In particular, I am talking about a Westerner's ability to easily find rich, robust coffee, crusty baguette, flaky croissants, and cheese throughout all of Vietnam. (Just ignore the rampant poverty and destruction left by a century of oppression and war.)
Cambodia was also under a French protectorate, and while it is definitely not as far along as Vietnam in the grand scheme of rebuilding itself from the ashes of the twentieth century, it still has that same French culinary tradition.
So after my stressful bus trip from Sihanoukville and a week of beach grub, I decided to splurge on a dinner at the best French restaurant the Book could recommend.
After shocking the hell out of the wait staff because I was eating alone, I was taken to a table and left to my own devices. After sitting there for a few minutes with nothing to read (as in: no menu), I was given a drink list. OK, but I want a glass of wine. Do you have a wine list with wines by the glass? No. Just a house red and a house white. Since I planned on having a steak (which I haven't had in quite some time, slabs of meat not being the norm in Asia), I went for the red.
It was fine. Not stellar, but at least not Great Wall. My notes say "unassuming". (What? You're surprised that I was taking notes? Don't you know me by now?)
Once my drink was taken care of, I got the real menu, which was a picture book. I'm. It kidding, the menu was a book, albeit one with a broken spine and pages falling out. It was completely unnecessary and unwieldy.
Some things looked good. The crab bisque looked good, as did the tomato salad, and steak. All three of which I decided on.having skipped lunch, I thought I might be able to handle three courses. I could at least try.
First, I was brought out a baby-starter. Just a teensy plate of a single sausage round and a spoonful of lentils. It was the best sausage I've had since I left the U.S. And while that's not too tough, given the state of sausage in Asia, it is tough to do given the state of sausage in Asia. This particular meat was spicy with a strong sage undertone.the texture was right and the lentils were a nice counterpoint to the meat.
If only the rest of the meal had focused on the simple pleasure of food that tastes like food and works well together.
The first thing I thought when my bisque was delivered was that "someone got a foamer for Christmas" because my bisque looked nothing like bisque. It looked like a cappuccino, complete with being served in a glass and not a bowl. You know those new-fangled chefs who try to break food apart into it's component molecules and then put it back together in "new" and "inventive" ways. Well Chef Frankenstein was definitely one of them, and I'm more of a Michael Pollan/In Defense of Food kind of a girl. If your grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food,then you shouldn't be eating it.
The soup part of the bisque was a deep brown and tasted like an over-peppered, crabby roux. The milky foam on top never really mixed in with the soup, so I never got that full, creamy lushness I associate with a rich bisque. Beside my cup of coffee -- er, soup, were two fried shrimp. I'm not quite sure why I got shrimp with my crab bisque, but there they were, in all their lukewarm, soggy glory. Oh yes, that's how "well" they were fried. And then, as any long-time viewer of Iron Chef (the original Japanese version) knows, the was the kiss of death: the soup was too salty. I know MDtS thinks I think all food is too salty, having heard me bitch about Maggie G's one great failing all too often, but it really was. And if the old lady who is the fourth judge (be she the fortune-teller or the food critic) says the food is too salty, you have just lost the competition.
I also was brought a warm, crusty roll. That was also tough. The marble single-serving butter dish was nifty, though.
In a disappointing breech of service, my salad was delivered before I finished my soup. So not cool. And again Chef Frankenstein was up to his old tricks. He had pureed the mozzarella with basil and reformed it into perfect tomato-sized rounded. These he alternated with tomato and placed on a stale cracker. I'm not sure how you can take one of the best salads ever invented by the Italians and turn it into a joke, but he did.
By the time my steak arrived, I was prepared for disappointment. My steak (a NY strip) was rare, as I had ordered. It had a nice flavor, but it wasn't special. It came with a hollandaise on the side that wasn't quite lick the dish buttery, but had a nice lemony pop. The spinach ravioli in cream sauce were bland and bitter, all at once. The potato gratin was nice, but taken together, there was too much cream on the plate. (I know all about Houghton's First Law of Food, but there is such a thing as balance. That's all I'm saying.)
However, tucked off to the side of the plate was a handful of micro-greens. I've picked through enough micros in my life to know a good green when I see one, and these were good. They had a forceful, but delicate crunch and a pleasant hint of nasturtium. The dressing was put on a tad heavy, but it, too, had a good, lemony pop. The greens were excellent.
By then, I was full and it was time to meet my moto driver to take me back to my hotel. And I didn't think I could stomach any more disappointment. So I skipped dessert and yadda, yadda, yadda, I went to sleep.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Phnom Penh, Cambodia
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