Pandoraspace

Malis

Before visiting Cambodia, I had never tasted Khmer food. For that reason, I was grateful to Toe and her husband, D, for taking Padma and me to dinner at one of the more popular Khmer restaurants in Phnom Penh called Malis (the Khmer name for Jasmine flower).

The ambiance of Malis is similar to that of any stereotypical fine dining restaurant where the tables are covered with crisp white table clothes, the chairs are comfortable, and although there is background music, the place is quiet enough for the diners to hear each other and not hear the conversation going on at the next table. There is, however, a distinctly Khmer feel to the place. Outside the restaurant are a Buddha and a lotus pond. Inside, the restaurant is dotted with Buddha heads, the walls are painted red and the windows are rectangular-shaped.

Despite the great ambiance at Malis, it was the food that took most of my attention. The food not only looked appetizing and beautiful, it tasted wonderful as well.

The first dish was an appetizer of diced stir-fried scallop with bunches of fresh green Kampot pepper served on scallop shells. The taste of the sweet and tender scallops combined with the fresh, spicy and crisp peppers was explosive. As this dish was novel, I have come to associate it with distinctly Khmer cuisine.

For our main meal, we had pork ribs, kangkong (this is a green leafy vegetable that grows in water but I do not know how it is called in English) and prawns. Those dishes tasted similar to Thai or Chinese dishes but were delicious nonetheless. The pork ribs were deep-fried and basted with a salty-sweet glaze. The pork was succulent and its oiliness tempered by the glaze. The kangkong was sauteed in garlic. Simple but good. The prawns were my favorite. They were fresh, sweet and as huge as a child’s fist. The prawns were decapitated, shelled, dipped in a light gossamer-like batter, deep-fried and served to us with a sweet chili sauce. In the customary Filipino fashion, we ate these dishes with moist piping hot steamed rice.

For dessert, we shared the pumpkin crème brulee. It was slightly thicker and had more texture than a regular brulee. It did not have a pumpkin or custard taste. It was not too sweet or too bland either. The taste was rather unique and I loved it.

Malis is definitely one of the places you should not miss when visiting Phnom Penh.