Foodie day in Siem Reap

On our ‘off day’ from touring the temples in Angkor Archaelogical Park on February 4th, we got to sample some nice local cuisine. To prime ourselves, we started with more Coco Pops (hahaha) and yummy fruit platter and baguettes. That gave us enough energy to walk into town for our cooking class at Le Tigre de Papier. We had emailed to book the night before and got confirmation in the morning that there were still spots available. On our way, we brought our 1kg of laundry to a place by our hotel and were told it would be ready in the afternoon! We must tell you that we were quite excited about that!!

Anyway … there were many options for cooking classes in Siem Reap, most of which included a trip to a local market to discuss what different ingredients were available and to get a feel for the local community. Some classes offered full day courses but we thought a 3-hour class would be a good start. We selected Le Tigre de Papier in large part because they let each student choose from their menu instead of all learning a set thing (as we had done in cooking classes in London.) At the cost of $15 per person to make your own starter, main and dessert, plus the market visit, it was a great deal. They also had an option to make two starters and two mains for $30 which would have been WAY too much food so we were happy we went with the one starter and one main option.

When we arrived, there was only one other person there – an Italian guy who was living in Hanoi. He had come down to get his Vietnamese visa stamped and said he’d tried other cooking courses while in Vietnam. When 10am rolled around, it was still just the three of us. Our chef handed us each a menu and told us which items we could choose from (basically anything except the Western stuff.) Ana selected banana flower salad and Amok fish. I selected nem (fried spring rolls) and fried lotus root with pork. Neither of us had ever had banana flower or lotus root (that we could recall) and we had tried Amok fish before and really wanted to learn how to make it. Our Italian partner chose spicy prawn salad and Tom yam soup (sweet and sour soup.)

We then walked over to the local market and our chef showed us many of the ingredients. There were many stalls at the entrance selling spice packages and some spice mixes (including Amok mix). We had discussed before our trip that we wanted to bring back a ‘signature spice’ from each country so we considered later on what we might buy from Cambodia. Unfortunately, we actually left the country without buying anything. But not to fear, we learned many of the essential spices and herbs needed to make authentic Cambodian cuisine and we will source them out in Denmark! There were also lots of different tea varieties with dried fruits and other spices. We were introduced to a few new vegetables and saw people cutting and packaging fresh fruit and packaging rice noodles into smaller packs. We actually had everything we needed at the restaurant already but it was still nice to have a quick walk through the market.

We returned to the restaurant, put on our chef’s outfits and washed our hands in fresh lime water and then we got to work. We each had an ingredient bowl, chopping board, knife and peeler with ridges. Chef explained to each of us what we needed to do to prepare our veg and herbs and we were off. Mine was the easiest as they had already cut the lotus root for me which was kind of sad but that meant I was able to help Ana prepare more for her dishes. I had to use the vegetable peeler to shred my sweet potato, taro root and carrot. Ana also had to shred her carrots and then cut her banana flower and immediately soaked it in some lime water to prevent it from browning. Ana and our Italian partner had to finely chop a lot of vegetables for their pastes and salad sauce. The paste for the soup was almost identical to the Amok paste except it had more chilies. They were also sharing the sauce for their respective salads as those were identical.

The amok paste had shallots, garlic, sweet chili, hot chili, galangal (you could use ginger instead), turmeric, finger root, kefir limes and later some lime juice. These were finely chopped and then ground in a nice and large mortar using a very large pestle.

Then we got started cooking. We actually started making dessert first – flambé bananas with passion fruit. We added sooooo much coconut milk, honey and palm sugar!

I cooked the insides of my nem (carrot, taro root, sweet potato and prawns) and set that aside to cool.

Then Ana made her Amok fish. It smelled so good when she was cooking the sauce.

Next, Ana made her banana flower salad. Here she is squeezing out a lot of the liquid.

Then, I assembled my nem.

Next, I fried my lotus root and pork. Finally, I fried my nem.

And now we had our feast prepared!

We brought it downstairs and enjoyed our meal together. We all sampled each dish and had our bellies totally full with the three starters and three mains! But then it was time for the flambé banana and passion fruit. Surprisingly, it was not nearly as rich as we all thought it would be given the amount of coconut milk and various sugars in the dish. It was the perfect end to our lovely time at Le Tigre de Papier.

After lunch, we thought we might need a bit of a walk to burn off some of our calories before getting our next massage. We strolled through the market some more and other streets nearby before heading to a massage place close to Le Tigre de Papier. We each had a pricy full body massage which was relaxing but not the best we’ve had before returning to the hotel for some rest.

For our Facebook friends and close family, you know that day was also the one where all of my Bugs Cafe dreams came true! We had read about the Bugs Cafe in June/July as Cambodia came first in our book and I was so excited about this place. Ana less so. Here’s the description from Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Budget that had me sold that this was a MUST GO in Siem Reap:

Cambodians were on to insects long before the food scientists started bugging us about the merits of critters. Choose from a veritable feast of crickets, water bugs, silkworms and spiders. Bee cream soup, feta and tarantula samosas, and pan-fried scorpions – you won’t forget this menu in a hurry.

