The food tour was one of the most interesting and fun experiences we had in Cambodia. Once again, we jumped on the back of Vespas and took a progressive food tour around Siem Reap with our guide, Piak. First stop was Pub Street for Cambodian cocktails – we enjoyed delicious ginger mojitos and local Cambodian beer!
Pub Street was packed with people enjoying the bars and restaurants, shopping the boutiques or just strolling and watching each other.
After drinks, we hopped back on the Vespas and drove about 20 mins outside the city center to the area where locals eat. We dined in the beautiful courtyard of a restaurant with lazy susan type tables meant for family style eating and sharing. We started with appetizers including spring rolls, prawns and pumpkin soup, then on to main course of chicken, beef, lamb, fish and vegetables. During dinner several young singers performed ‘oldie songs’ to recorded music – like individualized karaoke.
Next stop was the most interesting – the local night market. Not sure if I’d call this dessert or not, but it was our chance to sample local Cambodian snacks, a variety of fried insects. During the time of the Khmer Rouge, people were starving so they ate insects, rats, frogs and other living creatures that were in plentiful supply, in order to survive. Today, insects such as silk worms, beetles, crickets, scorpions and spiders are attracted with lights near buckets of water, drowned and then deep fried. These have become the Cambodian version of potato chips; crunchy, packed with protein and healthier than most other deep friend junk food!
Piak started by eating a large beetle – we all suspended judgment and agreed to snack with him. My husband and I began by eating silk worms – not too bad and tasted like mushy peanuts. Our group got progressively more and more daring – eventually people were eating crickets and even a scorpion. We were high fiving each other with each taste – I’m sure the vendors thought we were crazy.
We took a quick walk through the market – it was huge and still going strong at 10 pm – and saw lots of other interesting food stuffs including skewers of different kinds of fish, meat and frogs.
Back on the Vespas, we headed for our last stop – the Sombai winery, to end the evening tasting different varieties of rice wines. We sampled eight different flavors – everyone’s favorite was lemon and lemongrass, but green tea and orange, pineapple and coconut, mango and green chili and ginger and red chili were also very good. Alcohol content of rice wine is high – between 24-27% alcohol so we were glowing by the time we finished the evening. The winery gave us each a small bottle of our favorite flavor. A thirty-minute motorcycle ride down quiet streets back to our hotel, big thanks to our capable drivers and we were in bed by 11pm with visions of fried insects in our heads!
