going out to dinner in Cambodia by Zander

On this world tour, I will have to try a lot of new foods. In Cambodia, I got my first taste of exotic foods. I have also learned that you can't just eat anything, you have to make sure that it is cooked properly. Despite my best efforts, I have gotten sick a few times. It is not that pleasant.  My belly was uneasy and I needed to stay close to a restroom.  But life isn't interesting if you don't try new foods and get sick from it every once in a while. In Cambodia, I tried some really interesting food, and I learned how to cook it as well.

khmer food

When I chose a restraint in Cambodia I was really carfare where I ate. Eating in the wrong place can make you sick, and have digestion problems. The other problem in Cambodia is that you cant have some of the fresh veggies, like lettuce. The water that can get trapped in the leaves is really bad for you. Two nights ago we went out to dinner on pub street, My mom looks at the menu, and if it has the right price and there are tourist there, then she gives it a go. If she can see the kitchen and if it looks sketchy then she tries another restaurant. We ended up, after a couple of tries, at a BBQ your own food restaurant. My mom ordered a sharing dish that we get to BBQ our own food.  We got fish, shrimp, beef, frog legs, kangaroo, and crocodile. I was a little un enthusiastic about eating the Kangaroo, because I have seen them in Australia and they are really cute.

When they served us, they gave us BBQ's. Then they gave us raw veggies and meat. They had it stacked up. I tried not to look at it.  Because if I did, then I would find out what animal I was eating. If I found out, then I probably wouldn't eat it. The waiter filled our grill about half way up with water, so we could steam the veggies. He couldn't fill the other half because there were holes in it, to let all the juices from the meat fall into the fire.. We put the first batch of meat on the grill. It didn't take very long to cook. Its pretty cool because you can cook your meat exactly the way you want it.

BB Q shrimp with sause

Egg rolls (fried)

We put some rice in our bowl.   The veggies and the water made a kind of soup, so I added meat to it. I didn't know what I was eating so I tasted it. Thank god it was beef.. The next course was just as interesting. I think that we ate snake.  It was really stringy and I swallowed most of it hole, but I knew that it was snake. With the snake, I had pasta, which was really good. So I ate the snake and then pasta to wash it down. So it didn't taste so bad. I didn't know if I could make it, next was frog legs. When we finished cooking it. My dad gave almost all of them to me. He only had one. His excuse was that it was "to good, and that he is making a sacrifice to me." So I ate them all, grumbling about how my dad isn't fair. They went as bad as I expected. My mom was cooking another meat that looked like beef, I new that it was Kangaroo. I said that I was full seeing them in the wild didn't make me want to eat them. But I ate the shrimp after them. Eating all the interesting food and learning that they taste a lot like chicken was a real interesting experience.


Tasting all this interesting food and learning how to cook it has been a real experience for me. I have never known how to cook frog legs. My mom told us that she used to eat them when she was in Cambodia. But I never wanted to try them. But I got my opportunity. They don't taste that bad. But on this world tour, I will have to try some really interesting food.  I will definitely get sick, but it wouldn't be the same experience without it.