Those of you close to Ana know she hates spiders so I have to give her a lot of credit for indulging me and agreeing to go to the Bugs Cafe for dinner. I had seen some fried tarantulas at a street vendor the night before and wasn’t sure that I would make it through without being squeamish but I was so determined to go here that nothing could stop me! Ana teased me relentlessly about taking her here after our wonderful time at Le Tigre but I say it’s an authentic experience!

When we arrived, the French co-owner greeted us and explained the concept of moving beyond the standard fried fare in Cambodia to fully formed dishes with the former creepy crawly ingredients. He also reassured us that all the poison had been removed from the bugs and that they wouldn’t be juicy and splurt in your mouth when you bit into them. Promising so far. 😜😜

He recommended the Discovery platter and that’s what we chose. It had the following items:

• 2 wild spring rolls – vegetables and red ants
• Insect skewer – silkworms, crickets, tarantula, water bug, onion, pepper, tomato
• 2 silkworm and taro croquettes
• 1 tarantula donut (tempura) or tarantula samosa with feta
• 1 crickets and silkworms wok

I had been determined to get the tarantula samosas since reading about this place but when it came down to it, we thought that ordering the starter (3 samosas) would be too much in addition to the Discovery platter. And who can pass up a fried tarantula?!? I was a bit sad about that but considering that the samosa had chopped up tarantula instead of a whole one, I think we made the right choice! We also ordered two cocktails as this place had good reviews for cocktails and indeed, when you find it on Google maps, it’s feature is ‘great cocktails.’ Ana ordered a caipirinha and I ordered a honeybee. This was important to be able to wash down what was to come. 😜😜

After 10-15 minutes of anticipation, our discovery platter finally arrived! The French co-owner came by again and told us about each dish and the accompanying dipping sauce. As he walked away, the moment of truth had finally arrived.

We started with the spring roll as that looked the least intimidating. It was quite nice and you could barely see the ants inside. A fair beginning. Ana kept a bite of her half of the spring roll as a ‘safety food’ should she need to wash anything down later on. I can happily report that she did not need this.

We then moved on to the tarantula donut – which was really tempura. I took the first bite – a leg of course! And it was crunchy and quite tasty. I then passed it to Ana for her first taste of a tarantula leg and she not only survived, but she also enjoyed it. We nipped off one leg at a time and then I ate the body. Yum!

Next was the insect skewer which was intimidating especially because of the giant water bug. Side note – we may have mentioned in our first post about Vietnam that we saw something on the menu our morning of buon cuon which we later found out to be water bug essence. Mmmm, that did not sound so appealing. It looks like a giant cockroach and I guess in many respects, that’s what it is.

Anyway … we had a cricket first which was totally fine. A little bit crunchy but well-cooked. Then we had the tarantula which was also nice and had a really good flavor. The silkworm was a little bit mealy but no problem at all. Then came the giant water bug. Another moment of truth. The owner had told us there were two main methods of eating it. Option #1 was to bite off a big part, shell and all, and chew it until only the shell was left and then spit it into a tissue (think about eating a shrimp with the shell on and grinding it until only the shell is left but worse since it looks like a cockroach.) We decided to go for option #2 which was peeling off the back part of the shell and scraping your teeth to get the meat. I went first and Ana looked on with a reasonable amount of disgust and indecision about whether to try it. It was actually quite meaty and I encouraged her to try it and she did and was able to appreciate some of the flavor. We passed the test! Hard part done!

Then, we moved onto the wok. The silkworms definitely looked like maggots or other larvae and I will say, having to keep those in the corner of my eye the entire meal was not the most appetizing. We’d had an option of three sauces and we chose the Mediterranean one which had some Parmesan in it – we were pleased with this decision. The crickets went down fairly easily although sometimes the legs got stuck in our teeth. I am betting no one is surprised by this. The silkworms were another story. They were very meaty/hearty but also a bit mealy. They left a slight bitter aftertaste and after some time, Ana knew I wasn’t really enjoying them although I was determined to finish the wok. Being the stubborn person I am and not wanting to waste the food, I did finish the wok.

Lastly, we had the silkworm and taro croquettes. There was a nice dipping sauce (which we can’t remember now) and they were pretty mild. Although you could also see and taste the silkworms, there were enough other things in the dish to make it more enjoyable.

Victory was ours! We discovered that we liked some bugs and we both agreed the tarantula donut was the best of the bunch. The spring roll was really good too but a bit too tame. 😜😜

We were too full to try one of the yummy looking desserts, but don’t worry, if we ever go to Siem Reap again, I will be dragging Ana back here to try some more things!

Okay, maybe we weren’t toooooooo full. We got an ice cream on the way back to the hotel – our reward for dinner time at the Bugs Cafe!

We probably won’t be eating giant water bugs again in the near future but I have to say, it’s definitely worth trying some bugs sometime – especially if they’re nicely prepared. Yes mom, this is possible! Lots of cultures have insects as part of their normal diet and indeed, after we ate here, we had seen fried scorpions on the street (too much for us!) and we’ve seen people buy a bag of silkworms or crickets at the market and eat them with chopsticks for a snack. Foods of the future …