Last day in Cambodia, and we spend a good part of it ding what we love: cooking and eating! We’ve scheduled the Le Tigre de Papier Cooking school for 10am. It’s a school put on by one of the restaurants here (actually as we find out from our teaching chef, the company owns about 5 more restaurants up and down Pub Street, so we start calling them the TGIFriday’s of Siem Reap), and we get to choose one app and one main from their menu to cook.
On our way to the restaurant, we drop off our laundry for one day service ($1US/KG) – way cheap. Figure at this price, we can go home with all clean clothes and save on our power bill.
Then off we go to Pub Street for our lessons. We show up early, so we wander about, checking out the new restaurants, figuring out what we want for dinner. Maybe the BBQ – while it’s expensive - $14.75 for 2 (yeah, I know), it’s a whole lot of food we get to BBQ right at our table. Hmmm…we’ll see.
Back at the restaurant we are seated with menus and told to choose our dishes. For apps – we both pick salads – I do the papaya salad (because it is different than the Thai version) and Ed chooses spicy shrimp salad. For mains – well – this one’s easy – I do Beef Lok Lak, and Ed does Amok Fish. We get together with our group – a lovely mix – a single traveler from Montreal and a couple from Salzburg. We all choose our dishes individually, then as a group we get to decide our dessert – and everyone else wants sticky rice. So we go along (I was hoping for the banana dish, but majority rules!). Now, off to the market – just to look – because of course, all the food is already available since the dishes are on the restaurant menu!
The market is crazy! Teeming with people and fish, meat, poultry, vegetables even honey comb. I love the way the vendors sit/squat on top of the table where their merchandise is displayed!
Our chef-teacher, Ms. Heng, explains the various herbs, vegetables and greens all around us. She also explains the fruit – which we’ve seen from Thailand – mangosteens! But no one else has seen them. She buys us some to go with our sticky rice. She also helps us by spices from a vendor – 3 big bags for $5US. A discount from $2 each. We get 2 Amok and 1 Lemongrass (just in case we can’t get the frozen lemongrass from the Thai Grocery when we are in Richmond).
The last stalls we pass are the rice noodle stalls, where they hall all the noodles stacked so nicely in “nests”, then they package them up in banana leaves when you buy them.
After a couple minutes more of the frenzy, we head back to the kitchen to start prepping and cooking!
What a totally fun morning – and into the afternoon. We prep our dishes, cutting, chopping and organizing. Each of us getting direction from our teacher. She’s constantly about – showing us what to do, going into the kitchen to prepare items, just running about in general. We all spend the time, chopping, talking and generally just enjoying each other’s company.
Unfortunately, the male counterpart of the Austrian couple (we never did get their names) isn’t feeling all that well, travelers tummy, so he goes back to the hotel, and his girlfriend is left to cook all 4 dishes! It all works out though…
After we prep, we head into the kitchen in groups to cook our meals. First up the sauces for the apps, then the apps themselves. It’s tight in there, but it’s fun to be in a real kitchen cooking up our meals!
Then we start to assemble our dishes…
And finally get to go across the street to the Bamboo cafe to eat them!
It was a fabulous time, cooking, learning new recipes, and chatting with everyone. We’re stuffed from out great meal – but still have room for our sweet sticky rice and fruit!
We finally break up the group around 2. We all head off our separate ways, with a cooking certificate from the school, and a video of all the recipes for only $5!
We head over to the market on the make for a replacement pair of RayBans for me because I’ve cracked mine getting into the van in Hanoi, and a set of chopsticks. $3 bucks for the RayBans, $6 for a set of 20 chopsticks with mother of pearl handles. We’re done shopping! That was easy.
Heading back to the hotel, we grab some batteries for our travel alarm ($0.25 for 2 AAA batteries!), then we spy this special promo at one of the fish spas: 15 minutes for $1 plus a free beer.
OK – well, we can not pass this up. The beer alone does the trick. So…here we go..we stick our feet into the fish “bowl” – and oh my god – it is the WEIRDEST sensation you have ever felt. These fish nibbling on your feet. I am laughing so hard, I am crying. It tickles, it just feels so darn weird! Ed isn’t laughing like me, he’s just taking pictures….
Thoroughly delighted, we head back to the hotel to relax at the pool. We manage to while away the rest of the afternoon, hanging around the pool and getting cooled off. We go to get the laundry at 5, but it’s not ready yet, so more relaxing, and finally at 6:30 we can pick it up and finish packing.
Now, it is down to mere hours left. Can’t believe the time has passed so darn quickly. For dinner tonight, we are so not hungry, that huge lunch is still with us. So we go back to The Old house and just get fried spring rolls (for me) and soup and an Ocean burger (for Ed). The Ocean burger is great – it’s a fish sandwich of fish from Tonle Sap lake and it is prepared so well – and so fresh. Really a great meal. We are – once again stuffed as we trundle back to the hotel, with a stop at the central market for another pair of Raybans because we realize the ones we bought this afternoon are broken. I’ve sort of patched them up and will wear them until the temple snaps off, but I do want a good pair. $3 again. That seems to be the going price!
Home again, we drift off to sleep with the alarm set early for breakfast and our flight.
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