skip to main |
skip to sidebar
We finally got around to visiting one of the local micro-breweries last weekend - the Munich Beer Restaurant. Although it was quiet in the afternoon when we stopped in for a tasting session, apparently this place gets very busy at night and is particularly popular with the Khmer. There are two styles currently on offer - Munich Gold and Munich Stout - although i'm uncertain what either has to do with Munich. At $1.10 or $1.50 for a small glass the prices are reasonably competitive with the local mega-swill which goes for $1 or 75 cents in happy hour. The menu made me a little nervous as the pictures seemed to show some very cloudy beer, and both beers are indeed very cloudy for any commercial or even home-brewed beer. The stout is a lot more drinkable at around 4% alcohol than most of the tropical stouts available here, and has a strong coffee aroma and flavour, but somehow seemed to lack complexity to me with the coffee being so dominant. The Munich Gold was much more drinkable. Despite the clarity issues it has a noticeable malt and hop flavour profile, medium bitterness, and a hoppy nose. It took me a while to work it out, but what really makes this beer stand out here is that it is an ale, the first one I have found in South East Asia. If I had to compare it to a commercial brand it would be something along the lines of a Coopers Pale Ale (although it's even cloudier). Unfortunately, I don't know the history of the restaurant or where the brewer learnt his craft. One thing that did make me chuckle was that someone in the restaurant is employed to sit inside the brewery next to a glass window and pour the beers which are ordered in the restaurant apparently direct from the conditioning tank. Overall, i'm not sure if the quality of the beer here deserves a return visit but it is refreshing to see someone doing something different to the big commercial breweries.The Munich Beer Restaurant is at #86 Sothearos Boulevard, Phnom Penh.
Phnom Penh has been getting some unseasonally heavy rain over the last few weeks. After speaking to locals and ex-pats who have been here a while it appears that these early rains don't consitute the arrival of monsoon season (although monsoon is imminent), but it does provide a taster of what we have in store for the next 6 months or so. Em snapped this photo of street 352 last week, just outside her office, after a particularly long and torrential downpour. It seems the drains and sewers here are woefully inadequate to deal with this intensity of rainfall and apparently floods like this can be a daily occurrence in some parts of Phnom Penh during monsoon. Em really struggled to get home from work on this particular day. Hazards to watch out for include the drain covers being forced up by the water pressure leaving gaping holes for you to disappear down, as well as wading through a dilute cocktail of raw sewage and other nasties. The cities many rats also come up from the sewers during rain this heavy and need somewhere high and dry to hole up. The evening of this storm we went to one of our local bars where I saw a very large rat run across the floor and under the benches. Although cooling rain sounds like a great idea right now in the height of the hot season I suspect that monsoon isn't going to be much fun.
Check out this bad boy which I picked up at Pencil the other day.
Features include; retractable recharging plug, protective grill so you don't electrocute yourself (or Emma), light to attract the flying critters to your web of doom, and a satisfying big red button for distributing justice. All for the bargain basement price of 3 bucks. We had a few bugs in our bedroom last night which gave me the opportunity to take it for a spin. It's a little more powerful than I expected (think of the cracking sound one of those electrocutor things on the wall at the butcher makes). I also made the mistake of swatting a bug against a nice fluffy pillow which I won't do again. Em is convinced this new found power will go to my head and i'll be dancing around on the bed in my undies like a blood drunk hunter every night. I have no idea what she's talking about...hmmm I wonder if you could make a double headed Darth Maul version...
Em & I visited O'Russei Market this morning, it's a great market much more geared towards locals than tourists. We couldn't believe it when Em discovered a cupcake stall, cupcakes mmm....
Well, you knew it was coming...the inevitable beer blog entry. Although there's no real ale in Phnom Penh, there are some half decent beers, so I decided to make an attempt to review the best of the local brews. My approach was to go out and buy one of every beer readily available here (from one of our local supermarkets "Pencil" which is good for buying beer and things made out of plastic but not much else), Em & I then sat down one afternoon and tasted them. I should say that some Western beers are easy to find here as well (Guiness, Heineken, Budweiser etc) but I haven't included them below.
