AsiaLIFE

You’re reading this, indirectly, because of fresh whole coconuts. I wasn’t going to review the FCC Angkor restaurant. Hell, I wasn’t ever going to eat there again. We had a Christmas dinner there last year. It wasn’t the worst restaurant Christmas meal I’ve ever had. It was the worst restaurant meal I’ve ever had. Bar none. I am prone to exaggeration, but when guilty I’ll admit it

The setting was fine, and as we sat down to our meal the head of our party said, and I quote “I love the F because you know it’s going to be great. Never fails.” It began with a choice of three starters. I forget what two of them were. You can argue I should know, given that I am about to pan their Christmas dinner menu, but I feel I should be forgiven as they’d run out of all but the squid. You’d think all those longing for a traditional Christmas at home would want to start with a nice squid salad. I think we followed with turkey, but maybe it was goose. Maybe it was cardboard. I’m really not sure. Dessert was equally painful. We left cursing, and swore never to return.

Nov. 27. Nearly a year later. None of us had been back yet. It’s my wedding anniversary. A friend told me they had new chefs. I’m not sure what they did with the chefs last Christmas, but they seem to have moved on. So, going back to the venerable F on my wedding anniversary. Bad idea, right? But there was the friend’s recommendation, and he’s the rare sort of friend I actually trust with such things in this town. The Khmer food should be decent, and my wife will want Khmer, and I know they have whole coconuts to drink, and she loves those. This is my thinking, going in. Also I can’t think of anywhere else to go, and they do have those whole coconuts. You learn about at least some of the small things that can make a difference in your spouse when you’ve been married for two years, and blessedly one of them is fresh whole coconuts. Pretty easy to pull off in Siem Reap.

So we ended up at the FCC, accompanied by trepidation. It was fantastic. I’ll say it right out, at the beginning of the review. Fantastic.

It isn’t as good as the Christmas dinner was bad, but it makes a great start to reclaiming my trust. We started with a tasting stand of spring rolls, duck dumplings, and (yes, I know it’s ironic) salt and Kampot pepper squid. The spring rolls are spring rolls, nothing dynamic but flavourful and ample in size. The duck dumplings have a nice savoury flavour with just a hint of sultry sweet undertones and the right dough to meat ratio. This is essential in a dumpling. The squid was fried, crispy on the outside and tender under the crust. Salt and pepper squid is a hot dish in the United States right now. It’s simple, and delicious when done with the proper ingredients. This one could have had a bit more squid to accompany the greens it was served on, but overall it was excellent. Moving on to the main course, my wife had a fillet of sea bass with a sweet and sour sauce, and I had a lamb loin served with crushed cherry tomatoes, black olives, and butter roasted potatoes. The fish was perfect, flaky and light and complimented perfectly by the sauce. My only complaint as regards to the lamb is that the meat portion of the dish was a little skimpy. That said, I’m an American and we tend to like our meat with a couple side orders of meat, so I suspect it would be fine for most people. The only other thing remotely resembling an issue is one of semantics. My cherry tomatoes were halved, not crushed. I’m a stickler for that sort of thing, but having once eaten cardboard for Christmas at this very venue I’ve achieved some perspective and I don’t let it impact on my enthusiasm for the dish. A passion fruit shake makes dessert, sipped slowly giving my wife time to drain her coconut. At US$62.50 for the pair of us, it’s a splurge, but this time well worth it. The FCC is back, and hopefully it will stay.