Thursday evening I met a former work colleague for dinner, she and I both enjoy food and trying new restaurants and she had recently returned from a trip to England. Before going on her trip she wanted my suggestions for places to stay and things to do in London and I was eager to hear how the trip went. We decided to revisit Phnom Penh on the outskirts of China town 244 E Georgia Street. This is an old favourite and I had not been for a while so I was looking forward to a very tasty meal.
Now the first thing you must know about Phnom Penh is it is illegal to go there and not order the deep fried chicken wings, at least that is what you would think if you looked around. I don't think I have ever been there and seen a table that did not have them. This is for good reason they are amazing. So being law abiding citizens we ordered the deep fried chicken wings. Though I have to say last night they were good but not amazing. Neither of us could put our finger on what the problem was, was there just not enough salt, or was something else missing. Any way they were good and though we had far too much food we almost finished the the whole plate.
We also ordered butter beef another must order, I did not take a picture as I was too busy digging in. There is no butter on the butter beef, I believe it gets it's name from the fact that it is soft and melting like butter. It is in fact almost rare beef sliced very thinly topped with a delicious savory sauce and chopped cilantro. If you are a cilantro hater this is not the dish for you.
We also ordered dry noodles with mixed meats and soup on the side. This is the picture of the soup!
No that is how it came, I am afraid we were not too impressed with the soup but the noodle dish was good if a little hard to eat with chopsticks, those were long noodles.
There were several unidentified meats and two very delicious prawns on top of the noodles and some more cilantro. This was good but not as tasty as the butter beef.
Another dish I always order is the green papaya salad
This salad has nice bright flavours served with the ever present cilantro and mint and topped with dried beef.
This was in fact far too much food for two women, though we made a valiant effort to finish it and I did not feel over stuffed as two of the dishes were light and not too many calories, I guess that made up for the deep fried wings. The location is a little out of the way but parking is easy to find especially at 5:30. Also at that time the tables are abundant, but by 6:30 they were starting to line up. The decor and ambiance is plain simple and a little like a cafeteria, but the food is good very reasonable and well worth a trip. If you don't like cilantro though I would probably give it a miss, oh and beware of the hot sauce that comes at the beginning of the meal, it is hot and I mean hot.
Now the first thing you must know about Phnom Penh is it is illegal to go there and not order the deep fried chicken wings, at least that is what you would think if you looked around. I don't think I have ever been there and seen a table that did not have them. This is for good reason they are amazing. So being law abiding citizens we ordered the deep fried chicken wings. Though I have to say last night they were good but not amazing. Neither of us could put our finger on what the problem was, was there just not enough salt, or was something else missing. Any way they were good and though we had far too much food we almost finished the the whole plate.
We also ordered butter beef another must order, I did not take a picture as I was too busy digging in. There is no butter on the butter beef, I believe it gets it's name from the fact that it is soft and melting like butter. It is in fact almost rare beef sliced very thinly topped with a delicious savory sauce and chopped cilantro. If you are a cilantro hater this is not the dish for you.
We also ordered dry noodles with mixed meats and soup on the side. This is the picture of the soup!
 |
| Optional soup |
 |
| Dry noodles with assorted meats |
Another dish I always order is the green papaya salad
This salad has nice bright flavours served with the ever present cilantro and mint and topped with dried beef.
This was in fact far too much food for two women, though we made a valiant effort to finish it and I did not feel over stuffed as two of the dishes were light and not too many calories, I guess that made up for the deep fried wings. The location is a little out of the way but parking is easy to find especially at 5:30. Also at that time the tables are abundant, but by 6:30 they were starting to line up. The decor and ambiance is plain simple and a little like a cafeteria, but the food is good very reasonable and well worth a trip. If you don't like cilantro though I would probably give it a miss, oh and beware of the hot sauce that comes at the beginning of the meal, it is hot and I mean hot.
Wow all the pictures are awesome especially the Green Papaya Salad!!! Something I'm gonna definitely try.
ReplyDeleteThey serve pickled green papaya here with a dish called "Dhokla", which is basically like a savory gram flour really soft steamed cake, with loads of nooks and crannies, and then they temper it with a mixture of heated oil, mustard seeds, asafoetida powder, some cilantro, green chilies, and pour it over the cake. Then they pour over sweet water (mostly water with a little bit of sugar) and let it all soak up. It's served cold. with the raw papaya pickle!
there I just gave out an entire recipe :P