The Largers
...a lot of them isn't there ? Some of these are from neighbouring countries (Thailand, Singapore, Laos) but are readily available in Phnom Penh so i've included them. Rather than providing tasting notes for all of these, i'm going to select some heroes and villains. First the villains, although i've had them both outside of Cambodia i'd have to say that Tiger & Singha didn't stack up well at all, lacking in flavour and with a really bad chemical aftertaste. The stand-outs were Chang, Anchor, Beer Lao, Leo & Angkor ("my country, my beer"). Chang (Thailand) and Anchor (Cambodia) in particular are crisp, clean, refreshing lagers with a slight hop flavour and noticeable bitterness. Chang won a gold medal at the Australian International Beer Awards a few years back apparently and I think it's well deserved. Angkor is very much the local brew here, widely available on tap in bars around town. Whilst it's not quite up to the standards of Chang & Anchor it's still very drinkable. Beer Lao (Laos) and Leo (Thailand) are also decent and worth a look. I had great difficulty ordering Anchor until I realised that they actually pronounce it with a soft ch (like much), presumably to differentiate it from Angkor which sounds the same in a noisy bar.
And now for something completely different...
There are 4 key ingredients for most beer ; water, barley, hops, yeast. This basic recipe is the result of centuries of experimentation by those trying to brew a tastier drop. So, i'm a little sceptical about anything that excludes one (or in this case two) of these ingredients. Khmer Palm Beer (Cambodia) uses palm sugar for it's fermentables and flavouring. Whilst it is great that this beer is made from locally sourced ingredients (barley & hops don't grow in the tropics), I honestly can't find anything to recommend it. A large part of the sugar must be unfermentable as it is very sweet, similar to an alcopop. It also doesn't keep well, lacking the preservative qualities of hops, so a bad bottle is a very frequent occurrence. At worst it can taste sour and sulphurous, like bad eggs.
The Stouts
There seems to be a strong tradition of stout drinking in tropical climates and there are three stouts readily available here at the moment. I'm not certain why they all clock in at 8%, it would be nice to see something at the lower end of the alcohol range for this style (4-6%). Stouts obviously are popular with the locals as you'll frequently see slabs of Black Panther at roadside bars. ABC (Singapore) has a coffee / chocolate aroma and pours with a creamy brown head. However, the roasted malt and coffee flavours are dominated by a strong 'burnt' flavour and noticeable alcohol. Black Panther (Cambodia) lacks in aroma and has poor head retention, it also has a noticeable unpleasant after-taste, not recommended. The pick of these for us was the Angkor Extra Stout (Cambodia) which has a coffee aroma, roasted malt and coffee flavours with a noticeable hop bitterness, and a good creamy head. With the abundance of lagers here, it's wonderful to find some beers with such strong character.
It's not quite Real Ale but it's not bad...
Finally, i've found this little gem is available in quite a few bars and at least a couple of bottle shops in Phnom Penh. Beer Lao Dark Lager (Laos) is something like a Vienna Lager or a Munich Dunkel. The alcohol isn't too noticeable at 6.5%,
it has a lovely dark bronze colour with a frothy white head. Although there isn't any noticeable hop flavour, and only a slight bitterness it has a lovely malty flavour and a light-medium mouthfeel. As a real ale drinker, this has become my drop of choice in Phnom Penh.So, that's it, the world of Phnom Penh beer in one blog post. Apparently, there are currently two "micro-breweries" in Phnom Penh which I haven't visited yet but will be sure to report here when I do !
