Nary’s Kitchen is located about a block west of the central market in Battambang. This is not the area in which most of the establishments catering to tourists are located, making Nary’s a bit off the track. This showed when we got there, as there were no other customers, the lights were off, and the staff was lying on the floor watching television in the dark. No other customers came while we ate.
We had dinner here, in our continuing effort to expand our dining options beyond my one tried-and -true favorite, The Smokin’ Pot. We saw a small poster adverising Nary’s as a cooking school, and figured a place that teaches cooking might also be a good restaurant option.
The dishes we had were a vegetable tom yam soup (a Thai soup that is characterized by lemon grass as an ingredient, and that is normally spicy from chilies); and a Khmer coconut milk soup.
When we used the Khmer phrase that indicates we do not eat meat, fish, and the like; the man who apparently owns the place said, in English, that he knew how to cook vegan. Despite this discussion, including him listing all the vegan-friendly ingredients he substitutes for things like fish sauce, he ended up asking if we wanted chicken in the tom yam and fish in the coconut milk soup. This caused us to go back through the whole discussion on no meat, no fish, no shrimp, no fish sauce, etc. We were now a little concerned about what would actually emerge from the kitchen. As it happened, there were no pieces of chicken in the tom yam, and there was no fish in the coconut milk soup (but I suspect there was some fish sauce in the coconut soup.)
I asked him to make things very spicy, as most Khmer food is pretty light on the heat, especially when made for foreigners. The food was delivered with an acceptable level of hot.
The beer selection consisted of just Angkor Beer, which we think is the worst of the beers that can be had in Cambodia.
Jen thought the tom yam was very good, with which I agreed. The coconut milk soup was OK, and was more like a curry than a soup.
For the two dishes, with rice and one large bottle of Angkor beer, we were charged $7 US. That makes Nary’s kitchen about 40% more expensive than my bellwether, The Smokin’ Pot.
While we ate, the owner sat at the table next to us. He didn’t interrupt us with conversation, but the close proximity, with us being the only customers, was a little much. “Hovering” is a word that comes to mind.
As we were getting on our motorbike to leave, the owner started asking a series of questions: “Do you work for an NGO, or are you tourists?” “Where are you staying?” “Are you looking for a business opportunity?” He stopped short of asking my bank account balance. The combination of timing, number, and content of the questions struck us as strange. I felt like a car salesman was asking me a set of qualifying questions. (I am saying the above from having spent several months in SE Asia, and two months cumulative in Cambodia. This exchange was out of the normal range of questioning we often get.)
Between the price and OK-but-not-Oh-My-God quality of the food, Nary’s Kitchen does not pose a threat to The Smokin’ Pot’s top position on my list of places to eat. Throw in the post-meal questions, and I think we’ll not be eating at Nary’s Kitchen again.