Eating Khmer
A refreshingly unique style of cuisine that you'll find hard not to fall in love with. It's very hard to find outside of Cambodia itself so make the most of it whilst you are there!
A standard meal in Cambodia consists of rice, a fish or beef dish, and a steaming bowl of soup. Dominant flavours are fish sauce, lemongrass (particularly in soup), coconut milk and tamarind.
If you get the opportunity, a traditional Khmer meal is well worth the experience. Based around rice and freshwater fish from either the Mekong or Bassac Rivers, steamed, stir-fried or smoked together with fresh cucumbers, cabbages or beans. This will be shortly followed by pork, beef or chicken pieces all skewered and cooked over hot coals. Every traditional meal will come with a soup, usually sour and spicy or light and sweet.
If you only try one Khmer dish, it should be amoc, a delightful fish curry with a rich coconut-milk sauce. Freshwater fish from the Tonlé Sap are abundant and turn up in popular dishes, such as dt'ray chorm hoy (steamed fish), dt'ray aing (grilled fish) and dt'ray chean neung spey (sour fish soup).