I decided to hire a dirt bike for our trip to the seaside. It's a pretty good way to get around here as the roads are often not good and we thought it would be fun. I hired a Honda Baja 250cc from "The Bike Shop" which is a French run shop on street 302. The bikes here cost more to hire than the local shops but they seem in pretty good nick and are well maintained with genuine parts which seemed pretty important to me for our 500+km round trip.Despite not having ridden a bike since leaving Blighty 6 years ago, it was really easy to pick up again and I soon found myself blatting round Phnom Penh. So after strapping on our one small bag, Em took the very uncomfortable pillion position and we took off for Kep.
The number 3 highway to Kep wasn't all that great, some small stretches of dirt, not enough tarmac for two lanes, and some of the bridges were out or damaged which meant you had to take a detour through the dry river bed on dirt (not sure what they will do in the wet season). The result though was that we couldn't go too fast - our top speed for the whole trip to Kep was probably 50kmh - which was lucky as one of my few concentration lapses happened on the way when I started checking out a large Buddha Em was pointing out to me and ran off the road onto the verge by accident.
The low speed was also good for me to get acclimatised to Cambodian highway driving which is just as terrifying as Phnom Penh city driving but in different ways. When I passed my bike test back in the day I took an extra 2 day advanced course where the guy taught the art of "defensive riding". On English roads they didn't literally mean everyone else is "attacking" you but that was the mentality to develop ie: what if that car pulls out etc. In Cambodia, it's very important to have this mentality all the time as that car definitely will pull out and everyone is quite literally out to get you. I said in a previous post, bikes are pretty low in the road pecking order. So, if cars want to overtake on the single lane highways, and you're the only thing coming the other way, they'll pull out. Blind corner ? No worries, just pull out. Brow of a hill ? She'll be right, out you go. Very quickly you learn to ride almost in the gutter and eye off your potential runoff all the time.
Starting to develop that 1000 yard stare...
The other local road hazard I was introduced to on the way down was cows. These mangy looking specimens wander round trying to find a decent patch of grass and they'll just step out if they think it's on the other side of the road. Get that emergency stop ready...by the way the steaks are pretty terrible over here but that's another story.
We did some real dirt up and down Bokor Mountain for a day trip which was great fun, 30km of hairpins up and down the side of a mountain to see an old resort. The next hazard we encountered just after this on the way to Sihanoukville and to be fair it wouldn't happen all the time. It was Khmer New Year and one of the traditions is to throw water at people. I don't know why but I never saw this happen to anyone on foot. It seems to be mainly a motorised pursuit and everyone is fair game. The first time we saw a 'squadron' of moto's screaming down the highway with the pillions throwing water bombs at each other and the drivers, then some kids on the side of the road started throwing water bombs at Em & I as we whizzed past. The most spectacular was the sight of 2 open top trucks carrying 20 people each and a dustbin of water pass each other on the busy highway and everyone on board unload on the opposition using saucepans, buckets etc. Needless to say we got soaked multiple times, but I managed not to crash the bike.
Highway 4 back from Sihanoukville was a great road, only single carriageway but good tarmac all the way, fast, and it had proper road markings. The road markings don't really mean anything however. They had solid single white lines and solid double white lines in the middle of the road in a number of places, but on some occasions I couldn't see why and on others where they were definitely needed there were none. The whole exercise was academic though as I quickly realised that no-one pays any attention to them anyway. The thing is that everything I said before is still true (overtaking on blind corners, brows of hills, when you're coming the other way, double solid white lines etc) except that now it's happening at 100kmh. How's that verge looking now ? The added danger is that now there are swanky 4WD's & dark glass Lexus' coming flying up behind and overtaking you when you're trying to overtake the guy in front. The low points of the trip back were probably the articulated truck coming the other way deciding that we weren't big enough to worry about and pulling out to overtake another artic (we were run off the road yet again), and the black military 4WD overtaking us that almost took us out as I pulled out to overtake a slow van. I couldn't help wondering about the road death toll on the way back. It must be high, not just because of the poor driving standards and roads, but because people are frequently jammed into cars / trucks, hanging out the boot as they fly along, sitting on the roof of a van etc. We saw one cattle truck leaving Kep which must have had 100 + people in it...standing room only !
