Cambodian food has always been a bit like Filipino food to me: familiar, but not familiar enough. It wasn’t as commonplace as Thai food growing up, but most of the flavours just seem so familiar when I taste it.
And it tastes utterly delicious.
Off the recommendations on Thang’s blog, I decided to drop by for some Phnom Penh noodles on the afternoon that I found myself in Cabramatta.
They come in soup or dry versions, and are basically rice noodles, topped with various bits of offal – pork liver, intestine and blood – as well as pork meat. A savoury brown sauce is then ladled over the top, and a bowl of soup served on the side.
Jars of chilli sauce and pickled chillies are available at every table, meaning I get to make things get nuclear, and relive some childhood comforts.
It’s amazing how something that burns so much can be comforting in times of heat.
The noodles were slick and springy, and the offal was well, clean. Many places in Sydney don’t thoroughly clean their offal, leaving a bad aftertaste. Here it was just porky, as pork should be, and the mixture of brown sauce and chilli just made me never want to stop eating.
If you do decide to make the trip, it’s located inside a shopping arcade and not visible from the street, so keep that GPS handy, and look for the banner hanging off the ceiling that points you in the right direction.
Battambang Restaurant
15/73-79 John St
Cabramatta, NSW 2166
Phone: 02 9754 2120
Great review of a great restaurant. If you’ve got plans to visit again, they moved recently to a bigger (easier to find) place. 16/70 John St (Belvedere Arcade). I’ve gotta go and visit the new place, great excuse to eat.
They have a sister restaurant on the other side of Cabramatta too (also called Battambang). It’s a bit on the quiet side but the food is just as good. Though saying that I’ve never thought about a comparison.