High praise for Cambodian food, by the way.
Not that that should be a surprise - we've found when you are lucky enough to find a good quality, authentic representation of any ethnic cuisine you are normally in for a treat.
Cambodian, because of its region, certainly shared similarities with Chinese and Thai, but was definitely distinctive in its own way.
We had Loc Lac - a marinated steak tip dish that was somewhere between a satay and a teriyaki beef in terms of texture... but with a distinctive flavor.
A pineapple fried rice with chicken, which was cooked in a half of a pineapple, and while it is called a fried rice, in flavor and texture it was very different from its Chinese doppelgänger.
The last dish - Cha Kroeung with fish - was a lightly fried fish dish, with peppers, onions, and jalapeños in a lemongrass sauce. That was our favorite, mostly because it really didn't read like anything familiar at all. It was spicy though. Luckily for us we're really been getting more and more comfortable with that the last year.
And because it's me, one thing that I was fascinated by was — no chopsticks. The restaurant was filled with Cambodian people. I think we were the only non-Cambodians in the place, and not a single table was using them. I found that odd. If you were at a Chinese, or Vietnamese restaurant, for example, that would not be the case.
So I commented that it must be a cultural thing, perhaps like the Thai. For those who do not know (and I have always found THIS fascinating) if you wonder why you don't see chopsticks in a Thai restaurant (except for noodle dishes) it's because some long-ago king of Thailand was impressed by a colonial visitor and his utensils and made an edict that forks and spoons were to be the official tools of the land (not knives - too likely to be used as weapons)
Cambodian or Khmer food, was traditionally eaten by hand. But when the French and Chinese immigrants found their way to Cambodia, they brought both Eastern and Western traditions... and so Cambodia now uses fork and spoon as their traditional tools (to use chopsticks for everyday meals they consider "weird"), but they will sometimes use chopsticks out of respect for their Chinese guests. So it is not a law. It is custom.
No knives, though.. but that is because their food is all cut into small enough pieces that it is not required.
Again, I know most find minutiae like this utterly boring... while I find it fascinating. Apologies!
Love,
Allie
