Food and no cooking II
April 06
I haven’t cooked a meal for myself since mid March in Siem Reap! Living in my temporary home on the hotel grounds I don’t have a kitchen.
After two weeks here, about a month of no cooking though, I began to get frustrated as I ate out for every meal but then I quickly settled into a routine of buying all. A bit too quickly! I know why there are a majority of locals and many expats who never ever cook, even if have a kitchen in their home. I can see why, as it does become so easy.
Having said that I will be getting back to cooking once I get my own home.
The food I can buy is very different from Siem Reap. I could go and find the street stalls and buy a 50c meal but I rarely did in Siem Reap. I was seduced by “pub street” and similar and found it easy to justify paying the $2 - $5 for a meal. Right towards the end of my stay I even found somewhere that made Sunday roasts! And the baked potatoes were mouth watering.
Here there are four main places open for lunch and the choices increase to about 8 places of a night. That’s it for sit down, served choice of food type of places. And some of those places have absolutely no english skills at all so its reliant on speaking the local language and occasionally some miming. Often at one place there is a staff member who can not understand my accent and yet the day before at the same place I will be understood perfectly. So it’s a bit of a gamble and takes lots of patience.
My favourite place to eat is the “hamburger place” as its called by all expats. Relatively new and run by a Phnom Penh Khmer who has great english. Since I have arrived a vego burger has been invented with fried tofu and egg and a yummy mayonnaise. But his egg noodles, fried rice and even his soups are all great.
But when I say great, its all still very oily food. Everything available here is oily. Really oily. Fried rice must have about half cup of oil used per serve. No exaggeration. Its really noticeable in all food. And almost always food is OVERCOOKED. I wonder what is left of nutritional value. I do find that I eat for hunger and not really for taste. Even simple meals like the egg noodles and spinach type of veg in the noodles leave me not hungry but I hardly am walking away thinking “wow”. The ‘fancy’ place to eat is the Terre Rouge hotel with a gorgeous modern Khmer decor restaurant set in wonderful art-filled gardens but the same oily food is just more expensive food.
As soon as I get my own kitchen I am going to make some simply stir fry veg and cook them so lightly! Eaten with freshly steamed rice instead of old rice that’s sat in a rice cooker for a hour. Can’t wait for such a meal.
I also have packed with me all my lentils and beans and some spices so my stir fly will be seasoned by something simply as oregano and the tiniest splash of good quality oil.
Hmmmmm my mouth is watering at the thought.
PS. Reading this later on, I feel I have been too harsh. There are times when I genuinely do enjoy a meal I buy. The coconut curry is good and I know where to get a great omelet. The fries are fab at the “hamburger place” and even one place does a fried rice that tastes like rice rather than oil. Really, I don’t complain but I do look forward to some home cooking.
Patience patience as I wait only two more weeks to move into the house I now have organised. For now I remind myself of the positives of no shopping for food and no washing up
