Rice – Traveling Mark

While most locally run Cambodian businesses are not very customer friendly, there were exceptions worth doing business with. One of them was a local Cambodian restaurant on the east bank of the Siem Reap river, a block north of the independence bridge (about three houses back). The restaurant was clearly not targeting tourists as it was not on any popular tourist path and it didn’t even have an English name. None of the staff spoke any English, but where there is will, there is way to communicate.

Photo: This Local Cambodian Restaurant Has No English Name

Even though this restaurant was locally owned and run, it did not support discrimination and the same rates applied along the full spectrum of customers, regardless of their color of skin. Menu had items listed in Khmer language with some English translations to the right of it. Those translations seemed to have been put together by consulting a dictionary, instead of an English speaking person and had to be taken with a grain of salt, but gave reasonably clear idea as to the dish. There were occasional surprises, though:

Several items in the menu were translated into English as “Chicken and Vegetables” however what it ended up being was chicken stomachs with vegetables. Similarly, there would be a column of five dishes each with different Khmer name, but English translation for each of them was the same. The very first meal I ordered had its name listed in English as “Fried Egg with Tuna”. This was pretty close to what I got, except that the fish that came within this uniquely looking and tasting omelette was not tuna. It was some small, fresh water fish. Not a big deal.

Photo: This is What My Favorite Local Cambodian Restaurant Looked Like Inside

The same menus were used by everyone – locals and foreigners alike and the same prices applied to everyone equally. Everyone regardless of their ethnic background also received the same level of service and courtesy, although I could only compare it with myself as I have never seen another foreigner ever dine in that restaurant. Still, despite being a foreigner, I have never been charged extra just because I looked different.

Photo: All Customers Get More Rice Than They Can Eat

Virtually every meal they had in the menu was listed at mere 7,000 Riels (approximately $1.75) which included unlimited rice and tea (within reason, of course). Best of all, despite being a local restaurant, all customers were provided with safe-for-drinking ice to cool the tea down with. This was great since many locally run eateries use cheaper, industrial ice which is produced in unsanitary conditions using unsafe tap water. For your information – safe ice has smooth, cylindrical shape with hole in the middle of it, whereas unsafe ice is just an irregularly shaped crushed mass.

Photo: Safe Ice Served by the Local Cambodian Restaurant

Food in the restaurant was fantastic. Preparation never took too long and every dish I tried had great taste to it. I also asked the students in my English class to teach me how to request no MSG in my food in Khmer language because no one in the restaurant spoke any English and I wouldn’t be able to continue dining there if they kept adding it to my food. Luckily, the cook had no issue with cooking without MSG for me so I was all set. BTW, it’s easy to remember how to say No MSG in Khmer – it sounds very similar to saying “No BJ” in English. You literally just use the abbreviation of “blowjob” and add “No” before it. If you can memorize “No BJ, no masau soup” they will know exactly what you are asking for and will gladly leave it out of your food.

Photo: Customers Also Got Complimentary Chilli Peppers

For a few weeks, this local Cambodian restaurant was my favourite place for eating. It got pretty busy around lunch hour so I tried to avoid going there at noon but outside of breakfast (very early in the morning), lunch and dinner times the place was quiet and enjoyable. Everything was a little too perfect about it. They did not discriminate, food was great and well priced, ice was safe and No MSG requests were complied with. They never tried to overcharge me just because I was a foreigner so I kept supporting the business until the day the owner crossed the line and attempted an overcharge.

Photo: Fried Morning Glory with Fish - My Favorite Dish

It was after a very long time of regularly dining there and never having a problem, when some woman walked in with a tray full of rice cakes. These were small, pinky sized rolls of rice wrapped in a banana leaf. Presence of raisins and some other fruit gave them slightly sweet taste which worked perfectly as an after-meal desert. Because this took place after I had spent more than a month in Cambodia, I could already understand some of the language, especially the numbers, so I overheard her asking for 100 RielS when she was offering the cakes to other customers (other locals who were also dining in the restaurant).

After having offered her rice cakes to everybody else, the woman eventually came to me. I had just finished my meal and the owner of the restaurant was by my table as I was paying for my food. Realizing that the woman didn’t speak any English, I made a hand sign with the money I was still holding in my hand for her to show me how much per cake. At that point the owner of the restaurant who was still by my table and felt compelled to “help” me understand the price took the receipt and wrote “200” on it.

Photo: Complete Meal for 7,000 Riels. Too Bad the Owner Got Greedy

I ended up buying that one cake for 200 Riel but felt like this was a major breach of trust. Needless to say, it was the last time I dined in the restaurant. He was always fair with me before so it was really disappointing to reach the point at which he would try to rip me off because I was a foreigner. Was the desire to earn easy 100 Riels by overcharging a foreigner really worth losing a loyal customer?

