Dining in Siem Reap | The Other Side of Mae

And it’s 2017 but I’m not yet done with my Cambodia travel posts! No need to give you blah blah blahs of excuses so just pardon me. Hehehe….. Anyway, let’s just get this going so allow me to give you some of Siem Reap’s dining sites. These are guaranteed must-visits for you to experience more of the Khmer feels aside from the country’s vast treasury of ancient temples.

So now let’s have food! In all corners of the world, food will always be a part of any country’s culture. Food always defines a nation and though Siem Reap had been under the Thai rule, the Khmer people still preserved their own taste and flavors. So for our warm-up, our tour guide Mr. Te brought us to Chef D’Angkor Restaurant for lunch. It was still 11 AM when we arrived so we had the very spacious resto for ourselves which called for pictorial.

From Manila to Cambodia, our midyear fooding adventure continued (as this is a more-than-late post)! We liked everything they put on our table even though we don’t know the real name of each dish. The steamboat soup is our version of sinigang here in the Philippines but their’s has more spices on it. The mixed veggies with beef is just simply sautéed and flavored, the omelet has a distinct filling, and the sweet and sour pork or fish (I couldn’t remember anymore) is so tasty. Though full of flavors and spices, Khmer food is not that foreign to our Pinoy‘s taste buds so I give Chef D’Angkor a two thumbs up! Do LIKE them on Facebook here.

From a formal resto to the streets of Siem Reap, we savored more of Khmer cuisine. The must-eat dish in Cambodia is Lok Lak Beef and we had it at only 3 USD at Pub Street! Along with Fried Mama with Vegetables (pancit that is) and Grill Ribs Pork Steam Rice, we had a very satisfying lunch by the street. The serving is ample for only 2.50-3.00 USD per dish which makes this meal very sulit! We even spent longer time in gobbling all these up. Just take a look at how generous the portions are.

The Lok Lak Beef is stir-fried beef in tomato and oyster sauces on top of crisp lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. In eating this, you have to get one of each veggie with a slice of beef and dip ’em into the lime juice with lotsa ground black pepper. The whole combination is so glorious inside the mouth! This is really indeed a traditional Khmer dish which is actually a salad and originally eaten without rice. The beef, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions must be wrapped in lettuce with the awesomeness of using the bare hands in eating it. I will soon cook this here at home as soon as my fresh herbs arrive! Hehe…..

From lunches to dinner, Siem Reap is more lively by night! We happened to pass by to this streetside eating place which has the very tasty barbecue and grilled squid. In contrast to the hefty lunch we had, the dinner was light this time ‘coz the serving is quiet small. Well, it really was for our appetite. Hahaha!!!

In every country I visit, after dinner will always be the midnight snacks of street food! Night life in Siem Reap calls for cold beer and nothing beats Cambodia’s beer without the country’s specialty as beer match. And these are none other than the crispy crickets, the crunchy cockroaches, and scrumptious scorpions! When I only settled for grasshoppers in Thailand, I dared the scorpions in Cambodia! It’s exoskeleton aka shell is hard of course and I couldn’t taste any meat from it. The spices are good which are composed mainly of kaffir lime leaf, leeks, and lemon grass with lots of chili of course. These were all I could taste that I could treat the exotic scorpion as peanut!