In Cambodia, food is at the heart of life. A visit, a celebration, a family discussion or an ordinary day will almost always find its way to the dining table. It was the same in my French family, and perhaps this is why cooking became so important to me: I inherited a love of good food from a gourmet Cambodian grandfather and a French grandmother who was a true cordon bleu.
At Maison Polanka, cuisine is essential. It is not simply one of the services offered by the hotel; it is part of the way we welcome people, remember our family and share Cambodian cuisine with our guests.
A Family Story
A bridge between two continents
My Cambodian grandfather — Lok Ta — was the first veterinarian in Cambodia, but had retired already when I was born. When I grew up, we had most dinners with the cousins, aunts and uncles at my grandparents’ home behind Wat Botum pagoda in Phnom Penh.
Lok Ta’s passion was food, and all the family efforts were converging to please and surprise him at dinner time. He was very picky, and that installed a competition between my aunts; my mother also went into the dance and cooked him French recipes. I remember that we were bringing back from the South of France slices of lamb meat wrapped into newspaper to keep them cool, and his favourite cheese. In the late sixties, coming from my mother’s countryside, the journey to Phnom Penh meant 8 hours of train travel to Paris and at least two stopovers after that.
In 1975, after the fall of Phnom Penh, my aunts left for Taiwan, France and later the USA. They opened restaurants, and my aunt Longtaine became very successful in Boston with “The Elephant Walk”. She toured the US with a journalist and wrote one of the first Cambodian food cookbooks, The Elephant Walk.
My grand cousin, Narin Jameson, married an American diplomat and worked for most of her career in the United Nations. She has been practising food diplomacy at her different assignments and published a Khmer cookbook in 2015, Cooking the Cambodian Way; the entire proceeds go to the Siem Reap based Caring for Cambodia organisation.
On the other side of the planet, in France, my grandmother Marguerite was a cordon-bleu for Mediterranean family recipes, and that included couscous! The table was always opened for family and friends, and she was unbeatable for traditional dishes which she passed down to her daughters and to her grandchildren.
When I arrived in Phnom Penh in 1992, I carried one small suitcase and the feeling that I was taking a leap into the unknown. My great-aunt Siep welcomed me into her home, and I lived with her for a year.
Her life had not been easy. In the difficult years after the Khmer Rouge period, she worked as a chambermaid in a state hotel on Monivong Boulevard, at a time when even the simplest cleaning materials were scarce.
Yet in her kitchen, she had kept the secrets of authentic family Cambodian food. I rediscovered flavours that had almost disappeared: clear broths scented with lemongrass and lime leaves, sour soups sharpened with tamarind, vegetables from the market, rice noodles, prahok, coconut milk, palm sugar and simple sweets made from rice flour. Nothing was complicated for the sake of being impressive. Everything depended on freshness, balance, patience and the instinct of the cook. Those recipes reflected the essence of Cambodian cuisine, where simple ingredients create remarkable depth of flavour.
During that year, my great-aunt gave me a festival of forgotten tastes. Her dishes, and the instructions she passed on through words, gestures and repeated tasting, became the foundation of the cuisine at Maison Polanka. Family friends and Narin visited, and over the years their recipes joined hers. Our kitchen is not built around one chef’s invention, but around a family memory handed down from one generation to the next.
The Foundations
Khmer cuisine, refined through simplicity
I have put my whole heart into creating a refined and authentic Khmer cuisine menu: the food we delighted in before the war, and later rediscovered around family tables. Refinement, to me, does not mean making a dish more complicated. It means respecting its true flavour and presenting it with care.
Khmer cuisine has absorbed influences from China, India and neighbouring regions, yet it has developed a character entirely its own. Its foundations are often made in the mortar, where roots, herbs and spices are pounded into fragrant pastes. Lemongrass, turmeric, galangal, garlic, shallots and makrut lime mingle with fresh herbs, vegetables and fruits from the market or the garden. Chilli is generally served on the side, allowing each guest to choose the heat while the dish itself keeps its balance.
