SPICEGASM.COM My travel tales and food hunting

I woke up around 10am the next day after hanging out in Heart Of Darkness disco last night. Free breakfast buffet will end in 30 minutes and I decided not to rush and skip breakfast. Will just order room service instead. It was raining quite heavily and the roads were flooded. By noon the rain stopped and the flood slowly subsided.

I told Eddie and Zach that our mission for dinner tonight is to look for the food stall that sells those lovely fried goodies. So far the information given to me by the waiter in HOD is that the stall is located across the road from the club. I know the street number which is St 51 as I took a business card from the club supervisor.

Come dinner time we got ourselves a tuk tuk and head on to street 51. When we stopped in HOD, we noticed there’s a few food stalls and a big food court. Last night while leaving the club, we did not notice all these establishments. I think you can guess why we did not see all the food stalls. So we walked around the food court and some stalls. I did not see any stalls that are selling the pork ribs and chicken wings.

I saw a stall with pictures of burgers and hotdog. As I walked closer to the stall, I remembered the nice aroma and pictures of fried chicken wings and pork ribs. I never would have guess that this burger stall will be offering the fried goodies.

La Lune food stall

Crappy pictures that I took of La Lune food stall. From far  I can see the big ass pictures of a burger and a hotdog. That’s why I never suspected that it was the same stall that produced those aromatic fried goodies.

The dude that runs La Lune food stall is a very friendly guy that goes by the name of Chheang. He gave me a name card and on it, it is stated that the stall has been operational since 2003. It also provides delivery service.

He suggested us to go to a restaurant nearby to get our seat and he will deliver the food to us. He told us as long we order some food from the other restaurant it will be all right. We followed his suggestion and went to a non fancy restaurant nearby ( my kind of restaurant ).

This simple restaurant sells seafood, rice dishes and also noodle dishes. I have no idea how the food will taste like but this is part of the process to discover new eating joints. We ordered some drinks and food from this restaurant while waiting for our fried food from La Lune.

The messy looking restaurant

Boiled cockles ( a type of shell ) with lime and chili dip. I love cockles ever since as a kid. In Singapore, the famous Char Kway Teow is not complete if there’s no cockles in it. Zach find the word cockles really hilarious.

Some Khmer style fried noodles that cost me USD1

Khmer beef noodle at USD1.20

The food served in this simple restaurant was all right. Boiled cockles is boiled cockles, no skills is needed to make this dish. The flavor of the cockles is stronger than fresh raw oysters. Not really a hit with Westerner for sure. As for the beef  noodle soup, it lacked a certain lemony or celery taste to the soup. I think I would prefer the Vietnam version of Pho. However I do enjoy the fried noodle very much. It taste is really good and the portion of Kailan given was very generous. It is fried in a way that is semi wet and the sauce and the egg made the noodle taste really good.

This is the main reason why we came back to St 51 for. The very tasty pork ribs and it cost us USD2. The portion is more but we ate a few before taking some pictures.

One more close up pork ribs picture for you

I have no idea what spices was used to make these fried meat. The chicken wings tasted good ( forgot to snap some pics ) but it is not as juicy as the pork ribs. Pork ribs tend to have more fat and this is the reason why it is juicier than the wings. There is a thin layer of caramelize mixture of sugar and spices that covers the pork ribs. The balance of the spices and frying time of the ribs make it perfect. Is not overly sweet, spicy or salty. I don’t really know how to describe it. You have to taste it for yourself.

We also ordered few 3 bottles of mineral water and 2 can of coke aside from the cockles and noodle dishes from the simple restaurant. From La Lune we ordered 2 portions of fried pork ribs, one portion of chicken wings. Everything comes to a total of USD12. I’m sure there are places where you can get cheaper food in the street of Phnom Penh but I can’t complain for the price that we paid especially when the pork ribs is heavenly good.

Here is the contact number of La Lune food stall :

012 728 638 / 016660 208 – Chheang

There are many Chinese restaurants in Phnom Penh and my friend Eddie always frequent this Chinese restaurant call Yee Boo. It is just a walking distance away from our hotel ( Hotel Cara ). Eddie can’t stop promoting to us how good the Claypot Mutton dish to us. So Chinese cuisine it is for dinner.

The spacious and luxurious balcony

The Chinese Restaurant named Yee Bo is operating in a very big old colonial bungalow. When I set foot into the restaurant, I had this imagination that this mansion used to belong to the French who used to occupy Cambodia for quite sometime. After the French left, probably one of the Khmer Rouge biggies lived in this mansion. After changing ownerships several decades, it is now finally occupy by the boss of this Chinese restaurant name Yee Bo. All these of course are just my imaginations which by the way I tend to do always.

The boss of Yee Bo seems to recognize Eddie and they exchanged pleasantries. The boss also said said hello to Zach and asked where he is from. Asian restaurant owners tend to get excited when they see Westerners patronizing their restaurants. I wonder if the Western restaurant owners will react the same when they see Asian folks dining in their joint.

Eddie told the waitress that he wanted to sit upstairs in a huge balcony. I loved the idea instantly as I loved eating outdoors or semi outdoors. I don’t really fancy eating in air condition places. Outdoor dining also allows me to smoke while having my food and normally a few glasses of beer.

Chicken feet with peanuts soup

The supervisor of  Yee Bo is a lady who speaks fluent Cantonese, which is a Chinese dialect Eddie and I are accustom with. So ordering our food was easy. We ordered the Claypot Mutton, mixed platter of Pork Ribs ( Siew Yoke ) with Chinese BBQ POrk ( Char Siew ) and Kangkung Belacan.

Most Chinese restaurant offers soup of the day for free. The cost to make the soups are normally pretty low. This doesn’t mean the soups will be inferior in taste. A good Chinese soup normally uses pig bones and chicken bones and boil with some other herbs.

We were given the free soup of the day which is the Chicken Feet with Peanut. When the soup arrived on our table, I scooped the soup to see what’s beneath it. Zach saw what I was doing and he suddenly said “Whaohh….is that a baby hand in there?”. Eddie started laughing hysterically looking at Zach’s reaction.

Roast Pork Platter

The roasted pork platter was just all right for me. Nothing really spectacular like those that I’ve eaten in Hong Kong. I ordered it specially for our Western friend as he prefers to eat meat without any bones attached to the meat. The skin area I normally prefers it to be thicker and crunchy.

Claypot Mutton Ribs

Eddie was spot on with his recommendation. I really loved this mutton dish. It is stew slowly in a claypot with shitake mushrooms, radish and Chinese beancurd. Star anise is being used to give this dish a nice taste and fragrant. The meat is so soft and tender and as you bite the meat, it just fall off from the bones easily. I dipped it in my soya sauce mixed with chopped garlic and chili and the taste is simply heavenly. Absolutely divine!

The kangkung belacan dish ( stir fry morning glory in shrimp paste ) was good too. Upon tasting it I can tell the chef is from Malaysia. I further confirmed it by asking the supervisor and I was proven right. We were given some watermelon for dessert after our meal. Total price for our dinner was USD21. I think is really cheap considering the service was excellence. There’s a waitress filling up our tea whenever our cups are empty. She was there the whole time!!!! If any of you happen to be in Phnom Penh and would like to try out the Claypot Mutton Ribs dish, here is the phone number of Yee Bo Restaurant – Tel : 023-430 598 / 015 – 231 888. I can’t provide the address of the restaurant as it is in Chinese and I don’t read Chinese.