Checking out Khmer food in Cambodia Town, Philadelphia
Posted: Fri May 11, 2018 11:49 pm
Restaurant review.
A worthy destination in the heart of Cambodia Town
Updated: May 11, 2018 — 3:01 AM EDT
It was a bitter flower salad, indeed, to learn about the closing this spring of Khmer Kitchen, my go-to spot for a funky fix of prah-hok kahteeh ground pork dip, bowls of bracing sour soups, and those marvelous curried mussels.
Within just a few years of its opening in 2012, the Neth family’s cheery corner BYOB had become a touchstone restaurant for the rising generation of an immigrant community and helped introduce the allure of Cambodian food in all its fragrant fermented spice to many Philadelphians who never knew Cambodia Town even existed.
The South Seventh Street corridor between Oregon and Snyder that was once a Jewish neighborhood has been a growing nexus for Cambodian refugees since the mid-1980s.
And nearly half the city’s estimated 18,000 Cambodians still live near that South Philadelphia strip, frequenting its older cafes — Heng Seng and New Phnom Penh — for steaming morning bowls of Phnom Penh noodle soup, shopping its produce markets for tiny eggplants and fermented prahok fish paste; visiting its dressmakers, salons, travel agents, and the little sidewalk grills that pop up in warm weather with grandmas tending to sizzling skewers of lemongrass-scented meats.
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists ... 80511.html
A worthy destination in the heart of Cambodia Town
Updated: May 11, 2018 — 3:01 AM EDT
It was a bitter flower salad, indeed, to learn about the closing this spring of Khmer Kitchen, my go-to spot for a funky fix of prah-hok kahteeh ground pork dip, bowls of bracing sour soups, and those marvelous curried mussels.
Within just a few years of its opening in 2012, the Neth family’s cheery corner BYOB had become a touchstone restaurant for the rising generation of an immigrant community and helped introduce the allure of Cambodian food in all its fragrant fermented spice to many Philadelphians who never knew Cambodia Town even existed.
The South Seventh Street corridor between Oregon and Snyder that was once a Jewish neighborhood has been a growing nexus for Cambodian refugees since the mid-1980s.
And nearly half the city’s estimated 18,000 Cambodians still live near that South Philadelphia strip, frequenting its older cafes — Heng Seng and New Phnom Penh — for steaming morning bowls of Phnom Penh noodle soup, shopping its produce markets for tiny eggplants and fermented prahok fish paste; visiting its dressmakers, salons, travel agents, and the little sidewalk grills that pop up in warm weather with grandmas tending to sizzling skewers of lemongrass-scented meats.
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists ... 80511.html