Food in Cambodia is quite cheap, especially if you buy food from street vendors.
Many hotels offer their guests tours that include breakfast, but since they are light snacks, it is advisable to purchase a room with a refrigerator and buy groceries from local supermarkets.
Food in Cambodia
Khmer food is similar to Thai food, but many are less spicy and less varied than Thai and Vietnamese food.
The Khmer diet consists of rice, fish, noodles, seafood, soups (fish offal, rice or noodles, vegetables, spices and herbs), meat (pork, beef, goat meat, chicken), vegetables, fruits, herbs, eggs (chicken, duck).
The locals love rice - they fry it, steam it, cook it with meat, vegetables, seafood, grass, woody leaves and exotic fruits.
Khmers prefer to harvest the fruit when it is not yet ripe - they add such fruits to soups and meat dishes (instead of foreign potatoes, they add bananas and pineapples to their dishes). For example, pineapple cubes are often fried with pork, added to soups, noodles, or grilled on a barracuda skewer.
In Cambodia, you should eat fish, seafood or chicken cooked in coconut milk with curry (amok); soup with beef, pork or seafood broth with noodles (k'tieu); sweet and sour soup based on fish, tomatoes and pineapple (somlah machou khmae); fried pork with ginger; crab with pepper (k'dam); chopped steak (lok lak); fried fish with vegetables and sweet chili sauce (trey ch'ien chou ‘ayme).
For those with a sweet tooth, try fruits (mango, passionfruit, purple mangosteen, durian, pineapple, rambutan, lychee) and local sweets (pong aime).
As for lovers of exotic food, fried spiders with garlic sauce, raw meat of snakes, insect larvae, frogs, sea lilies, bamboo shoots can be prepared for them.
Where to eat in Cambodia?
At your service:
- Chinese restaurants;
- snack bars with national cuisine;
- restaurants where you can taste Khmer, European, international and Asian dishes;
- fast food establishments (Lucky Birger).
Drinks in Cambodia
Popular Khmer drinks are palm juice, freshly squeezed bamboo juice, green tea, iced coffee, samrong and tekdong (palm milk), beer, rice wine.
In Cambodia, you can taste local (Angkor, Anchor) and imported (Heineken, Tiger, Carlsberg) beers.
Since many local beers are of rather low quality, it is advisable to purchase imported ones. And, although you can buy extremely cheap palm and rice wine in local villages, it should not be drunk for health reasons.
Food tour to Cambodia
On a gastronomic tour you will be able to visit Khmer villages, where you will be treated to national dishes made from natural and organic products (“chemistry” has not yet had time to take root in local agriculture).
On vacation in Cambodia, you will see numerous monasteries, take interesting excursions, taste national dishes.
