A week Eating and Drinking at the Beach

Having recently spent a week down at the beach, Sihanoukville, here is a quick round up of eating and drinking establishments there.

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Funny Restaurant; on Ochheuteal Beach
Yes, that is its real name. About halfway along the stretch of shacks on the southern end of the beach. I had an afternoon to myself before the work silliness started, so it was down to the beach for a spot of R&R and a sampling of the seafood.
I had a papaya and crab salad, bok la’hong, which was excellent, enough chilli to warm the mouth, but not so much as to totally kill the flavour of the crab or the prawns. Keeping to the seafood theme we also had, the almost obligatory, barbequed squid on a stick, with sweet chilli dipping sauce, also excellent and very, very, fresh (I know a thing or two now about fish you know) the salad was US$2, (8,000r), the squid US$1 (4,000r) for 10 - apologies to backpackers and tourists who usually pay US$1 for 4 or 5 squids-on-a-stick. Ha Ha.


Angkor Arms; Ekareach Street, downtown. www.angkorarms.com
The first free evening I have in K. Som I head over to the Angkor Arms to have a quiet, happy hour, glass of Angkor (or three). Bert the owner is nursing a hangover, with the aid of another beer and some of that soccer stuff on the telly (he is very enthusiastic about it). For my own part, I decide that rice is not going to be on the menu for the evening.
Opting for the Fishermen’s Basket I was not disappointed; calamari, battered prawns, bite size pieces of white fish in batter, served with a portion of chips (that would be French fried potatoes to those of you from outside the UK) all very tasty and for a reasonable US$4.
My friend selected a bacon cheese burger with fries, which I thought sounded tempting. Unfortunately, the ‘burger’ part of it looked like a sloppy half baked turd, which just crumbled into piles of mince meat when she picked it up. I am told that it tasted fine though, I just did not feel like sampling it myself. The seventeen chips that accompanied the burger looked a little bit lost nestling on the side of the plate, but they were not lost, indeed they were found and eaten in approximately three forkfuls.


The Emerald Bar; Sopheakmongkol Street, downtown
A first visit for me, several nights into my stay. The owners name was something like Rob, or Paul, or Rumplestiltskin; the accuracy of my memory and the beer laden napkin eludes me at that point, however, he was a charming wee fellow of thick Irish brogue, most friendly and accommodating. Furthermore, his cheese and ham toasties were an ideal mid-drinking-binge-snack, being neither too big, thus inducing the need to have a bit of a lie-down, nor being so small as to fool you into thinking you need a second one, thus inducing the need to have a bit of a lie-down. Both of which can be a problem when you have 2,000r Angkor happy hour from 5 to 8, which is where we had been prior to the Emerald at the -


Mash / Melting Pot; Weather Station Hill. Tel: 012 913 714
Yes, Happy Hour is 5pm until 8pm with Angkor draft at 2,000r (0.50c) after suffering the effects of that, the following evening I returned to sample the food (having completely forgotten to do so the evening before)
Ordering a generic ‘Chicken Curry’ and a pair of chapattis I was pleasantly surprised when the dish turned out to be a close relative of a chicken rogan josh, medium to hot in spiciness, pieces of white meat, tomatoes, onion and the odd bit of green capsicum. As well as the good chapattis it came with steamed rice and a more than ample side salad. Not wishing a repeat performance of the prior evening, I decided to go for a few cans of US$1 beer Lao to wash it down with.
A few days later I returned to Mash for the full English breakfast, double egg, bacon, chips, sausage, beans, tomato, mushroom, toast and coffee. A true transport café portion and the best hangover cure known to man. Much appreciated by a somewhat jaded trencherman like myself, rivalling even the fabled Rising Sun in Phnom Penh, it was well worth the 16,000r.


