I think Cambodian food doesn’t get nearly enough clout as it deserves. It doesn’t have the same global recognition as its neighbors Vietnam and Thailand do, despite having equally delicious and complex cuisine.
I was recently introduced to the concept of gastro-diplomacy by a friend — the idea that a country can use its cuisine as a form of soft power to increase its global influence and improve its image abroad. Thailand has absolutely mastered this. In the early 2000s, the Thai government launched the “Global Thai” initiative with the explicit goal of increasing the number of Thai restaurants worldwide and promoting Thai culture through food. It worked. Now there are Thai restaurants in nearly every major city on the planet, and dishes like pad thai and green curry are household names.
Vietnam has had similar success, though perhaps more organically. Phở has become globally beloved, and Vietnamese coffee culture has spread far beyond Southeast Asia. Even bánh mì—a simple sandwich—has achieved cult status in food cities around the world.
But Cambodia? Despite sharing borders with both countries and having a cuisine that’s just as flavorful, fresh, and diverse, Cambodian food remains relatively unknown outside of Southeast Asia. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Cambodian restaurant in most Western cities, and if you asked the average person to name a Cambodian dish, they probably couldn’t.
To be fair, I think the Cambodian government and peoples have been relatively busy for the past fifty years, while other countries were trying to send their people and cuisine far and wide with the near constant war.
I lived in Siem Reap for three months, and even though I didn’t eat out every single day, I got a pretty good taste of Cambodian food. And I know I didn’t even break the surface. There are regional variations, family recipes, street food specialties, and dishes I’ve probably never even heard of. But what I did try was incredible, and I think it deserves way more hype than it gets.
So here are some of my favorite Khmer foods, the dishes that made me fall in love with Cambodian cuisine and left me wondering why the rest of the world hasn’t caught on yet.
Nom Banh Chok (Khmer Noodles)
Taking the cake as my absolute favorite Khmer food has to be nom banh chok. It’s incredibly simple, fresh, colorful, and flavorful. It’s a real shame that not every restaurant offers this as a staple, because I’d probably order it every single time.
It’s a curry-based dish served over fermented rice noodles, traditionally eaten for breakfast. The curry is green and herby, made with lemongrass, turmeric, kaffir lime, and fish. You top it with raw vegetables like cucumbers, bean sprouts, long beans, banana blossom, and more fresh herbs. It is so Cambodian, that the English name of the noodles is literally Khmer noodles.
The first time I tried it was about a month before I planned on leaving Cambodia. So, from that moment on, I ate it every chance I got, I even learned how to make it so Jordan and I could have it for lunch at home.
This is probably the dish I am going to miss most outside of Cambodia
Cambodian Curry (Kari)
I actually learned how to make this at a cooking class I took in Siem Reap. I always assumed Cambodian curry was just like Thai green curry because at the market, I found a place selling curry paste. Turns out, they were selling a “base,” called a kroeung, that you then add in different ingredients depending on what you want to make.
For Cambodian curry, you add red curry powder and ground peanuts, then grind it all together again in a mortar and pestle. The result is a red curry that’s mild and sweet, with a distinct nuttiness from the peanuts. It’s usually made with chicken and potatoes, and it’s cooked in coconut milk until everything is tender and the sauce is thick and fragrant.
I definitely would have made this one again, because it was very comforting, but alas, I had no mortar and pestle at my apartment.
Lok Lak
This is maybe the most famous Cambodian dish if I had to guess. It’s a pretty simple dish, but very delicious nonetheless. It’s stir-fried beef (or sometimes chicken) marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and garlic, served over lettuce and tomatoes with a side of rice and a fried egg on top.
But what makes this dish so famous is the sauce. It’s a mix of lime juice, salt and black pepper. Specifically Cambodian Kampot pepper. Kampot pepper is regarded by some as the best pepper in the world, and is probably what gave this dish it’s claim to fame.