Refinement is not complication. It is the respect given to the true flavour of a dish.
Soups are central to a Cambodian cuisine meal, especially in the countryside. They refresh and rehydrate the body, and may be clear, sour with tamarind or lime, or deepened with prahok. At Maison Polanka, this tradition appears in dishes such as sngao moan, a delicate chicken broth with lemongrass, makrut lime leaves and fresh herbs, and somla chhou, a sour soup prepared with green tomatoes, lotus stems, pineapple or morning glory according to the season.
Regional Specialities
The flavours of Siem Reap and the family table
Siem Reap food has its own beloved specialities. Num banh chok — fresh rice noodles served with a fragrant green fish soup — is accompanied by banana blossom, water-hyacinth flowers, beans, cucumber and herbs. It is one of the dishes that best expresses the region, and can be prepared at Maison Polanka by special order.
The family table also includes lok lak, marinated beef with garlic and soy sauce, served with fresh vegetables and a black-pepper-and-lime dip; small cakes made with wild rice-field shrimp; and homely curries and vegetable dishes whose flavours are more often found in Cambodian homes than in restaurants. These dishes represent the authentic Siem Reap food that locals continue to enjoy today.
Everyday Pleasures
From breakfast to shared plates
Cambodian breakfasts are usually savoury: fried rice, steamed rice with grilled meat, congee or noodle soup. Our favourite at Maison Polanka is kuy teav, a clear rice-noodle soup inherited from Cantonese migrants and made entirely our own through the quality of its broth and garnishes. Like much of Khmer cuisine, its beauty lies in the balance of flavours rather than complexity.
Perfecting this breakfast soup has been one of my quietest and greatest sources of pride. I once gave the recipe to a Chinese guest from Hong Kong who loved it so much that she wanted to prepare it at home. This is what I enjoy most: a recipe does not lose anything when it is shared. It continues its journey.
Snacks are equally important in Cambodia and can easily become a meal in themselves. We serve nataing, a pork-and-shrimp curry eaten with crisp fried rice crusts; tiny fresh vegetarian spring rolls; and rice-field shrimp cakes with a lime-and-black-pepper dip. Traditional sweets are often enjoyed between meals rather than as a formal dessert. Seasonal palm fruit in coconut milk and nom plae ai — soft rice-flour dumplings filled with palm sugar and rolled in freshly grated coconut — belong to this generous world of afternoon treats.
Traditions Side by Side
A table open to the world
Although Khmer cuisine is the heart of Maison Polanka, the table also reflects the places I love. I love Catalonia, and we serve a few Catalan dishes. I love Madagascar, and we prepare the sambos of Tamatave. I also love tradition more than fusion, so these cuisines are not mixed together for effect: each dish is allowed to remain true to its origins.
For the same reason, we offer unmistakably French classics, including coq au vin and our homemade Toulouse sausage. For some of our Asian and American guests, these dishes are a discovery; for others, they bring back memories of France. They sit naturally beside Khmer family recipes because Maison Polanka has always been a house shaped by several cultures, without asking any of them to lose their identity.
Recipes That Continue to Travel
A living family kitchen
We talk a great deal about food at Maison Polanka. Guests come into the conversation, ask about an herb, a broth or a spice paste, and sometimes leave with a recipe. I have especially enjoyed sharing recipes with Asian guests, whose curiosity and knowledge often lead to long and joyful discussions around the table. For many, discovering Cambodian food becomes one of the most memorable parts of their stay.
The kitchen at Maison Polanka is a living family archive. Every soup carries something of my great-aunt’s patience. Every market vegetable recalls the meals of my childhood. Every bowl of noodles, plate of shrimp cakes or spoonful of palm sugar connects the present to a family table that existed long before the hotel. It is through these family recipes that Cambodian cuisine continues to be shared with every new generation of travellers.
This is the cuisine I want our guests to experience: generous, rooted, carefully prepared and deeply personal.
It is not a performance, and not an imitation of tradition, but food that is still alive — cooked, tasted, discussed and passed on.