Phnom Penh: Where to Eat
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Khmer food gets overshadowed by its neighbors, Thai and Vietnamese cuisine both travel better internationally, but Phnom Penh’s own dishes are worth building meals around, not just sampling once. Here’s what to actually order and where to find it.
The dishes to seek out
Fish amok (amok trey) is the signature dish, a coconut-fish curry steamed in a banana leaf, and it’s on nearly every menu in the city, from street stalls to sit-down restaurants. Lok lak, peppery stir-fried beef served with a lime-pepper dip, is the other everyday order worth knowing. Kuy teav, a rice-noodle soup, is the default breakfast; nom banh chok, sometimes called Khmer noodles, pairs a green fish curry with cold vermicelli and is the other dish Cambodians call their national one. Bai sach chrouk, grilled pork over broken rice, is a breakfast-only stall food in most places, sold until around 10am and gone after. Look for Kampot pepper, an EU-protected regional crop, wherever a dish lists it by name, it’s genuinely a different pepper from what you’ll find elsewhere.
Where the street food actually is
Central Market (Phsar Thmei) has food stalls tucked around its Art Deco dome alongside the souvenir vendors, worth a stop even outside a shopping trip. The Night Market along the riverside runs Friday through Sunday evenings, with mats laid out for skewers, noodles and cheap desserts, and it disappears entirely on weeknights, so check before you plan an evening around it. Sisowath Quay itself has the highest concentration of restaurants catering to visitors, useful for a riverside dinner but not where the cheapest or most local food is.
The two names worth knowing
Friends and Romdeng are both TREE Alliance social enterprises, run by Friends-International, training and employing at-risk youth in real hospitality jobs. Friends, on Street 13, serves Khmer-fusion tapas-style plates; Romdeng specializes in traditional Khmer dishes in a garden courtyard setting. Both are worth naming directly because the food holds up on its own merits, and your bill goes toward genuine vocational training, not just a feel-good marketing line. Beyond these two, keep your search dish-based and area-based rather than chasing a specific restaurant name, Phnom Penh’s food scene changes fast and a strong meal is more often about finding a busy stall than a listed address.
Practical notes
Tap water isn’t potable, stick to bottled or filtered. US dollars are used for nearly everything; only crisp, undamaged bills are accepted, torn or heavily worn notes get refused more often than visitors expect. Tipping around 5-10% is appreciated, not required.
For where these dishes fit into a full day, see our things to do in Phnom Penh guide and our 2-day itinerary , which builds a Friends lunch into the first day.