I'd say that this is pretty accurate for locals as well.
To really understand the experience, you have to go, but I'll do my best to explain what happens when you're hungry.....
You walk along the street. Restaurants aren't restaurants, they're shacks or the first floor of houses with little mini plastic tables and chairs, with a glass display case on a square box showing the raw ingredients they use...veggies, meats, sauces sit all together in little bowls or bottles. Usually there's some kind of giant pot simmering in back as well...that's broth. Once in a while you might see a huge metal round pot sitting up front next to the display case. Those are steamed buns with BBQ'd meat inside.
Based on what's in the window, it's easy to know what to order, because there's usually just one thing they sell and you just tell them how many. For that, you hold up a finger or two fingers and then sit down awkwardly, legs dangling on either side of the table and wait. It's perfect.
If it's soup, there will be bowls in the window. If it's banh mi, you'll see baguettes. If you want a fried egg, yep, big bowl of eggs. One stop shopping, like picking out donuts or pastries from a window.
The other thing I loved about this set up is that it's all one person (wait staff, cook, cashier) and all right in front of you. You are sitting behind the kitchen watching the magic happen. There's nothing to hide!
There's always a large amount of condiments available on the table and a little mini trash can next to a table leg, usually a chile sauce, a little bowl of fresh limes, bean sprouts and if you order soup, they bring out a great big basket of fresh herbs and greens...some of them oddly shaped and fuzzy.
I will admit, I got Pho'd out. Especially for breakfast. But then again, I have also discovered I'm not a breakfast person.
In Cambodia I've been eating less cart food. It just doesn't look as fresh or enticing, but the restaurants can be cheap and good if you find the right one. I'm getting the nerve up to try a large brown deep fried thing the shape and size of a burrito that looks to have pepper and herbs in it, but I always see them being made along side tire and plumbing stores which unnerves me for some reason, even while watching the burrito sized donut like globs fry to perfection and smell delicious.
People have told me the food is not good in Cambodia before I came. I believe they weren't eating in the right places. You have to HAVE TO go where locals go, that's the only way. That's where the real Khmer food lies. I discovered two small cheap good restaurants next door to my hotel that lie across the street from a University. You get free unlimited iced tea. Free soup. And a heaping plate full of noodles or rice with beef or pork and veggies. I've also tried the Khmer soup, a cousin to pho, but green onion and fried shallot instead of fresh herbs and a sweet peanut chile sauce on the side.
Two of my favorite dishes in Cambodia are Amok (a fresh fish peanut sauce sweet curry with big chunks of lake fish) and Lak Lak (meat - pork, chicken, beef fried in onions with a sweet sauce served with white rice and fried egg). I have a belief the beef is the way to go here as the mini bus drive thru the countryside contained 1000s of big fat white cows wandering the streets. FREE RANGE!!!! I'm afraid my seafood days are over....in Mui Ne, the ocean resort town I was in, the tofu curry cost $2 and the seafood curry jam packed with fresh shrimp and calamari was $2.25. Yeah. I know. I'm sooooo lucky.
I've also seen balls of things on sticks, colorful balls of things in large piles, pickled veggies in giant glass jars. You've already seen my selection of dried veg and fruit snacks. There's a lot I haven't tried yet, but I still have time before heading to Thailand at last on the 3rd. I'll try to take/find some photos To explain my wonder and awe at food.
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