Paris Bistro Cooking 6,200 Miles From France

There is a book called The Art Of Simple French Cookery by Alexander Watt, a notorious gourmet who spent much of his life lounging around in Gallic restaurants, which perfectly captures the essence of the Parisian bistro in the 1950s.

No doubt beginning his day with pastis, moving on to red wine, and then finishing the night on brandy, Watt would gorge himself on bistro classics such as poularde Marie-Louise, boeuf en gelee, rognons a la moutarde, gibelotte de lapin, and always a plate of seasonal cheeses.

The accounts of his “gastronomic peregrinations” are a joy to read, as is his book, Paris Bistro Cookery, which adjoins the back of The Art Of Simple French Cookery like an upside down Siamese twin. As you flick through the pages, you can picture Watt swaying in the doorway of tiny Parisian kitchens, disrupting service as he scrawls into a grease-spattered notebook.

And something tells me he would have approved of La P’tite France, 6,200 miles away in Phnom Penh, and the cooking of its chef-owner Didier. I wasn’t lucky enough to go to his original, much smaller venue, just off the Riverside. But foodies fondly recall it as a typical bistro – friendly, cramped, tables pushed together, noise and tobacco smoke drifting over the cheeseboards. They recall with gluttonous, lip-smacking memories, the splendid simplicity of the dishes – always a severer test of a kitchen’s ability than the fancy stuff.

La P’tite France has since moved to a beautiful villa on Street 306, and people who know tell me the food is even better. But everything comes at a cost – in this case a less chirpy, more formal ambience, they say. So it was with these thoughts and the longing for Gallic classics like confit duck, terrines, and oysters flown in from France, as our tuk tuk arrived at the plush gates and garish pink sign of Didier’s new home.

For 8pm on a Saturday night, business was steady rather than busy, and we chose a table on the patio giving a glimpse of the Khmer chefs in their whites beavering away in the kitchen. Around us sat pudgy, well-dressed French men doing what they do best – discussing food while gorging themselves like foie gras geese to a chorus of ooh la las.

There were specials on the blackboard – including tripe and scallops – but sadly they’d sold out of oysters, which our waiter said arrive every Friday.

The service was smooth and brisk, and a little plate of amuse bouche quickly arrived – two slices of baguette topped with tomato, olive, and melted cheese that were a little ordinary, and certainly not needed considering the enormous portions that followed.

My $5.25 starter of marrow bone gratin with toast and a saucer of fleur de sel was exquisite. The gooey, oozing, fatty, beef shin marrow melted in your mouth and was a reminder – at half the price and far more generous – of the similar signature dish at St John restaurant in London, which food writer Anthony Bourdain claims is the best dish he’s eaten.

My friend’s starter of whelks with garlic mayonnaise ($6.25) was very good too – no trace of grit, and a wonderful, fresh, fossily taste of the sea. But if I were to be properly critical, the garlic should have been chopped much finer, and the aioli was lacking in the richness it should deliver in its perfect form.

Mon Dieu this man knows his onions though. And that view was confirmed by the main courses. Each part was a model of how it should be cooked, with such assurance, such taste, and such old-fashioned virtue.

My $11.50 braised pork shank with cep confit, sitting on a bed of choucroute, and winged by two turned potatoes, was enormous and fell apart as I dug in. It was an exceptional dish and showcased every part of Didier’s cooking skills.

My friend kept uttering appreciative noises as he ate his $12.50 braised lamb shank nestled on creamy flageolet beans, steeped in garlic. It came with a ramekin of fiery Tunisian harissa paste that brought the whole dish alive.

Our bellies bursting, and with the true taste of France dancing on our taste buds, we looked at the dessert menu, boasting dark chocolate mousse, poached pears, tarte tatin et al. But as any French cook will tell you, every good Gallic meal should end with cheese, so we shared a platter ($6.50) that came with a roof-of-the-mouth-etching Roquefort that would have made King Charles VI proud, and certainly the finest French bread – baked daily by Didier and his crew – I can remember having in Asia.

By golly it was an incredible meal. The cooking was sublime, and the only downside was the eagerness of the well-drilled, immaculately-turned-out Khmer waiters to snatch our plates at every opportunity. It’s certainly not a place for night owls or loiterers. By 10pm we were the last table to clear, and felt slightly hurried to vacate that beautiful, rare spot of leafy sanctuary in the steamy streets of Phnom Penh.

The frogmarching, if you will, aside, I’d heartily recommend it to food lovers, and anyone wanting a romantic notion of what it must have been like before French colonialists were finally booted out of Cambodia. A pocket of history, a pocket of gastronomic excellence. It may not have the informal, neighbourhood dive ambience of a true bistro, but I know Watt would have greeted the cooking with appreciate applause.

La P’tite France, #38, Street 306, Phnom Penh, 016 64 26 30. Meal for two, including drinks and service: $65

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To read an edited extract published in Caterer and Hotelkeeper Magazine click here...

