Vegetarian Food in Cambodia

I was in Cambodia between 20-27 Dec 07.

It was not too difficult getting vegetarian food if you stick to restaurants that cater to tourists. There is normally always a fried rice with vegetables item if all else fail.

But it's difficult find special local food that does not contain meat. Whereas in Vietnam, it was a lot easier to get local vegetarian food.

Phnom Penh

In Phnom Penh, the best restaurant I found was the Indian restaurant Chi Chas (listed in lonely planet). It was cheap and good. I had my breakfast there for two mornings. The breakfast set consist of 3 chapatis, a dish of dhal and an omelette for US$1.5.

Their ala carte menu was pretty good too. I love the vegetarian samosa and the aloo pratha. The pratha was very crispy and nice.

breakfast set at Chi Chas

The other restaurant I tried in Phnom Penh was Amok. This Thai restaurant is featured in many guide books.

Amok seems to be a pretty popular dish with the tourist as it was advertised in many restaurants. It is a Thai dish made with fish. The guide books kept mentioning it. So I had to try it. Amok restaurant offered the vegetarian version made with either tofu or mushroom.
I had the mushroom amok for US$3. It was pretty good but I thought it was just a curry dish.

I also had pad thai but it was really bad (the noodles got stuck together and the taste was not that good). There was a pretty good vegetarian selection on the menu. So that's a good place to go if you like Thai food.


Siem Reap

Within the Angkor historical park, there are many stalls offering cooked food at various temples. There is normally a vegetable fried rice or vegetable fried noodles for about US$2 a dish. The prices does varied a bit. I found that they have different menu with different prices listed. There was a stall at Bayon which has price listed at $3.5 per dish but offered me "discount" at US$2. I later found that the 2nd stall closest to Bayon offer same fare at US$2 and service was much better.

There is also a row of road side stalls near the old market offering the same thing. Dishes were US$1 and fruit shakes were $0.50.

However, a word of warning: except for the fried rice, all fried noodles and vegetables are cooked with meat stock. I was quite grossed out by the meat taste in the stock. So the best is to stick to fried rice.

I ate at the road side stalls in Siem Reap for 2 nights but found the meat stocked used in the cooking quite offending. I started looking for something else and I found that there was a row of stalls at one side of the old market (Psar Chaa) that were selling Khmer cooked food at prices slightly more than the road stalls but cooked better. I had a Khmer curry for US$1.5 with nem (fresh spring rolls) for US$1. It was a lot of satisfying than those road side stalls though I paid almost the same thing.

But by far, the best restaurant I found was the Soup Dragon. This is featured in the guide books and very popular. The restaurant was packed in the evenings. Initially, I thought it would be pretty expensive. But I took a look at the menu and the prices were on average US$2 a dish. But I was alone and I did not want to queue and take whole table for myself. So I went there during lunch instead. The fresh spring rolls (Vietnamese style) was really fantastic! I always like Vietnamese spring rolls, and this was really good! The soup noodle was wholesome and satisfying as well. It was full of vegetables and mushrooms and the stock was delicious (though it was obviously enhanced with some artificial flavouring). The spring rolls, a bowl of soup noodle and a iced coffee set me back by US$4, which I found really worth the money.