Food Trippin: Chamkar Vegetarian Restaurant

Here is our first hit in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the restaurant is called Chamkar it is a sort of Thai-Malay-Khmer hybrid restaurant from what we understood from the waiter who we were conversing with.  The restaurant is small and quaint, it is parallel and one street off of Pub Street so it should not be to hard to find if you ever find your self in this neck of the woods.

Pretty much we were feeling just a tad peckish in the mid-afternoon and so decided to try out some of the food fare to set us straight till christmas eve.  The lucky restaurant was this one which drew me and mom because it was a mostly vegetarian menu, I know the title of this entry says Vegetarian Restaurant and if I had a clear photo of the name plate I would show you because that is what it said BUT the menu did have some meat and seafood on it just so you know.

Anyhow the food was superb and unfortunately quite filling (but not in a terrible way) that we decided to walk back to the hotel so that we could make room for dinner later that evening.

Anyway here are the goods...

Gotta have the Fresh Spring Rolls when you eat at a Vegetarianesque Restaurant, these ones had rice noodles in them with the typical green mangro, cucumber, and carrots but was topped with black sesame seeds.  The surprise here was the sauce which was totally new to me, it was like tangy savory tomato based with a little kick and was AWESOME!

This dish is named the Wedding Day Dip, it may be because its served at weddings here in Cambodia or it could be because it is SO GOOD once you've tried it on a date the wedding may not be to far away.  But seriously this coconut milk based sauce with mushrooms and peanuts is a best seller at the restaurant and after one bite you will under stand why, the chilis served on the side add a delayed reaction kind of heat that is not to overpowering.  

Here's the side alley with the restaurant that stand on the right is the menu, sadly I forgot to take a photo of the frontage clearly but if you can see my mother and sister on the right you can catch the sign on top of them sort of. (see it SAYS vegetarian restaurant!)

The main entrees.

This is the Vegetable Curry, mostly carbed out veggies but the flavor was ecstaticly yummy.  What I mean was the veggies in it were sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and tomatoes, for the dish I know carrots would not have gone well with it but maybe some okra or something green besides the thai basil would have been nice.

The curry came with this brown rice, nothing special, just the typical high fibre brown rice we have all tried at one point or the other.

This last dish is a doozie, something totally unique, Stuffed Tofu.  This is not your everyday run-in-the-mill dish cause before this I have not seen tofu stuffed with anything.  This one was stuffed with grilled mushrooms and peppers, I apologize I did not take a photo of it when it was cut open.  This dish was extremely flavorful, note especially the sides it was served with which were pickled oyster mushrooms and caramelized onions with green peppercorns.  The stuffed tofu could definitely have stood on its own but I guess some people just want as much flavor as possible.

All in all this was a good meal which was supposed to be a snack, but hey how often are we in Siem Reap was the logic behind this.  To bad my sister doesn't appreciate food like this yet but we think she'll come around sooner rather than later.  So between me and my mom this place was good and rounds out to 3 and a half out of 5 stuffed tofu.  If you like vegetarianish food this is worth a stop next time you're in Siem Reap.

All Photos taken on an iPhone 

All Photos are Copyright MGAntonio

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FoodTrippin: Cha Ca La Vong

First I want to say I really love food and I have no problem changing my eating habits on a whim to be able to savor a specific type or kind of food now or some other time hence.  I am not quite sure why I had to say that but it felt like I had to, but as a follow up so far on this trip every meal we have had has been a FULL meal in on itself, add to that the street fare we (me and I) have to try and well I'm pretty sure I am going to have to get those extra hours of cardio come January. 

So anyway Foodtrippin Episode 2, Cha Ca La Vong, Ho Chi Minh.  This was the second restaurant on my mom's gotta-try-list.  Suggested to us by my ninang (aunt) as one of the best meals you can get in the city and as a restaurant where no matter what you order you will get blown away, more on that later.

I would like to add that our journey to this restaurant was kind of cool for me because it was the first restaurant that I was able to track down and get to with the use of my phones GPS mapping.  So okay I may be geeking out a bit here and maybe I am overusing my new toy a bit, but hey if it is helping me find good food I do not really care what others will think.

Okay so lets start with some back information on Cha Ca La Vong, word is this is the oldest restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, well oldest that served the public for money is what I am guessing.  As for what I said earlier with regard to getting blown away with whatever you order that is because in this restaurant you are actually given no choice in what you are going to order because the truth is there is only one thing on the menu and it is the house specialty and wouldn't you know it, it has the same name as the restaurant Cha Ca La Vong.

