BEST STREET FOOD FOR KHMER BREAKFAST

 

Breakfast is, as in most Asian countries, a full meal. Many market stalls, restaurants or even small street vendors offer their breakfast dishes from 6 am onwards ... You can accompany your dish with hot or iced tea, hot or iced coffee, with or without milk (the most of the time, sweetened condensed milk), iced tea flavored with lemon or eggnog ...

In restaurants, you will see men with or without their families, taking advantage of their breakfast to leaf through the newspaper that a seller has placed on the table or watch the news on TV that the owner of the establishment will not have. failed to hang on its walls. The market remains the domain of women, who take the opportunity to cut a little bib with the owner of the stand ...

If you are in a hurry, ask to take your breakfast, it will be delivered to you in these white polystyrene boxes that can be found everywhere here, and which are not very ecological!

Please note, these breakfasts are usually served early, so it will be difficult to be served after 9:30 am, as Cambodians get up and eat their breakfast relatively early. Establishments that have a morning service generally turn into a restaurant for lunch and a beer garden in the evening, so they close to prepare for the next service.

BOBOR

The most classic breakfast, a true Cambodian institution, the bobor, is a rice porridge, often flavored with a little meat: bobor trey, fish porridge, bobor moan, chicken meat porridge, bobor krueung knong , with pork offal. The bowl will usually be served with a few lime wedges, a little fresh ginger, raw or blanched bean sprouts, and mashed fried peppers for seasoning. You will also often find Chakway on the table, lightly salted donuts to enjoy with the bobor.

You can also eat Bobor Sor - plain rice porridge - accompanied by a few pickled pickles and small Kho Trey caramel fish.

For a bowl of bobor, you will need around 2,000 riel in town if you order from a street vendor, between 3,000 and 5,000 in restaurants, and only 1,000 riel in small provincial markets ...

KOUY TIEV

Kouy Tiev is first of all a kind of white noodles, with a slightly elastic texture, made from rice. In the morning they will be served as a soup, accompanied by your choice of slices of beef (sach kor) and beef balls (prohit sach ko), seafood (krueung samot) or even with pork on the bone (ch'eung chhrouk). Some restaurants will offer you their special recipe (Pises), including various vegetables, tofu, pork, meatballs and shrimps ...

Soups are served with bean sprouts, a few lime wedges, Hoi Sin sauce, and you can also add marinated or fried peppers, fried onions, pepper, and… a little sugar!

A specialty of Chinese origin typically Phnompenhoise and whose each stall jealously keeps its recipe in secret, Jean-Michel Filippi devotes to kouy tiev a paragraph of his latest book to be published "Déambulations phnompenhoises" devoted to different historical and cultural approaches to the capital of the Kingdom khmer.

Compared to bobor, kouy tiev is often a bit more expensive. It will depend on the quantity served, and the preparation, which is sometimes very long for the best broths. Count around 3,000 riel for a kouy tiev taken from a traveling merchant, from 4,000 and up to 7,000 in the best restaurants in town.

LOT CHAR

Often prepared by small street vendors in the morning, you can order sautéed mid-minute or batches, thicker and shorter rice noodles, which are prepared with a little meat and vegetables, all topped off by a fried duck egg - mostly here grilled on both sides.
Unlike kouy tiev and mi soup, which we usually only find in the morning and evening, we can eat char batch throughout the day.

Count around 2,500 riel for a plate bought in the street with a duck egg and a little meat, between 4,000 and 6,000 riel in restaurants.

KHO KO, STEAMED CAMBODIAN BEEF - ខ គោ

Kho is a type of dish preparation. We often eat Trey Kho - caramel fish - with bobor as mentioned above; but Kho can also be made with chicken or pork - a delicious Kho Ch’eung Chhrouk, caramel pork trotters and knuckles, often eaten with a bobor sor, pickled vegetables and sometimes hard-boiled eggs.

In the morning, it's the Kho Ko, a kind of braised beef with caramel, therefore, that wins the preference.

This dish can be eaten in soup with noodles - mi or kouy tiev - or simply with bread, the Nompang Kho Ko.
 
Prices vary depending on the quantity, but you can find a Kho Ko dish from 3000 riel, up to 8000 riel in more fancy restaurants.

RICE DISHES

Various dishes are served with white rice. Rice with pork (bay sach chhrouk), ribs or ribs often marinated then grilled on the barbecue or even directly fried, rice with chicken (bay sach moan) or beef. These dishes are embellished with pickled vegetables, cucumbers, turnips and carrots, often spiced up with a little ginger.
 
Stir-fried rice (bay char), present all day long, is also served in the morning.

Chicken rice is generally a bit more expensive - you are often served a leg - around 5,000 to 7,000 riel, while pork rice will cost you between 3,000 and 6,000 riel on a plate.

NAME BAGN CHOK, KHMÈRES RICE NOODLES

Nom Bagn Chok is the typical Cambodian rice noodle specialty.
They are prepared with rice, and are noodles that are sold fresh at the market, you will often see them arranged in small flat baskets, on lotus leaves.

These noodles are a bit softer in consistency than the kouy tiev and are a bit thicker. They are used in the composition of various dishes, in particular Kuong - spring rolls -

For breakfast, Nom Bagn Chok are usually served as a soup, with a yellow curry broth and chicken - somlor curry - or in a herbal broth, somlor khmer, which looks like a green curry served with a little beef and sometimes a little local blood sausage.

Expect to get soup around 3,000 to 5,000 riel in the markets of Phnom Penh.

BAGN SONG

The Bagn Song, which can be found all day in the markets, is also prepared with Nom Bagn Chok, although you can choose your noodles and replace the Nom Bagn Chok with Kouy Tiev Kat or Bagn Hoy, finer noodles ...

To the noodles, we add a little salad and chi - the local aromatic leaves - a little pork or beef cooked with small onions, sometimes replaced by a few slices of local pâté, some spring rolls - chayor, in Khmer - cut into small pieces, all duly drizzled with toek trey p'aem, the sauce usually used with spring rolls and spring rolls, roasted peanuts and dried shrimp powder. A hint of mashed peppers is often added to enhance the taste a little.

We know the Bagn Song under another name, Bobun, Khmer or Vietnamese.

Bagn song sells for between 3,000 and 5,000 riel in markets or small street restaurants, depending on whether it is made with pork or pâté, and depending on the quantity.