By this time my 1000 yard stare was fully developed. I found myself constantly looking way ahead up the road, in my mirrors, in my blind spot like a paranoid crazy man. At several points I was angry enough to vent with my horn, but it's really pointless as that isn't what the horn is for here. To be fair to the Cambodians, they've actually got this one right, the horn is used to say "hey, i'm here", and not "*!@# you, you crazy ^#*U%&@". The times they usually say "hey, i'm here" though are just after they've pulled out to overtake on the brow of a hill, oncoming into your path just before they run you off the road etc so I don't think I can really praise driving standards too highly.
Sorry for ranting but there is a point to all this. After 5 hours of extreme concentration that had left me feeling like a physical and mental wreck we arrived back into Phnom Penh. Ah, home sweet home, just a few kilometres to drive through streets we knew and well, kind of loved. But no, what's this, the traffic's being held up by some traffic police to let a government convoy through, and now we can go, but the cop is pulling me over, and i'm trying to ride round because I know why and oh no, it's too late I have to stop.
We'd heard all about the corrupt local coppers from friends, lounging around on the side of the road in groups of 4 or 5, waiting for a barang to come past, pulling them over on some trumped up charge and getting them to pay an "on the spot" fine. I'd already dodged them several times (they're too lazy to give chase if you just drive past) but this time i'd have had to ridden over the rozzer to escape which didn't seem like a good idea. We knew the right strategy to adopt, act innocent and dumb, smile a lot, negotiate heavily from their opening price to a figure of $1-$2 or so, and off you go.
After 500km of nightmare roads, and in my heightened mental state though I lost the plot a little bit, I started throwing my hands around and demanding to know why they'd pulled me over. They got a bit agitated and started mentioning the police station. The "charge" was that I didn't have a Cambodian drivers license, my international license doesn't cut it apparently. At this point Em wisely intervened and asked for the "on the spot" fine. We both laughed out loud when the old filth wrote down $70. Then we sat down on the ground and waited. I was still fuming, but Em did a great job to get them down to $3 which we paid. As we were leaving the tough guy who had given me a hard time came over and leering said "How much did you pay huh ?". Grrr...if only I was Eric Bana.
I know this is the lay of the land here. These guys only get paid $30 a month so supplementing their income this way is kind of understandable. I can't get it out of my head though that this kind of endemic corruption in society and institutions has and will continue to retard progress in this country.
All things considered, the bike was great fun (apart from very sore behinds) and we would both do it again.
Em & I had a great trip down to the seaside over Khmer New Year, lots of adventures to blog about when i'm feeling better (have been sick with a stomach bug). For now though, here is a link to the photo's :http://gallery.me.com/pete.andrews/100046
By far our favourite way of getting around PP is the ubiquitous Tuk Tuk or Moto-Romauk. Walking down the street you are constantly propositioned by these guys who all seem to have a different sales patter down. We now have a banter going with our local driver who hangs down the end of the street. The Tuk Tuks in Phnom Penh are more comfortable and less noisy than their Bangkok equivalents as they are really motorbike chariots (rather than the integrated 2 stroke versions in Thailand). The breeze is very welcome on a hot day and it's a great way to see the city and experience the insane traffic without any personal risk. Having said that, our Tuk Tuk was T-boned by a car on the roundabout the other day. Luckily like most crashes here it was low speed and no damage was done. A Tuk Tuk typically costs $1-$2 depending on distance and time of day. I think these guys must make pretty good money and i'm sure most of the moto drivers would aspire to get a tuk tuk one day, seems to me they are like the London cabbies of Phnom Penh.