Khmer Food: In Praise Of Salt And Pepper

My love affair with salt and pepper began when I was a toddler. The dripping on toast my grandfather used to make with meat jelly and fat from the Sunday roast would have been nothing without the liberal amounts of salt and pepper he sprinkled on top.

And then there were the salt and pepper sandwiches my father got me into - thickly-buttered, white spongy slices from a sandwich loaf fresh from the bakers, filled with nothing more than a generous sprinkling of salt and freshly-ground black pepper. To me, it was a meal fit for a king as we sat in front of a roaring fire and drank cups of strong, brown tea during cold, wintry evenings.

Just as good were the boiled eggs and soldiers we’d have in the mornings, with a small mound of salt and pepper on the plate. We’d plunge the soldiers into the runny, golden goodness, and then into the two condiments - a simple, but delightful, dip that would leap me forward to eating Khmer food more than three decades later.

Over here, that magical combination is even better because of the abundance of Kampot pepper - the finest pepper in the world, and the country’s first product to get Geographical Indicator status. And if they are generous enough to give you the far superior and costly red pepper, as they do in one or two of the seafront restaurants in Kep’s famous crab market, then it’s out of this world.

But in Cambodia, they add something to the salt and pepper dip that makes it even more splendid - lime juice. It might not have been what I’d wanted with my soldiers in the morning all those years back. But I remember the flavour was always there in the dripping whenever we roasted a chicken because of the lemon quarters stuffed inside, which do incredible things to the succulence and flavour of the meat.

In restaurants here, they usually serve a mix of two thirds freshly-ground black pepper to one third salt, then carefully squeeze in two or three lime quarters and mix it in front of you. It might seem a laughably simple procedure that would scarcely trouble even the most cack-handed cook. But they take it as seriously as a chef de rang would the preparation of crepe suzette, pressed duck, or table-carved rib of beef, squeezing in the ‘correct’ amount of lime juice until there is the right moistness to the sauce.

The dip - called ‘tik marij’ in Khmer - works perfectly with a plate of selected cuts from a whole barbecued calf (ko dut), and even better with freshly-boiled seafood, particularly blue swimmer crabs, which although contain little brown head meat, and virtually no morsels in the claws, more than make up for it with the generously fleshy chine.

It always reminds me of seaside towns in Blighty, where a visit isn’t complete without a tub of whelks, liberally sprinkled with salt, white pepper, and malt vinegar, and eaten during a few bracing turns on the seafront. Over here, the lime juice takes the place of the vinegar. It’s fresher tasting, less acerbic, and far more complimentary to seafood. But I still miss those whelks...



It really is wonderful dipping crab meat into the tik marij and washing it down with ice cold beer. And what a way to spend an afternoon sitting in the crab market, gazing out to sea, and watching those women in their brightly-coloured hats checking their pots just 20 yards or so from the restaurant steps.

The crack of claws and chine, and that sweet meat magnified a hundred times by the pepper grown in the plantations behind the national park, sea salt from the neighbouring salt beds, and limes from the orchards. It’s an oasis where the land meets the sea and offers the very best the pair have in a tryst of gastronomic delight. In Singapore or Thailand, the crab might be smothered in chilli, in Vietnam it could take on an overriding taste of caramel, and in China it would most likely be in an MSG-laden sauce, thickened with cornflour.

But there is something delightfully, and deceptively, simple about Cambodian food - which is why it’s a shame it’s so overlooked. It’s the understanding of balance, simplicity, and the knowledge that fresh, local ingredients have a natural symmetry. And that’s why I love it. Simplicity in food is often dismissed as a lack of sophistication or technique, often engendering a lack of confidence in a country’s cuisine. But it couldn’t be further from the truth, and you’ve only got to look at the food in Italy to see it done to perfection.

Beef Lok Lak

The dish in Cambodia you’ll usually first encounter tik marij is beef lok lak (probably the country’s second most famous meal after its vastly over-rated fish amok). Many recipes call for the beef to be marinated in the sauce ingredients for an hour or two, but in my experience it’s unnecessary given the strength of the flavours, and the fact the salt does little for the tenderness of Khmer steak. Here’s how a friend of mine in a restaurant in Sihanoukville makes hers - simplicity in the extreme, and definitely worth making at home.

She starts by dicing a piece of steak (sirloin, rib-eye or rump work well) into smallish cubes, and then chops up two cloves of garlic. She heats a tiny amount of oil in a pan, and then fries the garlic until it begins to colour, and then throws in the meat to singe slightly.

She adds a sprinkling of sugar and salt to help the caramelisation process, and then cooks the meat for another minute or so. She then pours in a little water, and when it is bubbling, adds a glug of tomato ketchup and a couple of heaped teaspoons of oyster sauce.

She continues stirring, producing a velvety red and brown sauce. She cooks the meat until it is still quite bloody in the middle (about medium-rare) and then takes it off the heat to rest for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, she garnishes each plate with lettuce and three thick slices of tomato and onion, and then fries an egg. She mixes salt and pepper in a dish and squeezes in lime juice, and then serves.

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