I’m not the biggest fan of street food, but give it a college try at least once per culinarily significant region. To that end, I did both a breakfast and dinner street food tour by some NYT recommended company and walked around a bit solo.

This is what I saw walking along Okhna Try Heng Street 2011 (a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts) from my house to 7-11 at 7AM:

bananas and lotus flowers (more for the temples than the people)

I abandoned my plan to slam back a can of Nestlé latté from 7-11 immediately! 2500 riel is ~ $0.63 usd

fried bananas, taro cakes, sesame donuts, etc.

And this is was the Lost Plate breakfast tour:

Sry noodles, supposedly a quite old-fashioned noodle shop

Strong filter coffee with a bit of condensed milk

The deluxe bowl. Rather bland, but breakfast bowls usually are

Donut fam between Reachvong pharmacy and the phone shop

The guide bought and assembled a bowl of the most frequently used herbs and spices in Khmer cooking and explained each.

បាយផ្ទះកែង292, or “corner house rice 292”

The guide told us this place is where all the rich kids used to come for breakfast before school.

"លៀសហាល" (Leas Hal), or sun-dried freshwater golden clams. 99% sure these gave me the runs, but they’re incredibly popular.

I’m a huge fan of grilled sliced honeycomb as a dessert, especially with ice cream.

I know it’s the local Cambodian version, but I was honestly annoyed we were eating a Vietnamese dish.

The tour finished at a bougie coffee place, where I got an espresso/orange juice drink.

To summarize, the food was certainly not worth $40 and did not convince me there was anything good about Cambodian food. Upon reflection we had nothing special and barely anything Khmer. It’s true I wouldn’t have bothered on my own and wouldn’t have gotten these photos, so that’s worth something, but I really was annoyed. The guide was also a college kid who didn’t speak English well enough to explain things or know anything whatsoever about cooking, so that didn’t help. I genuinely can’t believe the glowing reviews this company receives for this tour . . . it’s so disproportionate to the amount of money they make and the quality of the product that I’m actually considering setting up a competing company.

On our way back to the city from Oudong, my driver wanted to stop at his favorite market, and of course I obliged.

Phsar Daek is about an hour and fifteen minutes from Russian market by car, so well into the villages but along the modern road. This is what was on offer in the late afternoon:

Grilled honeycomb topped with onions and chilis

Banh Cong (batter of rice flour, mung beans, and minced pork, topped with shrimp, and then deep-fried)

Endangered Mekong snail-eating turtles with ground cherries

On another day trip to the Chiso mountain temple, approximately an hour and a half’s drive from Phnom Penh, my driver was once again absolutely clutch at exposing me to authentic street food. This roadside stand was one of 5 or 6 outside a factory along the way, set up for the workers.

On offer were grilled snacks including a couple types of handmade sausage and big stuffed frogs.

The sausages were dipped into some sort of crisped sugar, like a sort of sausage tanghulu. Even when grilled it had a bit of crunch. They were quite tasty!

Groceries to take home including caramelized palm sugar paste, fermented shrimp, fish, coconut, bamboo, mixed vegetables and giant ants.

I bought the palm sugar paste for tea etc. and it took months to use up. These big jars were around $3 usd.

These antique Japanese shaved ice machines are absolutely everywhere.

And here is the Lost Plate dinner tour:

First we hit up a place literally called *Khmer Noodles Restaurant*

This one is *Banh Chev Chnganh Chngangh* on google maps.

The fried creepy crawly stand opens up opposite GRID SUBSTATION No9 (Samdach Hun Sen Park) in the evening.

Tarantulas, swallows, cockroaches, and rice frogs

Bbq grasshopper. Spicy and sweet/salty flavors are popular, with a couple different powders available for sprinkling on and shaking in a bag

I thought it would be easiest to start with a tarantula leg.

Eventually I just went for the body. It tastes a bit like chicken liver, and was actually my favorite out of all the bugs I tried!

Next stop was the banh mi at ហាងនំបុ័ងជ្រូកខ្វៃសៀមរាប (Siem Reap Pork Kwai Bakery). This is a sit-down restaurant and apparently the fanciest Banh Mi place in town.

The most popular barbecue chicken shop is open outside the Hol Korb Power Tools shop on Street 163.

According to the tour guide, the butthole is considered the most delicious part of the chicken. If he was fucking with us, I did not detect it, I asked him if he was serious and he swore he was.

54 ល្ងាចស្រស់, according to many the best restaurant in PP, and the most popular among wealthy Khmer locals. These are the classics- fish amok, chicken somlor, beef loklak, fried banana chips.

Hawker outside វិទ្យាល័យព្រះស៊ីសុវត្តិ (Preah Sisowath High School) bus station in the evening.

It’s shredded coconut and peanuts wrapped in crispy lettuce.

And that was it for street food in Phnom Penh. I can’t say I was impressed, but at least I know where to go if I’m broke. As for the $85 tour price, nah, definitely not worth it . . . though perhaps I needed to invest that much to persuade myself to give fried tarantula go!