Around the corner from our very comfortable hotel The 240 in the unexpectedly upmarket and organic Street 240 stands the Independence Monument, at the head of Sihanouk Boulevard. The monument is nicely done, and the boulevard itself is a lovely stretch of grassy lawn and walking paths, but the real attraction for me was a small restaurant that served a great thin chicken curry with crisp baguettes. I say “restaurant” because that’s the only word that I have to indicate a shop that serves food, but I never feel quite right using it for the style of “eating establishment” common throughout south-east Asia. I could say “cafe”, but that’s not really any better. Naming issues aside, I really enjoy the casualness they offer. None of the girls scooping the curry/soup out of a pair of huge tin pots spoke any English, but as turns out to be the case for most transactions while travelling, it was obvious what we were there for and what they were offering so we got along just fine with smiles from both sides. We returned to this “restaurant” several times over the next few days, and I hope to again one day.
Looks quite affluent this street. No photos of the food?
I’m afraid not – we were too hungry to wait for a photo. To be honest, the food didn’t look as good as it tasted, but it really didn’t need to. The area around our hotel was definitely affluent. We saw a lot of embassies and residences like the ones in the last few photos, which are definitely not representative of the average housing.
[…] our hotel in Street 240 and the Independence Monument on Sihanouk Boulevard sits a small battalion of food carts serving cooked-on-the-spot fried noodles, vegetables, dried […]