Even though we did not have a chance to explore the Venice canals on foot due to the horrendous parking, we knew that we would still have a great end to our day by having Cambodian food in Long Beach. The original plan was to have it at Phnom Penh Noodle House.
Unfortunately, it was already closed by the time we arrived. They closed early at 3 pm dagnabbit. Of course, I had a Plan B...
which was also in Cambodia Town. This place was a bigger restaurant called Siem Reap (named after the capital city of the Siem Reap province in northwestern Cambodia).
It was a little past dusk and we were pretty hungry. The restaurant is on a busy main road and had large posters of Cambodian/Khmer specialties on their windows and building...
It was quite large in here! The only diners there were an older Caucasian couple. Later a few Cambodian families came in. The service was very attentive here. The waitress was patient as we tried to figure out what we wanted and gave us a few suggestions about her favorites. Prior to getting our order, we were served a plate of salted but sugared peanuts with cabbage.
Nice! It's the SLUTTY QUAILS!
Their menu was super long and filled with a lot of unfamiliar delicacies.
We liked these sweet but salted peanuts; this was a great snack.
Our entrees - TC got a noodle dish (similar to Pad Thai) with shrimps and a fried egg on top, Amok Trey (steamed curried fish served in a coconut), and Cambodian style beef jerky with papaya salad...
The beef jerky was harder and tougher than the kind we had at Sophy's (that post linked at the end), which is also in Long Beach. The papaya salad had a nice tart but sweet flavor and crunch to it.
I've only read about Amok Trey from Wandering Chopsticks' blog. I knew we had to try this and when we ordered it, the waitress said we would like it; it was one of their specialties. It was so delicious! The fish was tender and moist. It seemed like there was more and more fish as we kept digging into the coconut. We could taste the complex mix of the curry and the spices used to flavor this dish. We even scraped the young coconut meat inside the husk to get every last bit!
Even though they had a dessert menu, the lady brought us a complimentary plate of several of their desserts! This was an unexpected but kind and generous gesture!
I believe we were served the coconut jello, the sweet rice with sesame seed and some sort of custard rice cake.
The sweetest dessert were the sticky rice pieces (which I enjoyed) with the coconut jello being the least sweet.
To read posts about the real Siem Reap, please check out these travel posts:
Wandering Chopsticks' post on Koulen Restaurant because at the end of this post, she lists the complete series of her Cambodia travel posts (a great read!), April 2008
along with Kirk of mmm-yoso's Siem Reap thread Summer 2008
Reviews:
tripadvisor
that four lettered site
plus LA bloggers, eatasaurusrex and the Gastronomer who went in 2011 and 2012 respectively.
Siem Reap
1810 East Anaheim St.
Long Beach, CA 90813
(562) 591-7414
siemreapkhmercuisine.com
Other Cambodian restaurants we have tried:
Kampuchea in NYC, September 2008 during my solo visit to N & L's place
Sophy's (which is also in Long Beach) April 2010 where we saw autographed photos of Sophy with Matt Damon and Matt Dillon!!!
LA Day 3 Recap:
Porto's
Spring Street Farmers Market
The Last Bookstore
Semi Sweet Bakery
Martial Arts History Museum
The Blue Pig
Doughnut Hut
Scenes from Venice
and of course, this last post...
The next day we would explore a bit of Newport Beach...
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