Em & I have visited a cool bar / art gallery / cinema venue called Meta House a couple of times since we've been here, and we think it's going to be one of our regular hang-outs. As well as an art gallery downstairs, there is a rooftop terrace bar and open air cinema which shows a different film each night. The art scene here isn't all that developed yet and Meta House seems to attract twenty or so people (a mix of expats and Khmers depending what's showing) each night. Last week we watched a documentary filmed in 1989 which tracked progress in Cambodia following the fall of the Khmer Rouge. There were some keen local historians in the crowd, and the Q&A session with the film-maker was fascinating, particularly to put what we'd seen in context of current events and the ongoing Khmer Rouge tribunal. The Prime Minister Hun Sen was interviewed in the film and his youth and passion for change in 1989 made for a stark contrast with the current state of affairs.
Last night we went to see a very different set of films made by a young Khmer guy who is a master and teacher in the mon-Khmer martial art of Yuthakun Khom. Apparently Yuthakun Khom dates back a thousand years or so to the Angkor Empire, and it consists of kicking, punching, wrestling and lock type moves as well as some weapons work (staffs, swords etc). Despite only having one small digital camcorder, the 21 year old film-maker Norak Soeng has written, directed and starred in several films which resemble low-budget Hong Kong martial arts flicks or Kung Fu movies. The cast is made up of the students of the local club where he teaches. The movies were pretty funny, and the live voice-over also caused some laughs (classic lines such as "You bastard!" and "I love you too, babe"). The action highlights were probably the flying head kick to knock a guy off a motorbike (no stunt doubles here), and the flying knee lock around the head followed by a roll down some stairs. Don't ask me how I managed to get Em along to what was essentially a "boys night", but I think she enjoyed it too. The film-maker has apparently won some awards at the Apsara TV video competition last year and i'd say it's well-deserved, I suspect he would like to become a Khmer Bruce Lee and he does have all the ingredients - great martial art skills, an eye for action, as well as good looks and a foppish haircut. Good on these guys for getting up and doing this stuff on such a low budget and minimal equipment.
The guide for Meta-House is available at most cafe's and bars around town, and there's also a web-site for anyone who's interested ; http://www.meta-house.com
Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates of late. By way of catching up, here are a few random thoughts and happenings from the past week.
It's still stinking hot in Phnom Penh (30's & humid), but we've had a few dry electrical storms at night. We were at the FCC having a drink the other night when a dust storm blew in. It was fairly dramatic as the FCC has open sides to allow you to look out over the Mekong as you sip your Gin & Tonic. Gale force winds and dust forced everyone to retreat into the bar. Anyway, monsoon is supposed to be arriving very soon (2-4 weeks), and apparently it literally arrives in a day. I'll keep you posted !
Last night on the way home we spotted a couple of American missionaries on push-bikes (wearing the uniform white short sleeve shirt) who had stopped to spread the good word to some Khmer's hanging out on the street. I don't think they were getting very far, there were some pretty blank looking faces.
Well, next week is Khmer New Year. This is a big holiday in Cambodia and Phnom Penh will empty as most Khmer's head out to the provinces to spend time with family etc. Some very impressive lights and decorations went up in town yesterday. Em has 4 days off work for the holiday so we're taking the opportunity to head down to the coast - Kep, Kampot & Sihanoukville. I've hired a dirt-bike to ride down from Phnom Penh which should be fun.
Finally, i've also found some interesting blogs whilst i've been researching our upcoming adventures, these two are particularly good and worth checking out (the first is the blog of an English guy who has been living here a while by the sounds of it, and the second one provides news, commentary and video clips of the current Khmer Rouge trial which is taking place in town) :-
http://www.andybrouwer.co.uk/blog/
http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/index.php
Oh, and my nemesis...is a street sign on the corner of Street 240 & Norodom. As i've said before, tall people aren't really catered for very well in Cambodia. This particular street sign is right in the middle of the pavement (see my previous post about pavements), and at the perfect height to take out the top of my head. Em can pass under it just fine. I've now clocked myself on it twice, the last time I picked up a nasty bump and cut. Grrr....240 street sign, you'll get yours!
