Fish Amok, Lok Lak and a Fried Cricket: What to Eat in Cambodia With Kids

Cambodian food is the one nobody expects and the one the kids take to fastest. Less chili than Thailand, more coconut, and rice with everything.

Fish amok is the national dish. River fish in a coconut curry with lemongrass and galangal, steamed in a cup made from a banana leaf until it sets like a custard. Mild, fragrant, and served with rice. It is the first thing to order and the thing the kids will eat every night if you let them.

Lok lak is the other one. Beef stir fried with a pepper and lime sauce, served on lettuce and tomato with a fried egg on top and rice. Cambodians dip each bite in lime juice and Kampot pepper. It is a steak and egg dinner to a child and they will order it without help.

Breakfast, snacks, fruit

Kuy teav is the breakfast noodle soup, pork broth, rice noodles, herbs, from a stall on any corner. Bai sach chrouk is grilled pork over broken rice with a fried egg, the other breakfast, and a child’s favorite. Num pang is the baguette sandwich, the French left the bread.

Fruit shakes at every cafe, mango, dragon fruit, passion fruit, blended with ice. Palm sugar candies from the roadside stalls on the way to Banteay Srei. Sticky rice cooked in bamboo from the same stalls, split open and eaten with the fingers.

The dare is the fried insects at the night market. Crickets, silkworms, a tarantula if you are in Skuon. Crickets taste like salty popcorn. One child will try one. Film it. Then a coconut, straight from the shell with a straw, which is the drink of the whole trip.

Planning Cambodia with kids? Start with the full Cambodia family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.