Siem Reap – Eating and drinking

This place caters remarkably well for the Western tourist. And why shouldn’t it? With so many wealthly French and English tourists passing through the place, the locals should have as much chance to make money as the oil company guarding access to the temples.

First thing to take note of is that any beer ordered in a bar in Cambodia will also score you a bowl of peanuts. Great for the staving backpacker, but there’s no need for even a backpacker to be hungry when there’s so much good and cheap food around.

We ate the local delicacy, amok, at Soup Dragon, a place known for its Vietnamese food. Interesting.

At a very resourceful Asian restaurant off the main strip we had fish curry that was cooked and served in a coconut, complete with a lid carved out of the husk.

Back on the main strip In Touch made us feel like we’d walked out of Cambodia and straight into the Loft bar on Sydney’s Cockle Bay Wharf. There was dark wood and beige walls all ’round. This place was so cool that it even had astroturf on one of the walls. Once again, we couldn’t resist the fine dining experience for only $5. We debated whether spending $3 on a cocktail was reasonable for a while before coming to our senses and ordering a couple. I even got adventurous and ordered a foaming pink thing that may have involved gin.

The Red Piano is supposedly Angelina Jolie’s favourite bar. They’ve even got her favourite cocktail on the menu. It was good, but not as exciting as In Touch. We lazed in their wide cane chairs in the hot afternoon, hardly even noticing the security guard near the door or the delicate bank-queue ropes which kept any unsavoury types out.

The Temple Bar is best avoided. We should’ve known better than to enter a place named after the famed Dublin strip but two for one cocktails had us taking the risk.

Angkor What? is a cute name for a pub, but we didn’t last long perched high on their stools reading eye-rollingly dull phrases that previous travellers scrawled on the walls.

Go to The Blue Pumpkin for great brioche. The place transports you into a generic cafe in any Western city. In fact, I think it may even have wireless net access for those travelling with laptops.

All the temples have people selling food from stalls nearby. That’s if you can manage to get excited by food when it’s so damn hot. I know I can, even if their calls of “Lady! Cold drink? One dollah!” got to me.