I've been renting a 100cc "Honda Wave" scooter for the last few days. It's surprisingly practical for getting around Phnom Penh and surrounds, even though it only has one wing mirror, the headlight and indicators are broken and I can't get it into first as the gearbox is stuffed. Anyway, I decided to take the beast out on a day-trip to Udong yesterday which is 45km north of Phnom Penh. Udong was the capital of Cambodia in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (after the decline of the Angkor Empire and before the capital migrated to Phnom Penh). There were around 10,000 people living there in the 1850's. Today, there is a large Buddhist Monastery, a few small villages and a number of crumbling old Stupa's on the hill which contain the ashes of kings and generals.
Riding through Phnom Penh was pretty crazy as usual, but the traffic eased up once I was out in the countryside which really is beautiful. The ride was alongside the Tonle Sap river for most of the way with paddy fields and fish farms on the other side. The people were very friendly, kids waving and practising their English on me as I buzzed past. Here's a short video clip taken in the outer suburbs of Phnom Penh - it's too dangerous to try this either in the city due to crazy traffic or in the countryside due to roaming cows, traffic on the wrong side of the road etc.
Arriving at Udong, a couple of kids on bikes rode up to me for a chat. They both had excellent English and were keen to show me around. I initially turned them down and scooted on to park the bike but they persevered and cycled after me to the parking spot. I figured it would be nice to have someone to chat to as travelling alone isn't much fun so I hired them as tour guides. Their names were Noch & Poona, and they were doing ad-hoc tour guiding in their spare time from school. As well as telling me all about the history which was interesting, we talked about school, jobs etc. It really struck me that these guys are not only bi-lingual at 17, but also have a real entrepeneurial spirit. In Australia, the UK and many other countries i'm sure they would have a great career ahead of them. Noch told me he wants to be a tour guide and they clearly are doing well here compared to a lot of people, but the lack of career opportunities is a real shame for young people. Having said that, there really is a positive spirit here in the kids which is great considering Cambodia's recent history and I think this is very encouraging for the future.
Here are a few more pics from the day, the one on the river is looking back across the Tonle Sap to Phnom Penh CBD - the Foreign Correspondents Club is in the middle I think for those who have been here.
So, getting around Phnom Penh can be pretty challenging. For a first time visitor to SE Asia, the crazy traffic and modes of transport are really remarkable so I thought i'd make a few blog notes on some of the ways we've been getting around town.
I'm starting at the bottom of the food chain and working up, Phnom Penh road rules at first sight are non-existent but there is structure and a simple rule-set here. Basically, if you're bigger than the other guy then you have right of way pretty much in any circumstances ie: a car has right of way over a tuk tuk, and a tuk tuk has right of way over a moto etc. For the pedestrian this unfortunately means that you really are at the bottom of the pile, just below ox carts and cyclists. Locals in Phnom Penh don't seem to walk much at all, catching moto's mostly or riding a scooter. It's only crazy barangs who will try to walk anywhere longer than a couple of blocks.
Pavements here look like they have been made by someone who has heard about the idea from a mate, and maybe seen a photo of one once, but really doesn't get what they are for. As the local businesses spill onto them, and people park cars on them, this means you have to walk in the road most of the time. On the rare occasions you can walk on the pavement you may well find someone driving a scooter along it. The town planners aren't going to win any awards for this beauty which is just outside our apartment...
The other traffic principle is for everyone to keep moving. Phnom Penh traffic doesn't move fast (maybe 30kmh maximum) but also it pretty much never stops. As a pedestrian if you're waiting for everyone to stop before you try to cross the road you'll be waiting a long time, including at pedestrian crossings (the "green man" is a flexible concept here). It's really a case of spotting your gap and moving slowly but confidently out into the traffic without making any sudden / unpredictable moves which could end up in a tangle with a moto. Em & I have been getting much better at this recently and an Irish tourist actually asked us for help crossing the road the other day. The green man here is pretty cool, he does this funky slow-mo run which gets quicker as the clock ticks down. Check out this clip, you can see the 4WD's, motorbikes etc blindly ignoring the crossing signal...
