Raffles

Today was a stellar gastronomic day. I splurged on a cooking class at the swankiest hotel in town, Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor. This hotel was originally set up in 1932 to house the first wave of Angkor visitors. It was picked up by the Raffles, now Fairmont Raffles chain in the 90's. (Raffles being the hotel in Singapore where the sling was invented.) Rooms in low season start at $200/night (i think my guest house worked out to $13/night) so a stay was out of the question. At $85 the cooking class was an expensive "tour" for Siem Reap but it turned out to be the best bargain of my trip.

I was the only one signed up for today's class. The executive sous-chef Ngin Chantha started me off with a tour of the local wholesale market - this was his day off but he insisted on coming in. We drove there in an air con chauffeured van and by chauffeur I mean uniform, white gloves and cap. Phsar Leu Thom Thmey  is the market that the local neighbourhood grocers buy from - I'm fairly sure I was the only tourist there today. At 10:30a it was winding down for the day but still lively. Chantha said that at 5a it's hard to walk through the crowds but now the occasional scooter was driving by. There were household goods and tailors on the edges with produce on one side and fish on the other. The fish was so fresh it didn't smell so fishy.
Saw a few old favorites and a number of new items.



Chantha and turmeric root



Chilies and green beans



Fish cakes

 

Lotus root



Sugar cane


Back at the hotel they had set up the class area in the Grand Dining Room which only opens for dinner.

Junior sous-chef Ming Tyn took over. He is a Phnom Penh native and very passionate about his country's cooking. He was thrilled to fill me in on the history of cooking in Cambodia and how India and China influenced it. The actual cooking part was more demonstration rather than hands on. All the prep was was already done so I was just combining ingredients and cooking them. It was a good compliment to my previous course where we were slicing, dicing and pounding all the ingredients.

Dishes covered were: mango salad, sour fish soup, khmer chicken curry, beef lok lak, pumpkin custard. Oh, I also got to keep my apron and funny chef hat. A small hard covered cookbook was included which I got Ming to sign. I had a good taste of all the dishes and a full slice of the desert and then was seated in the Cafe d'Angkor with a glass of wine to have the full 5 course meal. Starting off with fresh out of the oven bread and finishing with quite decent coffee and cookies.

Mango prawn salad

Sour fish soup

Khmer chicken curry

Pumpkin custard

I was quite pleasantly stuffed and had no need for dinner!

Nosed around the main floor after lunch - best washroom on the trip was here for sure. Saw that the prix fixe dinner was only 4 courses - I had made 5 dishes - for $80 bucks and wine pairings were an extra $45.

Then I hopped into a tuk tuk - a block away so the driver wouldn't jack up the price if he saw me come out of the chi-chi hotel - and headed out to Angkor for a last visit. It was lovely. Beautiful blue sky with fluffy clouds and relatively few people. There was no wait for the stairs up to the third level terrace and no time limit so I spent about an hour and a half poking around and enjoying the views from the top. By the time I left the sunset bus tours had arrived and the lineup wound half way around the second level terrace. This left the first level bas relief galleries almost empty so had an unobstructed wander about.

What a fabulous end to a fabulous trip!