Delicate mango,
Raw, raging chili pepper,
Sophisticated.

We took a cooking class today! It’s definitely worth looking into if you’re in Phnom Penh.

The day started out with a stroll across town to the Frizz Restaurant, where 13 of us congregated for the course. We piled into a train of tuk tuks and headed all together to the market.

At the market, the chefs led us through stalls selling fruits, vegetables, dry goods, noodles, fish, and everything else. They explained what each food was and what it was used for, and we trailed out of the market holding bags of various ingredients for the day.

Back at the cooking school, we made amazing amok and fried spring rolls. Evan and I made fish amok, but a few in the group became squeamish after seeing the fish at the market… and they made vegetarian amok instead. :p

Evan and I were the only ones who elected to stay on for the full day course, so we stayed behind while everyone else piled back into tuk tuks to go home. We completed our self-made four-course meals with banana blossom salad and mango sticky rice… if you want more details on the process, you can have a look at our photos!

Completely stuffed, we waddled out of the cooking school and back to our hotel to cool off. We headed out on one more pilgramage for the evening, to a microbrewery. They had dragonfruit cider! They also imported their malt from Germany, their hops from Australia, and their brewmaster from Singapore. Globalization, now in a glass.

We wrapped up the night with a snack at our hostel’s restaurant, which was much better than we expected! We went back to our room to chill out and type blog posts, and the power went out for an hour or so. Not sure why? Anyway, it kicked in just before we went to sleep, which was lucky because it meant the air conditioner worked…