By: Narla Phay – Cambodia country director
Most Cambodians will have a big meal with all their friends and family when they have special a celebration or event. One of foods from others selection is “Barbecue” which is the most common for us here. Most people who live in the city go to restaurant for barbecue. You have to cook food by yourself to eat otherwise no one will make it for you.
Here’s how it works: they first brought us a hot dome shaped “barbecue” and it’s a proper barbecue heated by charcoal. Then we have to walk to get the raw meats, noodles, veggies and rice from the other counters. The meat comes chopped up into small pieces to make it easy for you to stick on the grill. At the bottom of the grill is soup. They refill the soup every so often and you got unlimited meat, vegetables, rice and noodles. You add the veggies and noodles to the soup and use chopsticks to cook the meat and flip it over.
Most people have barbecue for dinner, not for lunch. The reason they don’t do for lunch is because of the heat. During the day most of the time is hot, so it makes less sense to do the barbecue.
The Cambodians really like it because it’s the only meal that takes a longer time than usual then they can spend time to talk with friends and family. It’s also fun to cook foods together and eat together.
The Journeys Within Cambodia team just had the dinner barbecue. It was a super fun dinner and I was glad to see everyone come and cook their own foods. If you come to Cambodia, please try it.