Fisherman’s Den; Sopheakmongkol Street, downtown. Tel: 012 702 478
Work was out of the way for a day or so, however the sudden change in the weather resulted in enough rain for me to consider sending Noah a text to put him on standby. Making the exceptionally short journey to John and Brian’s place I holed up here for a congenial evening with the host, more than several beers and what the menu describes as ‘the best fish and chips in town’. Well, having tasted said victuals I would go as far as to venture that it is one of the best in the Country; three medium sized fillets of flaky white fish, wrapped in a light crisp golden batter, a pile of freshly made, double fried, chips and a mixed salad on the side as a token nod towards something green and healthy. Not to mention an absolute snip at US$2.50. Carrying on with my ‘taste of home’ craving, I ordered up Cherry Pie with vanilla ice cream US$2.50 for dessert, mmm, puddings are not something that Khmers really understand, so you do not usually get them, unless it is some sort of fruit, or sweet rice wrap, or a combination of fruit and rice…


Espresso Kampuchea; Sopheakmongkol Street, downtown. Tel: 012 644 850
The following midmorning, with the memory of short crust pastry and cherry pie filling still fresh, I stop at a coffee bar to see if I can further indulge my sweet tooth.
Despite a large billboard advertising pastries and ice creams all that was on offer was various forms of coffee. I found the café latte to be more than acceptable however and manage to waste half an hour with a pair of them. The two Khmer girls working there seemed more than happy to sit chatting and share some of their barbequed banana with me. After a while the somewhat portly owner hoved into view and it seemed that he had been partaking of something other than caffeine as a stimulant, despite us being the only customers in there, he was not impressed with the staff not doing anything and immediately set about ordering then to rearrange the ‘untidy’ magazines on the bookcase… I left shortly thereafter.


Golden Sands Hotel. Tel: 012 622 229. www.hotelgoldensand.com
Of course, all this fun could not go unpunished, so it was back to the grindstone for me, with some workshop about something or another of no relevance, importance or meaning to anything known to mankind. Yes that is right, it was a facilitated participatory workshop run by an NGO working on Inclusion Advocacy… Just as I was losing the will to live I was saved by that most wonderful of inventions – the lunch break.
Dining en masse in the hotel restaurants buffet was not exactly high on my list of things to do, but having had a sufficient amount of my life force sapped by these idiots I was unable to summon up an excuse quick enough to get me out of the building.
Having said that, I was most pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the food on offer here, seven or eight different dishes to chose from, with an endless plate policy – just keep eating until you explode – just a tiny, wafer thin, mint sir? – I piled my plate high with the fresh squid, stir fried with fresh green pepper corns, it was spicy, it was tangy, the squid was not overcooked in the slightest, thus reluctantly I am unable to use my favourite description of badly cooked squid here – like rubber bands coated in snot; although the brains of some of the NGO facilitators might well have met that description.


Inside P’sar Leu, random market stall.
Having a ready made excuse the following day to escape the tedium of a lunchtime workshop post mortem and analysis I head on over to the local Khmer market. Nipping inside as swiftly as possible, lest I be seen I plonk myself down at one of the food stalls inside and am presented with; Fresh spring rolls and deep fried spring rolls, fish sauce for dipping, to which was added smoke flakes of dried garlic and a teaspoon of chilli paste. The fresh spring rolls contained rice noodles, lettuce, basil leaves and dried prawns; I am not entirely sure what the fried ones contained as they just crunched into flakes of fatty pastry when I bit them. The fresh ones however were delicious – ch’nang – and I managed to polish off a round dozen of them much to the toothless old crone’s surprise, washing the whole lot down with a near endless supply of jasmine tea, well worth the 5,000r


Te Lee Hon I Restaurant. Tel: 012 710 071
(Khmer Restaurant: opposite the West entrance to P’sar Leu)
Awaking exceptionally early the following morning I decide to have breakfast on my own, rather than with everyone else at the workshop (today’s theme was gender mainstreaming in rural areas…)
As I often do in Khmer breakfast restaurants, I had the rice~pork breakfast, bai suh ch’rook, it was very good, the pork lean and coated with some sort of flavouring that I could not quite place the taste of, the usual accompaniments of pickles, sweet chilli dipping sauce and fish broth were also above average, slightly above average at 3,000r.
I returned here the following lunchtime with some Khmer friends who were equally impressed with their sweet and sour prawns, chicken stir fried with ginger and spring onions and the Chinese vegetables stir fried with clear noodles. Lunch for the four of us, US$11