The eating place is an open air stall about two hundred foot long and thirty foott wide covered with a tent-like roof supported by poles. There could be about fifteen to twenty vendors each having about a twelve foot corridor between the poles. The kitchens were on one side lined up next to each other. There was plumbing and most likely there was underground sewer. Though tropical area, there were no flies or insects. There was no food odor. The food odor in Indian open air stalls does pervade a wide space. Apparently the strong smelling coriander or cumin is not used in Cambodia as liberally as in Indian cooking. I wondered that the Indian cooking could have been more water based a thousand years ago and the strong use of spices might have developed for preservation. Fruits and vegetables are plenty in the tropics, there is no need for preservation. Cambodians know how to eat fresh food. They have maintained the heritage. Each of the fifteen stores had about eight tables each with benches on both side. Two to three persons could sit on the bench. Each store could be serving fifty meals at lunch. All stores were managed by women, each being run by a family. The mother is the cook and the daughters or other young girls are the servers. The mother from the kitchen would look eagerly what the order could be and cook the food as she did at her home. It was indeed a "welcome home" feeling. All the stores possibly had the same menu; the preference could be through the escort or by pure happen chance. We took our seats under a ceiling fan in one of the stores. The paper menu had some Cambodian syllables phonetically transliterated in English. I asked Mr Kushal for help and settled for tofu with vegetables. Mr Kushal ordered another dish of the similar type. After about fifteen minutes we had our food. Each plate had the nice hemispheric heap of rice with vegetables served on the side. Several sauces showed up, but I refrained from using them.
There was a rumor a few years ago in the Indian community in the US that rice eating might not be good for health. Many new immigrants in their advanced age stopped eating rice with a goal to prolong life. In my college years, we were told that it was better to have the evening meal out of wheat. Bur here in Cambodia, I did not see any wheat products in the eateries. People looked healthy. It could be that good health is a function of how much work you do than what you consume. Mental stress could be a bigger killer than any pointers to food!
Two Japanese girls were sitting at the next table. It was the neighboring store. They were eating their food with chopsticks. In a big bowl they would look for objects to grab with their chopsticks and guide them to their mouth. It appeared that one needed special manipulative skills to grab objects. We are told that the chopsticks were invented several thousand years ago in China. They possibly are more hygienic that picking food with the fingers. Ayurveda says that the touch of food by the fingers does have a signal to the brain to prepare for secretion of saliva in the mouth. The use of chopsticks is widespread in the Far East. Indians did not invent extra tools to eat their food!
Our food was fresh and tasty. I had become a fan of the delicate blending of the vegetables cooked in ginger and coconut. While the Indian food is more synthetic for a composite taste, here each of the ingredients could be tasted individually. There were more unknown elements than known but each seemed to have a nourishing presence. The cook at the corner did survey her guests to check if all were happily fed. I thought rice would be heavy, but I did manage to finish my meal.
Each lunch order was about eight dollars similar in price for lunch we pay in the US. We paid the bill and tipped the serving person. The Cambodian currency is highly deflated, so the money could be used liberally. All our various friends in the trip had also shown up and were sitting in various stores. Some of the young men appeared to be enjoying a feast. Massive eating for arbitrary reason could be an eating disorder!
The sky had been clouding lately. There was suddenly high winds and everybody wanted to take shelter. In a few minutes, downpours started. It was good to observe the scene from the comfort of one's seat in the eatery. Downpours reduced to drizzle in about fifteen minutes and we moved. We were on our way to a temple overgrown by the trees and then visit the monument called The Elephant's walk.