Not only is it famous, but when done well, it is incredibly delicious. This dish is available at almost every single restaurant in Cambodia, and is definitely worth a try if you get the chance!
Rice Porridge
This is a staple Khmer breakfast. The first time we tried it, we were on a tour of Angkor Wat, and we asked our tuk-tuk driver, “Hey bong, if you see a place with rice porridge, can we stop and have breakfast?” Not two minutes later down the road, he found a place.
It’s pretty simple: a savory broth with overcooked rice (cooked until it’s soft and almost dissolves into the broth) and some pork or fish. It’s usually topped with fried garlic, scallions, and fresh herbs. You can add chili oil or fish sauce to taste.
I made it a few times when we were low on groceries, because it’s just so simple, delicious and filling (especially if you have leftover rice you need to use up!)
Amok
I feel like amok is another quintessential Khmer dish, or at least it’s certainly very famous and highly recommended. It’s a curry-based dish, famously and traditionally made with fish, though you can also get it with chicken or tofu.
This is another dish that starts with the kroeung, the base curry paste, and then coconut milk and fish, and then is steamed in banana leaves until set.
It is a delicious dish, not overly fishy, but I think the texture is what sets it apart from other curries. When you steam everything together in the banana leaf, it becomes very thick and almost custard like. It was very good, but for me I don’t know if it was my favorite Cambodian dish.
Beef sticks
We found a place that does beef sticks in Siem Reap (the restaurant is literally called beef sticks) and it became one of my favorite places. In Vietnam, I saw a place serving something similar that was called “Cambodian Barbecue.”
At the restaurant, they serve the beef skewers with pickles and gorgeously buttered and grilled baguettes, and then you get to make your own little sandwiches.
The beef is marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, garlic, and spices, then grilled over charcoal until it’s slightly caramelized and smoky. In the back of the restaurant, all of the family members who owned the shop were sitting there, skewering marinated beef for the next day.
This place was so simple and delicious, there were no menus, nobody spoke any english so we communicated through calculators, there was a resident cat. All the makings of a fantastic restaurant that I will certainly miss (and highly recommend).
Bugs
I didn’t know if we would really do it, but Jordan and I ate bugs in Cambodia.
Right outside our apartment, there was this stand that every evening sold fried bugs. And the worst part was, it smelled delicious every time we walked past. It was also always super busy, with locals stopping by to grab a bag of fried crickets or grasshoppers like it was the most normal thing in the world. There are a bunch of these stands all over Siem Reap, so I think Cambodians must eat a lot of bugs.
Near the river night market in Siem Reap, they also sell more gimmicky bugs like tarantulas, snakes, and scorpions. And while I’m sure Cambodians do eat these bugs, I think not nearly as often as the crickets, grasshoppers, and silkworm pupae they sell on the side of the street.
We got the scary ones done first, like tarantula, scorpion and snake. The snake was actually surprisingly very good, I would eat that again. Other than that, the bugs had no flavor, and they were scary.
However, the bugs on the side of the street were pretty good. They fry the bugs and then coat them in this spicy, savory, salty mix that gave the bugs a lot of flavor. All of them, I would eat again (in small quantities) except for the silkworm. That one had a terrifyingly squishy texture, and a flavor that I wasn’t a fan of.
TW: Enjoy this gallery of Jordan eating various creepy crawlers.
These are just some of my favorite Cambodian dishes, but again, I don’t think I even scratched the surface. There are so many restaurants that I was too scared to go into due to lack of a menu, plus I fell into a rhythm with my favorite restaurants and what I knew I liked and would miss endlessly when I left.
Regardless: Cambodian food is underrated, underappreciated, and deserves a whole lot more hype than it gets on the global food scene.
Thanks for reading!
xx abby
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I still think about a plate of fried rice I had for breakfast at a hotel in Phnom Penh. So good! Traveling in Cambodia definitely piqued my interest in Khmer food. Thanks for this post.
my mouth is WATERING