Yikes...you can see why none of the locals walk ;-)
Before we left Australia some friends recommended a Cambodian cooking class to us. As i'm taking my domestic responsibilities seriously I decided to do it yesterday. The main draw was actually a guided tour around one of the local food markets, with the guide pointing out and explaining all the local fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices and fish. The tour was great for me as at first glance the local markets are pretty inaccessible to a barang, and i'm keen not to be just another expat shopping at the well over-priced supermarket, where all the fruit, vege's, meat & fish come shrink wrapped in plastic and don't look very good quality at all. I also found out what I should be paying for some of the key ingredients which will be very useful in future for bargaining purposes. The markets are crazy, a real assault on the senses - colourful, noisy, smelly, crowded, hot - but great fun.
The guide shared a few interesting tidbits of information about food production and markets generally. The meat stalls are probably the least hygienic looking to a westerner, but apparently all the cuts are fresh each day (the animals are slaughtered just on the other side of the Tonle Sap river at a slaughteryard area each morning). We were shown how to spot a fresh (and not so fresh cut), although the way the meat was handled by everyone from stall holders to customers made me nervous about buying any of this due to hygiene.
Chicken and fish were quite different though, although there are some stalls with dead fish covered in flies and smelling rotten, with only a little bit of searching you can find one with live chickens and fish which are slaughered in front of you. We saw a chicken having it's neck cut and bled to death and a tiger-fish getting the pointy end of a cleaver. Also, crabs with their pincers tied up and live squid in large buckets. If you're going to buy this stuff at least you know it's fresh. I think i'll definitely buy both fish and chicken from the markets as soon as I can speak enough khmer to bargain. The fish is mostly fresh-water from both the Mekong / Tonle Sap rivers and increasingly fish farms.
As I mentioned before, there are a lot of familiar fruit and vege's here (potatoes, carrots, peppers etc), and a lot of not so familiar ones. Generally the fruit and veg all looks great, very fresh and colourful. However, the guide told us that until recently farmers used large quantities of pesticides / preservatives which over time made a lot of people sick. He didn't specify exactly how but I don't think it can be good. Supposedly, the government has regulated this recently though, and it's a bit safer now. You definitely have to cook, peel and wash everything though, again for hygiene purposes. Khmer people typically don't have refrigerators so they shop at the local market everyday.
After the market, it was back to a nice rooftop terrace to make some tasty Khmer cuisine. Cooking was very relaxed and great fun, there were around 10 of us in the group, mostly tourists but some expats too. We made (from left to right) Banana flower salad with Chicken, Fish Amok in Banana leaf cup, and Sticky Rice and Mango for dessert. Typically Khmer food isn't very hot, because most of the recipes have their roots in the Ankgor Empire (~800AD - ~1400AD) and the chilli wasn't introduced to Asia until the Portugese arrived in the 16th century. No-one seems to know why the Thai's adopted the chilli so widely but the Cambodian's didn't. As I like hot food though, I added large amounts of small hot chilli's to my dishes. It was all delicious, partly I think because we hand-ground all the herbs & spices in a mortar & pestle.
Overall, i'm not sure how much i'll cook khmer style food at home. The dishes require a large number of ingredients and it's actually way cheaper to buy this out at a nice restaurant than to make it yourself. For example, the Tiger Fish for fish amok alone would cost $7 US / kilogram at the market and you could buy 2 plates of amok at a nice restaurant for $3 US each. I guess, we could do this for guests / dinner parties occasionally though.
If anyone is interested in the recipes for any of the above (i'm looking at you Nerida!), let me know in the comments or by email and i'll send them through. I'd also recommend the cooking class to anyone visiting Phnom Penh - check out http://www.cambodia-cooking-class.com for details.
