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Phnom Penh

Bryan Martin

Spicy chicken larb is well balanced.
Spicy chicken larb is well balanced.Jay Cronan

12.5/20

Asian$$

“$103…sorry sir that seems too much, I shall check again for you.”

Nope our meal tonight did come to just over $100. There were Just three of us but one of those is a 185cm and still growing teenager, who really eats for at least two if not more. It’s the reason we are here actually, grabbing dinner between basketball games that is our lot in life.

It has to be said that basketball stadiums do not occupy the greatest real estate there is. In fact, given our quite extensive experience now in many towns and cities, you could say they tend to be built where car yards and spare parts shops would find it out of the way. Like you go to Sydney for a game and the tournament in a place called ‘'The Hills'’ or Dandenong in Melbourne.

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Crisp calamari comes with a bitter lime dressing.
Crisp calamari comes with a bitter lime dressing.Jay Cronan

Even a trip to Newcastle, which is actually now a fantastic city, hipster central, you can buy a TGB delivery scooter on Hunter street, but the basketball is in Maitland. So we’ve given up finding a cool micro-brewery full of bearded blokes in mustard coloured jeans near our basketball games.The main genre for restaurants were we end up is generally Asian and we know in a lot of detail what is in and around the Belconnen stadium and here, Phnom Penh, is our current favourite.

For a start it is clearly cheap, which isn’t unusual, but if you choose well, you get to try some pretty good Cambodian food.

The position is in this strange two-storey building that overlooks one of Belconnen’s more striking roundabouts. It’s a spacious second-floor dining area, the signage dominates the view as it is written in metre-high letters around the many windows. The design is, well, club-like I guess, functional with a strong south-east Asian influence on the decorations which gives the space a homely feel.

Cambodian restaurant Phnom Penh's 'club-like' interior.
Cambodian restaurant Phnom Penh's 'club-like' interior.Jay Cronan
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However, we are not here for the view or fixtures, just a quick meal so we can get back to the freezing courts. What I like about this restaurant  is that the menu is strongly based on Cambodian food, not full of generic laksa and sweet and sour pork dishes. Also, like a lot of Asian restaurants, you can order by numbers. This can save the staff having to correct your bad Khmer. The staff, which seem to be on some sort of rotation of student and teachers from the university of Canberra, tend to not have English as a strong second language so numbering conversely helps them too. The service is always slightly strange but they always ask if you are enjoying the dishes;  as opposed to the drop and run policy of a lot of places. In fact the chef comes out quite often to work on his English and see how you are travelling.

The starters have the regional fresh rice paper and delicate spring rolls, plus barbecue  skewers and a range of deep-fried dishes. We skip these tonight in favour of a regional specialty call a larb, probably more lao but you see this minced and shredded meat or vegetable salad right across south-east Asia. Spicy chicken larb ($19.35 main size) is a roughly chopped salad with crispy chicken pieces tossed through cabbage and onion, dressed with loads of lime and chili plus herbs and fish sauce. What it lacks in finesse it makes up for in balance and flavour. A favourite is the crispy calamari ($17.50 main size) which shows the simplicity of Cambodian food. The squid is dusted in a peppery flour and served with a lime dressing, which is like bitter kaffir lime juice, very acidic but is a great condiment to a deep fried dish.

Hot pots are another regional favourite, pepper and caramelised fish hot pot ($20) is a pretty intense dish. So laden with pepper, the fish, which is un-announced, does have this intriguing almost sweet coating that helps tame the rampant rotundone (the active component in pepper) that dominates the dish. It’s full on and you’d only have this if you are a fan of the heat and piquancy of this amount of pepper, which I certainly am.

The humble curry  has found its way right through Asia and in Cambodia the Saraman is arguably the most well-known. Similar to  the Thai massaman it tilts its hat at the sub-continent with trade spices of cardamom and ginger. Phnom Penh’s Saraman beef curry ($17.50) carries this rich, spice-laden gravy with tender strips of beef and onion. We enjoy this quite peppery curry for its ultimate simplicity.

There is a short wine list here that carries a rather odd range for the food but the bottle shop underneath is well stocked. I pick up a bottle of Barmes Buecher Alsatian pinot blanc 2010,  as this wine is perfect for food with heat. There is a nice sweetness and rusticity present  that works with this food.

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Once the order is placed the food comes out with a good amount of pace and  the staff are always charming in their not-quite-sure-what-they-are-doing mode, but still getting it done.

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