The glorious food. Part 2

Our youth camp ended on Friday lunch time. Then it was the start of R&R, rest and relax for us. You see, in every DUMC mission trip, there would be 1 day scheduled for the team to rest and relax where we get to SHOP!, sight see, EAT! and do the tourisy stuff! Yey, fun rite?

We get to spend 1 day and 1 night of R&R in Phnom Penh, the capital city.
The adventure starts on the way back from Baray. It takes 2.5 hours from Baray to Phnom Penh, and our missionary travelled with us. Along the way, we get to stop at each village to sample their food. Each village have their own specialty and food! Our missionary told us that she feels God is very fair, because He blesses each village with a special produce.

First stop is the Baray Market where I got to eat my SPIDER and TOAD! :)

Oh wow, a plate full of spiders..yum! hahaha. Each costs around 50 malaysian cents

WELCOME TO THIS EPISODE OF FEAR FACTOR. I'm trying hard not to laugh, cuz only 2 out of 9 of us dared to eat the spider and thus both us were filmed and photographed a lot in our "experiment" I actually have a video recording of the whole process, but I won't embarrass myself and show it.

The spider is big (half the size of my hand), black, with furry legs, cindy..haha!
It's fried in garlic oil so it's nice! Yumm..haha. The legs are crispy, the body's a little mushy though..now I can say this...I'VE EATEN A SPIDER AND SURVIVED TO TELL THE TALE. :)

They would walk up to the van/car to sell you the food. This is the "beheaded" toad.

Toad taste just like otak-otak..the head is already removed. Kind of delicious cuz it's stuffed with spices.

From top: Palm fruit, lotus plant, lotus seed, Cambodia apple.

Next stop was in another village for Palm fruit or what we call sea cocunut in Malaysia. This tasted okay for me. The pokok pinang is actually the national tree in Cambodia. Another stop in the following village was to buy lotus plant. I'm quite a jakun cuz I've never eaten fresh lotus seeds, I've only eaten the ones you find in mooncakes. It tastes like nuts with a softer texture. Then we continued on our journey and stopped by this village that sold Cambodian apples. Yea seriously, they are called Cambodian apples. It's kind of sweet with a sourish tinge, quite good as well! :)
This is our favourite stop! I love the hammocks!

There's shacks like what you see in the picture, full of hammocks. What you do is buy the corn, then you can sit on the hammock while eating. The corn is very very sweet! Juicy, and you have to bite carefully otherwise the juice would drip down your face. WAH! And, the wind that blows while you sit on the hammock gives a cool and refreshing breeze. If you come later in the afternoon, you'd get to see the sun set over the paddy fields while lying on the hammock, eating the golden corn. This is where the Cambodian people come and pak tou. So romantic..hahahaha.

The next day, we went to the Russian Market in Phnom Penh for breakfast. And that's where I tasted the BEST BEEF NOODLES ever! Seriously! With Great Coffee!

The beef noodles is favourful, the beef balls not too tough, but springy enough..and drinking the soup doesn't leave you with thristy from ajinomoto like in Malaysia. The coffee is grown in the hills of Cambodia. It's thick, very "kau" and strong! Just like Ipoh white coffee, kind of like that. (koa fey ohlay) white coffee in Khmer.

Then for lunch, we went to this famous ice-cream and bread shop. Since Cambodia was a former french colony, they eat french loaves instead of bread. We got to ate the pate, beef stew with toasted french bread and DURIAN ICE-CREAM!

You start of by eating the pate first. It's basically french bread with salad kind of garnish, sour pickels and ham. Kind of like a starter.
Then the beef stew would come. You dip the french loaf in the sauce and eat, or you can put the beef between the bread and eat. Joel loved this so much he ate 2 plates! The beef is cooked so tender that it is soft and easy to chew. The broth is thick with spice.

Heaven in a coconut.
But of course the highlight would be the ice-cream in coconut. They empty the coconut, pour the coconut water into a glass for you to drink and serve you the ice-cream in the coconut shell. I had the combination of durian and cempedak ice-cream! Hahaha, glorious! Cuz normally durian is "heaty" when eaten, but when it's turned into ice-cream, you still get the favour, but now it's cold and refreshing!

Imagine, we are on a mission trip..and feast like Kings and Queens! The food is very good because the missionaries know which shop serves the best dishes...so the experience is even better than that of being a tourist in Cambodia. You eat where the locals eat!

Oh yea, these are the durian biscuits we had when we were in Baray. Very very very nice. Sorry, my vocab is limited, I can only describe everything as, nice, delicious. ;) The cream has a strong durian taste, creamy and sweet. The ones I brought back from Cambodia was from a different company and didn't taste as estatically nice as those we ate there!!!

Okun la...(meaning, very good in Khmer)

Caught in action EATING!

See, next time if there's a mission trip, join it! You people should have come along with me! :)

Oh wait. I must tell you about my bettle eating experience. Just before we were heading to the airport, we dropped by at Central Market. Central Market's a tourist attraction where the dome is supposedly the biggest dome in SEA? or something like that.

I just HAD to try eating grasshopper before I left. But I also bought the black bettle. The grasshopper was okay, crispy just like eating shrimps. Kind of delicious in a morbid way..haha. But believe me, the bettle was horrible! HORRIBLE. You know, the kind of smell that cocroaches emit, bitter...it's that kind of taste, exploading in the mouth. Don't ever eat that!!!! That was the only thing I ate in Cambodia that was not nice. The rest, was..wow! :)