So I dropped my parents off, found parking, and walked there by myself with low expectations. Mom raved about the food but I needed proof. I stepped in and was immediately greeted with a throng of people waiting to be seated for lunch. Then I looked at the wall and saw restaurant award upon restaurant award, plaque upon plaque, and review upon review. Eventually my eyes, searching for food recommendations in said reviews, drifted onto a photo of Donald Sutherland with someone who worked in the restaurant; then, a take-out menu signed by Anthony Bourdain, the renowned bad-boy chef who tours around the world eating amazing food on his show No Reservations. Suddenly I was excited to be there and didn't mind the 30-minute wait.
The staff were very friendly; two of the waiters remembered my parents who had only been there once before (this past Friday night)--one of them remembered where they were sitting and the other remembered the dessert she had recommended to them. By the time we sat down I already knew most of what we would order from reading the reviews on the wall. This is what we had (and what a treat, I took photos! That never happens! But I kept forgetting to take pictures before we ate...):
Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk (hot) - a novel system of coffee-brewing in my eyes. They gave us an extra thermos of hot water to add to our coffee to prolong its life. I ordered this for my dad and I after hearing about RaeRae's Vietnamese coffee at Monsieur Vuong's in Berlin. If it were warm outside, I too would have gotten iced coffee. (By the way, the bean sprouts and chilli sauce are not to be consumed with the coffee. I just placed them there to fill up the image.)
Marinated butter beef - beef carpaccio meets Vietnam in this deliciously sour dish. Topped with parsley and nuts, adding a few bean sprouts helps you enjoy the sauce more.
Phnom Penh deep fried chicken wings (large) - these are what the restaurant is most known for. I, who am not a regular lover of deep fried meats (especially with bones!) or eating with my hands, ate five or six of these babies! They come with a light lemon sauce.Phnom Penh stew beef rice noodles - craving noodles, I asked which of the 19 noodle choices was most highly recommended. I really liked this dish. It was mildly spicy and had tender pieces of beef. If only rice noodles weren't so slippery!
Trieu Chau steamed dumplings - James Barber recommended this in his article and they were huge and stuffed to the max. Imagine ground pork, Chinese sausage, water chestnuts, parsley, and egg in a har-gow wrap. They were good but I probably wouldn't order them again (not my favourite blending of flavours and textures) unless I went with my friend Oli as this is her favourite dim sum dish.
Pumpkin and egg dessert with coconut sauce - seasonal and not on the menu. My mom who is not a dessert person loves this. It exceeded my expectations but was very filling, so I could only eat about a quarter of one order.
Our lunch totalled around $65 for the three of us before tips--not too shabby when we had leftovers to take home and were happily full (and as I'm writing this around 9pm, I'm still full). I took home a take-out menu and circled all the dishes we ordered so that I would remember for today's blog entry and starred all the dishes I want to try in the future, which are: Phnom Penh rice noodle (either dry or in soup), BBQ lemon grass chicken on rice, and filet beef on rice (my parents had this last time and loved it, and it seemed like every table ordered this dish and the chicken wings).
Boy do I love food.
The only negative comment I have about this restaurant is the bathrooms. It was like stepping into a typical bathroom in Southeast Asia or China--cold, spotful (vs. spotless), rickety doorknobs, and an unexpected surprise that made me squeal in disgust. And it wasn't an insect. I won't go into further detail but would strongly recommend forever holding your pee while eating here. That being said, it isn't the worst I've seen in Vancouver (here's looking at you, Rickshaw and Bing Sheng).
Phnom Penh (the restaurant, not the city) is located on East Georgia between Gore and Main streets on the limits of Vancouver's Chinatown. They are open seven days a week and the host looked like my best friend in preschool with the initials JW who lives in Hong Kong. Apparently the restaurant is filled with "young people" at dinnertime. That means that the next time I go, it will most certainly be for dinner.
that sounds so good! I want to go!
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