awesome job with this. The photos, the descriptions, the stories. Keep up the great work!
Glad to see the old Crispy Noodle Salad recipe being put to the test. Sorry about not being more specific with “hot oil” there — the trick is to dip a single strand of rice noodle to test the oil’s readiness. It’ll puff after a few seconds if you’re cooking at the right temperature.
Good also to see another eater confronting the tricky sides of the authenticity trap. Best of luck with the project.
Thanks for leaving a comment Matthew. And thanks for your great article, and the Crispy Noodle Salad recipe. Once I got the noodles right it was incredible! Can’t believe I didn’t think of testing a single strand. That makes a lot of sense.
that looks really good i would want to know more about the cambodian way maybe one day visit i
heared the people thre are the sweetest people on earth even after all they been through