Phnom Penh Travel Guide

Eating Out

A traditional Cambodian meal is generally served with soup and popular varieties include samla machou banle (fish soup); samla chapek (pork and ginger soup) or machou bangkang (prawn soup). One of the most popular local dishes is khao phoune, rice noodles in a coconut-based sauce.

Phnom Penh has a pretty good range of restaurants, which is in no small part due to the influx of foreign NGO workers and the historical links with France, so there is plenty to choose from here. There are even some restaurants that are run by NGOs to provide jobs for local people and much needed funds for local causes. There are good eats to be found all over town, from market stalls, to Chinese noodle shops and relatively more expensive international restaurants.

For Cambodian food, there are plenty of restaurants to chose from, often setting up outside with tables and chairs on the street. The food is generally tasty and freshly cooked and lots of beer drinking goes on. Sugar Palm Cafe on Ph.240 has good local food, with tables on the street and on an upstairs balcony, as well as a gallery of local crafts.

There are plenty of places to get a coffee fix in Phnom Penh, but Java Cafe and Gallery is a particularly nice and popular place to relax, situated close to Independence Monument, with a balcony and indoor seating, they serve real coffee and some good cakes. They also occasionally have live music in the evening.