Cambodia Diaries - 20 December 2011

Food and Drink

Let it not be said: John Honney does not like his food! As we approach the season of over-indulgence it seemed as good a time as any to broach the subject of how we keep body and soul together.

Food Glorious Food

Those who have ever had the pleasure and daunting task of being feed by my mother will not be too surprised to hear that one of the first questions I am posed upon arriving on foreign shores is: "What's the food like?"

In view of Cambodia's relevantly recent flirtation with starvation (the effects of which are often still evident) it's a question that is worth asking. However, that was then and the reality of now for a lot of people, but sadly not all, is that food is plentiful and rather good.

Whilst there is much I will be happy to leave behind, I will say this however; of all the places I have visited and lived in, when it comes to food and drink, PP is one of the best for sheer bang for your bucks…as long as your expectations are not to Michelin end!

Of course we all fall into the trap of being PP centric and visits to the provinces can often tell a different story and sometimes, one takes a sharp intake of breath upon seeing certain hygiene issues shall we say. But generally speaking, I tip my hat towards PP.

This being said however, the national cuisine may lack the spicy and fragrant tastes of our Thai neighbours, but the influence is there, albeit turned down a notch. The Cambodian curry called 'amok' makes a korma seem like a vindaloo in comparison, but is pleasant enough and the other national dish is called 'lok lak' and is really only stir fried beef. Frankly, if you cannot nail a 'lok lak' then you've got issues!

But the provision of fruit and veg is everywhere and more often than not, a tomato actually tastes like a tomato which in the vacpac world of monolith uberstores in the west, cannot always be said.

The meat well that can be a different story! I get mine from a German who imports it in. Biking a lot around the countryside let's just say the sight of some of the scrawny beef heard is not appetising. Neither was the sight that greeted me one day as I rode through a village market…BBQing dog!

Down the coast is a place called Kep and you can feast for a pittance on great seafood that is literally, just out the water. It was down in Kep that I finally tried one….

I've been coming to Asia for 20 odd years and had never eaten a durian fruit. This is due to the fact that it stinks and the aroma, which hits you way before you actually get near to it, is rather off putting. Its stench, I describe as that you'd get from over indulging on parmesan cheese and then getting sick.

I tried a tiny bite and should have left it there! Instead I bought one and took a proper bite. Alas, the moment was captured on a phone! Its hard to describe but it's not going to be repeated.

Where fruit meets puke!

However, where I fall down a bit with Cambodian and Asian food generally, is rice. It is low down on my list of delights which is in sharp contrast to its placement in the Cambodian list of essential priorities. The Khmer salutation to wish you an enjoyable meal is "Nam bai" which literally means "Eat rice" and your average Cambodian cannot function without rice. And by rice, I mean Cambodian rice and none of that muck from Thailand or Vietnam. I suspect you'd be hung before noon if you tried to offer them anything with Uncle Ben on it.

My preference would be for Thai food because it has that little zing. We were over there holidaying recently and it seemed a good idea to go on a cookery course for the day. Initially hesitant due to concerns of whether I could perform in the pressure of a Thai kitchen setting with other students. Also present were a couple from the French Basque region for whom a chili was like offering dynamite. But being French, I wasn't taking them lightly.

Of course Catherine being from the French part of Canada can cook up a storm, but is not overly fond of chili heat either and so this was to be their combined Achilles heel. As we went round the market with me tucking into the hot stuff and going 'Mmm delish!' to the Thai chef, we moved to another spicy section and with the competition declining to try a fierce little chili, chef turned to me and said "You, local boy, wanna try". One-nil England!

In the end whilst the offerings of 'three-chili John' were the hottest of the four of us, it was the fact that Thai food was so easy to create that struck me, albeit that the preparation can be exhaustive. The next day when biking around the golden triangle I impressed the locals by ordering a three chili curry…only to be told that the locals liked it with ten! All I will say, three was nice and spicy for me without repercussions. I shudder to think what seven more would do.

Honney's handiwork – Coconut chicken soup and
red curry sans rice? Done!

Amongst the expats I know, I am quite possibly one of the rare breed who actually cooks at home! It's often cheaper to eat out or have it delivered in then and of course, no hassle. And if you decide to go out you'll get a headache trying to decide where. There are a couple of top-end eateries, but it's the low-to middle that knocks the ball out the park, each and every time.

If I do order in, then what eventually turns up at the door is often better than what has been presented itself at various Chez JH's over the years. Although I am still training the delivery boy from one restaurant where I get my pizzas from to trust the door bell to let me know he has arrived as opposed to just standing there before he rings me on his phone!

The Dreaded Drink!

There are three things in life that I hold dear! Tea, Fullers London Pride and champagne!

The latter is because it's an occasion drink and because since I was first lured by the bubbles, I cannot think of imbibing the stuff in anything less than happy surroundings. I often think that if one were minded to drown one's sorrows, how much more uplifting it would be to do it with a bottle of Verve.

Out here its lager, of which I am not a big fan of at the best of times. Now we have many local brands which remind me of Budweiser; burpy, tasteless and go through you like a Porsche. However, this being said, I have been known to blow the froth off a bottle of Beer Laos. Those relaxed chaps the other side of the Mekong can knock out a tasty brew and have upped their game to produce a feisty little dark beer.

