We were starving from our flight from Kuala Lumpur. The budget airline doesn’t serve free meals, so we were traveling on an empty stomach from hours now. Now that were have arrived at the Golden Temple Villa, we’ve been hankering from some authentic Cambodian fare. Golden Temple Villa has a little restaurant beside it for guests to eat in. It is more like a makeshift hut than a full fledged restaurant.
We went in a were welcomed by the staff. Their menu has authentic Khmer food and also some western food. But I didn’t travel all the way here to eat western food. Whenever I travel, I make it a point to eat the food that the locals eat. While I wouldn’t exactly call hotel food “local food”, they did call it authentic Khmer food, so I ordered a dish and another for my friend.
When it came out it was in banana leaf bowls. The viands were all placed in the corner of the tray with the central portion presumably to put the rice and eat the stuff. Surprisingly, the food was not spicy as I might expect in a South East Asian country. I was expecting their food to be similar to Thai food. In some ways, it was. They use a lot of curry and coconut flavor. The huge difference is the lack of powerful chili, unlike the neighboring Thai cuisine. This came as a surprise to me since they are geographically right next to each other. I suspect that during the Fench occupation, chilies were pulled out of their diet to suit the tastes of the colonizers.
Despite the lack of chili kick. The meal was nice and tasty. However, I thought that the servings were a little small. Then again, I am a big eater, all servings are a little small for me. If I were to describe Khmer food, I would say it is Thai food without the spice. It is nice but I would not really say I have taken a liking to it.
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