As I was walking around Wat Bo with my camera hung around my neck, I noticed smoke rising from underneath the metal roof at an open area of the temple grounds. There were several middle aged men underneath the roof and given that it was September when temperatures in Cambodia reach extremely high levels, I did not envy them one bit as they were not only heated by the sun, but also by the fire in the midst of the roofed area. Wat Bo is a fairly quiet pagoda which doesn’t see many foreigners so my presence was instantly noticed. Even though this was only my second day in Cambodia, I was already used to the fact that Cambodians gawk at all foreigners as if they walked around with monkey on their heads, so I vastly disregarded the stares, however I was attracted by the smoke and wanted to see what they were doing under that roof so I came closer, camera still hanging off my neck.

Language barrier was impenetrable as all of the locals under that roof were aged males who could not even read or write in their native tongue, nevermind understanding foreign languages. Since my understanding of Khmer language was virtually none, any form of verbal communication was impossible. It hindered me not.

I noticed a pile of green rolls on an improvised table next to the fire. These people were obviously cooking something and wrapping it up in banana leaves to serve as food. Smiles on their faces made me feel welcome so I took pictures of what was going on and one of the men picked up one of those a leaf wrapped rolls, unwrapped it and handed it to me with a smirk and a sign to give it a bite.

Generous and Welcoming Buddhist Cambodians Offering Me a Sticky Rice Cake

Once unwrapped, I could see that it’s a rice roll that perfectly sticks together and is wrapped tightly in a banana leaf giving it almost an impression of vacuum packing. As I learned later, these were Sticky Rice Cakes (referred to in Khmer as nom ansom) and they can really stay preserved inside that banana leaf for a good month without going bad, even when stored in permanently hot environments (Most rural Cambodians don’t even have electricity, nevermind fridges).

I took that Sticky Rice Cake that was so graciously offered to me and gave it a bite. It tasted awful. It was bland and tasteless. It felt like some mass in my mouth, but it had no taste. They obviously did not add any salt or other seasoning to it so the mass lacked any taste whatsoever. Inside the rice roll was a filling. The one I started to eat had meat filling, quite possibly pork – from the looks of it. The filling was as tasteless as the rice. I was not used to eating tasteless foods prior to coming to Cambodia which made it increasingly difficult for me to enjoy it. Regardless, these men who were cooking Sticky Rice Cakes within the Wat Bo temple grounds obviously did not sport the financial riches and simple foods, such as a Sticky Rice Cake was often all they could afford to eat. And they graciously offered me one to eat right on the spot. This act of unconditional generosity was so heart-warming I got over the taste lacking sticky rice and continued pretending that I enjoyed offered cake immensely.

Pile of Sticky Rice Cake Wrapped in Banana Leaves to Preserve Them Without Storing in a Fridge

I wanted to ask what exactly these sticky rice cakes were, what exactly the filling was, how exactly they make them and whether I can leave a contribution to Wat Bo but language barrier made it impossible. And before I knew it, the man who unwrapped the sticky rice cake I was eating, already had a small plastic bag filled with about a dozen of those sticky rice cakes and handed it to me with a smile. I was trying to explain that I could not possibly accept that, seeing how these men barely had enough for themselves, but as I was talking, they kept smiling at me like the nicest people in the world, not understanding a single word I said. I did not know what to do next.

I really did not want to leave with so many rice cakes from people who obviously don’t belong anywhere near the middle class, yet I had no means to explain this to them. On the other hand, simply leaving the bag there and taking off would be extremely rude as it may make them feel like I despise them and/or their food. Without the ability to explain my thinking in words, I was in a dead lock. Last thing I wanted was to offend these genuinely nice people who don’t have much for themselves, but did not hesitate to share with a random stranger. This pile of sticky rice cakes they have just cooked may have been the food for all of the pagoda for a month. Now I was gonna leave with a dozen of the cakes I didn’t even like the taste of. But they looked so happy to have shared it with me I could not disappoint them.

I spent a little bit of time with them, slowly biting off from the sticky rice cake I had unwrapped trying to make it look like I enjoyed the taste and later made a move towards main Wat Bo pagoda to take pictures of it. I took the plastic bag filled up with still wrapped sticky rice cakes, made a hand sign that I’m going that way to take some pictures and took off without saying good bye. I still had it in my mind that as I’m taking pictures of the pagoda, I will work out the strategy to give these sticky rice cakes back to them as they’d serve them much better than they would serve me.

I Could Not Even Finish the Rice Cake I Started Because of Lacking Taste of the Mass