In Love With Cambodia

Written By: Shelly Travis

Edited By:  Blair Lewis-Thomas

In Paris, instead of gravitating towards some the acclaimed Parisian foods like baguettes, croissants or escargot, I fell in love with a small Cambodian restaurant in the 1st arrondissement. This Cambodian restaurant was named, Phnom Penh Saigon and initially my sister in law who lives is Paris and I planned to eat at one of her favorite Japanese restaurants. Instead, as we were walking we passed up this Cambodian restaurant and decided to try it out. My sister-in law who is part Cambodian has always been leery of trying Cambodian food other that what her father cooks, because when she does she is always disappointed, but we proceeded to go in anyways. When we walked in she noted, “oh I see a Cambodian! Grandmother is in the kitchen, this is going to be good.” One of my favorite foods is Thai, but this meal surpassed anything I had ever eaten!  We both ordered Nom “Bantchok Samiâ Namya”, which is like a rich curry sauce with noodles, ginger, basil and fresh fish. It was all so fresh and so delicious! We as well had shrimp dumplings that were amazing! It was so good that I wanted to take one to go, but I made the choice I will be back before my time is up here. So far, I have gone two times, and plan to make it back at least one more time. I will definitely be dreaming about this dish when I get back to the States and will be one of my first stops when I return to Paris this summer!