Literally one dish on the menu, not counting drinks of course.

So as I said it kinda makes it hard to go wrong in this place, that is of course unless you do not eat fish or hate vegetables where in your fate would be to eat nothing but THE fish.  Though for all those doubters out there let me reassure you that if you are one or the other you will have no problem eating this dish, unless you are my sister.  That is because even I myself am very particular with the fish I eat.  This one though just blew me away and easily cracks my top 2 if not 3 fish dishes I have ever had.  To be honest, now that I am thinking about it, if I have a second round at this restaurant I am pretty sure it will jump to number one on my fish dish list.

There definitely is a small snag to this and that is by eating this fish I am going against who I am with regard to being a ecological conservationist.  That is because to my understanding they use catfish from the Mekong river delta, from what I know there are several species of catfish that live in the Mekong.  That should be pretty obvious given that the river spans several countries but it is worrying to think that I may have been helping cause the extinction of Mekong river catfish by eating here.  I just hope and pray that it was not the endangered giant Mekong River Catfish.  The photo of Granny with an above average sized catfish is a thinker though.  (But if it was, again I'm sorry, it was so good! Though if i do find out that it was, I will honestly have to never eat in this place again, so I am praying extremely that it is some kind of cultivated species or something like that.)

Anyhow back to the eating, when it came down to it, again there was no problem ordering, we basically just got two orders and split it between the three of us. It is very interesting how this goes, because it seems that you can get as much trimmings as you want. Trimmings being, pho or noodles, lime, peanuts, dill, green onions, fish sauce, chilis, coriander, and rice crackers as you want so from my stand point it is an all you can eat buffet, or sit down rather. Now to describe the dish in of itself is something mind boggling because by looking at it is incredibly simple yet when you're eating you get hit by one of the most complexing mouthfuls of your life, each and everytime.

All the trimmings you can eat if you can stomach it without the fish becase each and everyone is a strong taste or flavor of itself.

To try and explain that, when the dish is unassembled as it is dispatched to your table it looks bold yet simple.  The first thing you notice is that everything is unique and contrasting, in both flavor and texture.  You have your crunchy peanuts, you have your soft rice noodles, you have the hot chilis and then you have the cool coriander, then you have shrimp sauce, lime and green onions all of which are incredibly over powering when not properly proportioned.  So it gets you wondering what the hell am I about to eat that will make this discombobulated mix of ingredients actually work, then the star attraction arrives.

Never believed the simple catfish could be this good.

Okay so all of a sudden this secret recipe cat fish lands on your table like mana from the food Gods. It gets served to you on a hot plate that is kept hot by a gas stove they leave on your table.  Now this thing is just AWESOME!  This recipe or whatever seasoning or mix of shiznit they throw on to this fish is just something you feel you want to jump into yourself.  Put it this way, catfish is plain dull white meat, normally we have it with citrus, anything acidic or even just salt so we can actually taste the darn thing but oh my God!  This is the first dish that I have tasted that I can actually say that is catfish, I can TASTE catfish, which is weird because before this day it was like I had no idea what catfish really tasted like, though I did but I mean like after eating this dish only then did I really know what catfish is supposed to taste like.  It is one of the closest dishes to heaven that I have tasted in recent memory.  It was THAT AMAZING! 

Also that was when you try the catfish on its own, the fun part of is is mixing in all the other stuff they served with it.  At this point it is supposedly build to your own taste sort of but I have to say it did not really matter at all what combination you had whether you had little or a lot of whatever ingredient they gave you because no matter my combination once it got mixed in and as long as you had a bite of catfish or even just the catfish jus, it was over.  Done deal, each bite is just war with your understanding of what is actually good in the world because before that bite you just did not know something as odd as this mix could be that good.

Oh so simple looking but OMG! Officially the best seafood (technically riverfood) Pho of my life!
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So my verdict on Cha Ca La Vong, MUST ADD TO ANY FOODIE BUCKET LIST!  I will bet my integrity as food lover on it!  It may not become the best meal you have ever had but I can assure you it will crack your top 10.  Not bad for a dish that has not been changed in close to a century, so it gets 4.5 out of 5 La Vongs.  I cant give it a 5 out of 5 because even though I got mind blown it just wasn't THE dish of my life just yet. 

Lucky Guy