As most of you already know i'm a sucker for potatoes. It's probably my English upbringing or something. When we decided to move to Cambodia I was a bit apprehensive about a whole year without my favourite food, but was resigned to getting by with Fish Amok and other tasty Khmer dishes. So, I was pretty surprised to find potatoes first in the supermarket, and then on most market stalls in Phnom Penh vege markets. Sure, it's obviously not their biggest seller, but they're not too expensive either ($1 US / kilogram at the supermarket and cheaper at the market).
I consider myself a potato crusader, and frequently bore my friends with "...potato is a super-food" type comments, but I was genuinely surprised that the potato plant could be so versatile as to grow in tropical climates. Anyway, I did some internet research, and it turns out that, yes, potatoes are grown in SE Asia. Apparently, countries like Thailand and Vietnam are increasingly rotating potatoes and rice (rice in the wet season and potatoes in the dry season). I guess this means that potato harvest is right about now, and hopefully doesn't mean I won't be able to buy them any other time of the year. I haven't been able to work out what variety they sell here, there seems to be only one and it's red, a little like desiree. I also haven't been able to work out yet whether they're actually grown in Cambodia or are imports from Thailand / Vietnam, but my gut feeling tells me that if the local market has them they should be local produce.
Regardless, I baked some the other night and they were top. If you've made it this far through the dullest blog entry in the history of the internet, you owe it to yourself to check out these two web-sites - some funny pics and a great ode to Mr Potato Head.
http://lanra.dac.uga.edu/potato/index.htmlhttp://www.potato2008.org/en/index.html
1. Avoid angry middle eastern men at the department store who are shouting into their mobile phone, at their wife and at the shop assistants
2. Cambodian cutlery stores don't sell knives...fork & spoon set anyone ?3. If you drop a box of eggs by accident in a Cambodian supermarket you have to pay for them
4. Cambodian mop handles are designed for people who are 3 feet tall
5. Beer should be made from Barley and not Sugar Palm
Em has been working hard on her first tender which is due on Monday (and also the reason she hasn't had time to blog). Meanwhile, i've spent a couple of days checking out houses & apartments with some local real estate agents. I approached two agents who both spoke excellent English and drove me round to check places out. I think I maybe looked at 20 in total, some houses, some apartments mainly in the BKK1, Chak Tomuk, Tonle Basak & Russian Market areas. I saw a few houses which had live in maids and were enormous (think high ceilings, ceiling fans, blinds, verandas and dark wood everywhere...very colonial). I soon realised though that as we both only had one bag each with us, an apartment was the right choice.
The very first place I saw was really nice, a brand new 2 bed apartment on the second floor of a small block in Chak Tomuk, close to Em's work. The irony is that after viewing another 20 or so, it's the one I ended up taking.
Doing the deal was a good insight to Khmer culture. I'd already negotiated and agreed the rent with the real estate agent (apparently I paid a bit too much but it's hard to know this stuff when you're straight off the boat) so it was just the formalities to take care of. Cash is king here, so I was picked up by the real estate agent with a wad of $50 notes burning a hole in my pocket. We arrived at the landlady's house at the bottom of the block which was very posh. She only speaks Khmer & French so I made a minor fool of myself attempting some schoolboy french. I removed my shoes (customary when going into someone's house) and went inside. The landlady's sister and her friend also arrived so there were now 5 of us seated around a low table. The landlady brings out water for everyone. The signing of the contracts ensued with every detail being highlighted and discussed (with the real estate agent translating for me). I have to say the whole experience was very open, transparent and business like and the formality lends it an assuring weight. The entourage then proceeded upstairs to check everything in the flat together. So there it is, we have an apartment and we move in on Saturday. Here are a few mugshots from the real estate website to give you an idea :-
For anyone house hunting in Phnom Penh, I can definitely recommend both Zone Real Estate and Bonna Realty Group. English speakers can ask for Rithy or Salen respectively. Bonna also have a great website where you can search for properties http://www.bonnarealty.com. Best advice I can give is negotiate hard !
Posts
