Taking Home the Taste of Cambodia: Learning to Cook with the Chef

Saturday, October 1


Long comes to our hotel as he has for the past few days, but this time we are bringing our luggage to begin the long trip back to Boston. On the way, however, Road Scholar has helped us arrange for a cooking class with Chef Phav of Fou Nan Restaurant, where we had our best lunch in town on Wednesday. Chef Phav is fairly young but accomplished. Formerly with Siem Reap's Raffle Hotel, he has cooked for King Sihanouk and a thousand invited guests at the opening of the Angkor National Museum, and for President Clinton during his visit to the city in 2006. Not a bad resume for our personal professor of Cambodian culinary arts...

We begin with a tuk-tuk ride to Samaki Market to buy the ingredients for our farewell lunch. Along the way, we select the menu. Chef Pav suggests a banana flower salad and stir fried pork with ginger. We ask for the wonton soup that was the highlight of our lunch earlier in the week. He agrees, and we're off. 



Along the way, we experience one final insight into Cambodian traffic customs. Passing Jayavarmann VII Children's Hospital downtown, we are stopped by police who swing barriers across a raised sidewalk shaped like an enormous speed bump; the barriers are a smaller version of what you might encounter at a railroad crossing. Traffic stops for a doctor who walks in scrubs from one hospital building to another; once he has made it across, we resume our trip to the market.

If you get the chance to go shopping for food with a great chef, take it. He brought us to stall after stall, explaining how he looks for the freshest banana flowers, garlic, ginger, pork, cilantro, onions, peppers, and tomatoes. It was a real education. Seeing a few of the many different types of eggplant grown in Cambodia was eye-opening. Some look like limes; others more like small cucumbers. The vendors know Chef Pav, of course, and he gets exactly what we need for our class. Soon, Cameron, he, and I are headed back to his kitchen to prepare what we've found.


The chef works fast, but he's precise, and more than generous with tips on how to cut onions for different dishes, or when to add basil to the soup. Course by course, we cut, chop, mix, stir, heat, season, and, of course, taste and adjust. It's some of the most fun we've had on the trip, and a highly-recommended activity for those pre-departure hours normally spent fretting about whether everything is properly packed, or if we'll get to the airport on time. Plus, the results surely beat anything served on an airplane.

With the soup and salad waiting on plates, Chef Pav demonstrates wok skills I probably will never achieve but enjoyed witnessing first-hand. In a matter of seconds, sliced pork, seasonings, and oil flame to perfection; we taste the smallest morsels we can find to avoid burning our tongues. It's delicious. During our goodbyes, the chef escorts us to a table as we turn in our aprons. Within a minute, servers bring our meal as Bertrand, owner of Fou Nan, helps select a wine to go with it. Then, a leisurely if early lunch completes the highlight of our last day in Cambodia.

It's also the last day of our unforgettable Road Scholar program along the Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers, a fitting combination of the education, new experiences, fun, fine company, and - yes - delicious food that have been our constant companions throughout the past two weeks. I'm glad and even a little proud of myself for enjoying so many new things on this terrific program. I'm no longer surprised by how welcome and at-home we all felt wherever we were. And I've found new admiration and affection for those we've met along the way - the people of Vietnam and Cambodia, and our traveling companions. Most of all, I can't wait to do it again, and find out how the next program will open my eyes to another part of the world. There's no scholar like a Road Scholar.