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Balcony Cafe and Gallery

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Composthp
Composthp
First Reviewer
3 out of 5
Avg. Member Rating
1
Review
4
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Editor Pick

The Balcony Cafe and Gallery

  • February 20, 2006
  • Rated 3 of 5 by Composthp from Singapore, Singapore
The Balcony Cafe and Gallery

We were looking for reasonably priced local food with a quiet ambiance in the old market area. The Balcony cafe attracted our attention, situated diagonally across the more popular and crowded restaurant called the Red Piano.

The main cafe is situated on the second floor (away from the dust and noise of the ongoing road construction), and as its name implied has a balcony overlooking the old market and pub street. The cafe serves local Khmer as well as Western food, and has a wide selection of fruit juices and some cocktails. The menu is in English, with photos attached.

We chose to try the Khmer dishes, and selected amok fish, vegetable Khmer curry, and spring rolls. The first two dishes came with steamed rice, we ordered another plate of rice (there were three of us), which we learnt upon paying the bill, was on the house. Service-wise, the staff was friendly and attentive, and we had little difficulty making our orders in English.

The amok fish is a dish served traditionally to guests by the Cambodians. The ingredients included local freshwater fish slices with assorted vegetables cooked in sweet, coconut curry, topped with crushed peanuts, and served in a coconut shell. It tasted sweet and spicy, but was not chili-hot. Similarly, the vegetable curry was sweet and tame (compared to the fiery Thai or Indian curries at home); it reminded us of the Thai green curry, more coconut than spicy-hot... good news for those who cannot take spicy-hot foods. The spring rolls were very similar to the Vietnamese spring rolls, with strips of carrots, basil leaves, lettuce, and radish, rolled in paper thin rice crepes. They were very refreshing. The portions were generous and we enjoyed our meal a lot. In all, we paid only $10.

The cafe is opened from 6am until very late.

From journal In the Footsteps of Lara Croft

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