BBQ

I figure I might as well stick with the food theme--get ready to learn all about Cambodian cuisine! As you can see in the picture, yes, we often ate with chopsticks. Although using a fork and spoon--one in each hand--is just as common. Typical meals start with white rice, to which is added various soups and stir-fried dishes. Cambodian food is not spicy, although sometimes it has a little kick, and you may add chopped red peppers to your meal if you desire. Fish and shrimp are common, as well as beef, pork, and chicken. As for spices and flavors--unfortunately, I am no culinary expert, so my descriptions will be lacking--but I do know we had dishes flavored with lemongrass, Cambodian curries, cashews, white and black pepper, and fish sauce.

Once night we got to eat barbecue, Cambodian style--check it out in the picture above. In our regular meals, soups were always delivered to the table in an elevated bowl that had a flaming Sterno-type heat source below--kept the soup warm throughout the meal. So having something burning on your table is not unusal. The BBQ apparatus above was something along those same lines. Underneath the food cooking on the top, you can just see the hot coals through the slits on the pedestal. The hot pot and the raw food arrived at our table, and we proceeded to cook away: beef went in the center, on the top of a dome right over the fire (the Cambodian name for this meal translates as "cow climbing the mountain"), and the veggies surrounded this in a sort of trough that we filled with oil. Pretty tasty, once it all cooked...

Tropical fruits also abound--small bananas, mangos, limes, coconut, watermelon, pineapple, and others you may or may not have heard of: manogsteens, durian, lychee, jackfuit, and more. Soft drinks and desserts are sugared right up, so if you like things sweet, this is the place for you!