a few good meals

It is possible, I suppose, that I’ll become a little blase about the faaabulous food on offer after a few months. I am currently, however, light years away from blase about the comestibles.


Pleas salad, near the bus station, Phnom Penh
Sadly, this had to be eaten all too quickly as the bus to Sihanoukville was waiting outside. White fish cured ceviche style in lime with peanuts, more lime, chilli, onion, basil, and mint, all wrapped up in a banana leaf. Pleas salad is apparently a Cambodian specialty to which I am inexorably, predictably drawn to say, yes, please.

Fried squid with pepper salt and crab with ginger, Occheuteal Beach, Sihanoukville.

The poor little squidlets suffered the fate of the wallflower in this meal. They were delicious – tender, peppery little morsels seared on a grill – but their charms were nothing compared to the crab with ginger. I have learnt, to my great pleasure, that dishes advertised ‘with ginger’ are not stir fried with a measly few slabs of ginger, but properly cooked with handfuls of julienne ginger. What you see here is a couple of whole crabs, wok cooked in ginger, sweet soy, and oil. The niceties of claw-crackers and crab picks were dispensed with, the beach being about three metres away. This was a Maltese Falcon dish: the stuff that dreams are made of. Note too the Angkor beer on the side, brewed here in Sihanoukville. It is probably highly vulgar to add that this meal cost $7 but add it I do.

Eggplant in oyster sauce and chicken with ginger, stall 16, Angkor Thom
My experiences with the hawkers and food stalls around the Angkor temples were varied. The gristle spring rolls (see below) made me cautious. A vegetable noodle soup, apparently made with rooster stock, was more miss than hit. These two dishes, however, were amaaazing. The eggplant was peeled before stir-frying in oyster sauce and loads of oil with garlic, an innovation that I will emulate when next in the vicinity of a wok. Uninterrupted by the bothersome skin, the texture was consistent, a firm gooey sponge for the sauce. So very, very good. The chicken and ginger were presented in equal proportions on plate number two, also an excellent move. The ginger was young – so I must plagiarise John Lanchester and invoke the vague whiff of infanticide which accompanies all young and baby vegetables – and its youth imparted to the poulet a sharp pinkness which bore no threat of bird flu. The sprinking of shallots on both dishes confirmed the righteousness my love for this humble aromatic.

PS: if the only reasonably contraction of travel blog is trog, is it possible that a food/travel blog could qualify as a frog?