In Cambodia there is what I consider a bit of a face-off to become the national beer. Anchor, which is Tiger beer from Singapore but brewed two weeks less and is gassy for the experience. Then there is Angkor, named after the temples and if I go native, then I will go with the beer with the temple on it.

Kingdom entered the fray a year or so ago...I kind of wished they hadn't! Pitched at the top-end with the boys from Laos, Singapore and those Dutch chaps from Heineken, my two forays into a bottle of the stuff have left me decidedly unimpressed. Then we had the local offering Beer Phnom Penh and from those I know who have tried it, they don't seem overly keen to repeat the exercise. Enter stage left the no nonsense brew from one of the country's bit industrialist and cement makers, simply named Cambodia. Clearly going for the national appeal and working on the basis that if the foreigners who come here can say where they want to go to their travel agent, then the same process may serve them and him well when it comes to deciding on their first brew. It's been tried and the jury is out.

There are no pint pots, as the beer would get too hot and so it really is best served cold. A glass of little over a half pint compared to back home in most bars will set you back $1-$1.50 bracket. But as swankier places come into the mix, the prices are going north.

Not I hasten to add, to the polar north of prices back in the UK. When last back I popped into the local Fullers hostelry and nearly fainted when the eastern European barman handed three little bronze coins with two pints of London Pride for my Ten Pounds. You'd get a skinful for that out here.

I have yet to discover a beer akin to the golden nectar of Chiswick out here and so when my old buddy Vib Sharma rolled into town recently I conferred the highest honour I know of offering from my stash of cans that returned with me in the summer.

"I never knew you were drank London Pride"' he opined.

Love the stuff, brew of choice when back home. To wit he replied that one of his buddies back in Singapore has the concession and if only he had known...

But if truth be told, for me there is only one drink on this earth and I would forego bubbles from France and bitter from Chiswick any day of the week for a cup of Rosy Lee.

Of the two essential ingredients, I am certainly blessed with good water in PP! Unlike say in the US where I had to forego tea due to their H2O being heavily doused with fluoride. Take a peek inside a kettle in West London and you'll see more scale then on a fish caused by the heavily reprocessed hard water leaving a concrete like residue inside the kettle from which horrible looking and tasting water emanates from and merely ruins many an honest tea leaf. The softer water of Cambodia however, is perfect for the job of producing a decent brew.

The tea is of equal importance and one thing we Brits know, Liptons is not tea! You can get Twinnings out here and you can also get lots of Chinese loose leaf stuff and generally speaking, I can survive.

But this being a country with a heavy French influence, coffee poses a serious rival to tea. Whilst the locals tend to drink tea to wash a meal down with, if they are going to lose an hour or so, then coffee seems to be preferred.

By coffee, I mean their local stuff or that from Vietnam which is served, black, strong and with a lot of sugar. When out biking with the chaps, I often polish off a couple coconuts or if the place looks like the ice might not be damaging for you, I am very susceptible to a local brew which has a dollop of condensed milk at the bottom, ice to the top and then filled with thick coffee.

However, the local coffee shops round these parts in PP and the bigger cities, are under threat from the dreaded chain store. In the part of PP that I live in, you can't move for the smell of Arabica as nearly every corner has a fancy schmany coffee shop opening. But what opens today closes tomorrow. The concept of location, location, location hasn't quite caught on here.

Opening soon as a coffee shop, having already closed as a coffee shop!

A few years back, it was spas on every corner now its coffee shops. Two new ones have just opened in the parish and my nearest chain shop is 50 meters from home seems to have a new competition preparing to open across the road from it soon.

The thing is, a friend of mine who runs one of the chains told me that their market research revealed that PP has 20,000 people who will pay north of $3 for a cup of coffee. Only thing is, half of those people drive 4x4 cars and we're soon going to have a robusta gridlock on our hands. The other half are rich/international kids taught to speak English in that international American voice that is annoying to all including proper Americans. I am a sucker for the brownie in my friends place but I have to sit outside between the Range Rovers and the Justin Biebers and Selena Gomezs doing their homework on iPads inside.

My other preferred destination is a place called the Java Cafe which was here when I rolled in for the first time back in 2006. Alas its popularity is such, that people seem to rock up, spread out and then log on to the wifi oblivious to the effects of their sprawl. Still, if you get it right then a relatively peaceful cup of coffee with your piece of decadence can be enjoyed upstairs as some numbnuts conducts a skype call for all to hear downstairs!

Winner every time – the Java combo!

The growth of coffee shops is indicative of the embryonic growth of a middle class in Cambodia. Certainly in some more refined eateries the locals are now enjoying themselves, some in a slightly nouveau way if you know what I mean. But stability is giving way to wealth and maybe before I go, I'll have some thoughts on that. But for now, much of what goes as wealth remains a frothy cappuccino in a ready-packed setting.

How Cambodia handles the dynamic caused from moving in a relatively short space of time from being utterly destitute to one where there is a rising number of people wishing to peruse their iPads with a latte, in a country where the existence of many is about being able to provide the next meal, is going to be the difficult challenge.

This being Asia, there are local customs and practices that add to the factual matrix as well. But as I have seen Christmas slowly grow in significance in a Buddhist country, I guess it will go the way of the money!

Merry Christmas to you and yours and best wishes for 2012.

Cheers

JH x