The Magnet 087: Cambodian Street Food Tour
Red ant sauce with crushed peanuts, sugarcane juice, fertilized duck eggs and more
Carla and I just returned from a two-week trip to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. It was one of the most interesting and rewarding travel experiences I've ever had. These places are incredibly different from the United States, and there were moments when I felt like I had traveled back in time a century or more.
I plan to dedicate a few issues of The Magnet to our visit to South Aisia. I’ll start by describing a food tour that Carla and I took in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
This was my first time visiting Cambodia, and I wasn't familiar with their cuisine. However, I have always enjoyed street food in Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia. In my opinion, street food is usually tastier than restaurant food and definitely better than what you'll find in hotels.
My sister and her husband joined us on the trip, and she had booked the food tour in advance after reading about it in The New York Times.
Our host, Steven Halcrow, is a friendly Scotsman with a lot of energy. He met us in the hotel lobby, and we all got into the tuk tuk he had arranged. As we drove through downtown Siem Reap, Steven shared his story with us. He had worked as a chef at a couple of Michelin Star restaurants and even tried opening his own restaurant in Siem Reap, but unfortunately, it had to close due to the pandemic. Steven was genuinely interested in getting to know us and our backgrounds, and we had a great conversation about life as an expat in Cambodia.
While driving through Siem Reap, Carla and I were amazed by the bustling city life. In addition to tuk tuks, the streets were filled with scooters (sometimes carrying entire families of five) and bicycles. The presence of food hawkers' carts made the streets feel narrower. I was so excited by the vibrant scene that I didn't even feel the jet lag, despite arriving in Siem Reap just the day before. The last time I felt such happiness and awe in a new country was when I arrived in Tokyo for the first time in 1987. The air had a faint smell of burning vegetation, and people were buying groceries from vendors who laid produce out on blankets.
Steven informed us that he would take us off the typical tourist path and had chosen eateries located outside the city center. Our first destination was Vika Food, a restaurant that specialized in pork. Our tuk tuk pulled up alongside three homemade charcoal grills. Above the grills hung a dozen or so roasted pig faces. They looked like flattened Halloween masks. Steven explained that pig faces offered a delightful combination of flavors and textures, with some parts being fatty, others crisp and chewy, and some even containing bones. Intrigued, I was willing to give it a try, but Steven said we weren’t going to be eating pig faces that night, but instead, we were going to feast on pork belly.
He led us to an open-air area with red plastic chairs and wooden tables next to the grills. We sat down, and he set a bucket of beer and bottled water on the table, and another bucket of ice. He drew our attention to the shape of one of the ice cubes, which was cylindrical with a hole at the center. According to Steven, this type of ice was safe to consume, as opposed to other ice variants that were solely used for cooling purposes. He apologized for the warm beer and said that was the way it was served at street food places in Cambodia. A moment later, a large plate of grilled pork belly arrived, along with a tray of dipping sauces. One of the sauces contained a lot of chopped up red ants.
The formic acid in the ants provided a tasty citrus flavor. Once everyone overcame the initial hesitation of consuming insects, it became the favorite dipping sauce among the tour group.