Urban Forage’s Phnom Penh tour offers a deeply immersive cultural experience that steers travellers far off the tourist trail to unpack the layers of the Cambodian capital through its vibrant food and arts scene
It is often said that food sits at the heart of culture and serves as a gateway to truly discovering a destination. Urban Forage’s tours certainly embody this philosophy, offering a variety of adventures that take guests way off the well-trodden trail, introducing local life in the Cambodian capital through food. And there’s no better way to get to scratch beneath the surface and get a true taste of Cambodia than through its cuisine.
We opted for a tour that combines foraging for both street food and art, offering an immersive experience that goes far beyond sampling street snacks and hitting tourist-centric galleries. We started off at a community on the outskirts of Boeung Kak Lake, home to a web of back alleys flanked by tin-roofed homes, mom and pop shops and small communities: a great introduction to local life away from the hum of the capital.
This nondescript area also comes with a lot of recent history, as told in the pieces of urban art that adorn the sides of buildings and walls. As we ambled along the narrow streets, our guide – the extremely informative and entertaining Jackson – pointed to colourful wall memorials depicting Khmer characters, while others paid a subtle nod to the area’s turbulent past. In the early 2010s, the lake – once Phnom Penh’s largest – was filled in, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Having worked up an appetite, we jumped in our tuk tuks – complete with free flow soft drinks, water and beer, to begin our grazing tour of the capital. The next three hours saw us navigate the capital’s bustling main streets to sample some classic – and some not-so-classic – flavours.
We savoured flavoursome freshly-cooked noodles at a street-side restaurant, where Jackson introduced us to the owner and the age-old techniques used to make the steaming hot dish, before stopping at street carts spilling over with deep-fried bugs; think tarantulas, crickets and scorpions.
We perched on small plastic chairs gathered around roadside tables and joined groups of locals savouring made-on-the-spot coconut cakes before exploring local markets, passing stalls selling coils of live snakes and writhing eels. We were introduced to what was dubbed the best street food stall for skewered meats, made all the more mouth-watering when combined with a blend of Khmer herbs.
Finally, stuffed, we rounded out the tour at a typical Cambodian night spot for more food – red ant and beef salad, fish amok, papaya salad and heaps of seasoned veg. Then, we had beer and karaoke – the only way to cap a truly Cambodian experience.
Verdict
This is an excellent immersion into daily life in Phnom Penh through food and art. Each of the vendors and eateries have been carefully selected, and each show a different side to Cambodia’s cuisine and culture.
The guides are excellently versed and weave tales of Cambodian history and culture, as well as modern-day life, into each of the stops. The group size is also purposely kept to about six to ensure an intimate experience, with different tour options available.
Rate: Tours start from US$35 per person
Website: www.urbanforage.co
