The food in Phnom Penh is some of the best in the world. How can it be? It is so poor. But it is so
I think it is better than Thailand and possibly better than Vietnam. A collision of China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and an obsession with flavours and a passion for seafood but also a young, food-driven populace
Take one tiny example, my local bar does great gin-and-tonics with Hendricks or Tanqueray 10 with loads of ice and long thin slices of cucumber. Perfect
But they also serve them with these tiny saucers of slender flash fried sliced banana dipped in a piquant chili and nut powder. ie a perfect bar snack - satly but more-ish and quite healthy. Made there and then
Cambodia: the next foodie destination. You read it here first
My wife went to Cambodia about five or six years ago for work and raved about the food.
I am honestly stunned by it. I did a foodie tour of Vietnam in 2019 but this is almost certainly better
Also: I am not really trying. I've been to a couple of "posh" restaurants (and one was mind blowingly good: Sombok) but in general I am just ordering takeaway from the places around me -a newish posh-ish trendy district of PP, something like Shoreditch or Borough. But this is not expat land. I'd say 30% of the locals are white expats, the rest are young middle class Cambodians (which is great, it is definitely not a ghetto)
The grub is all good and much of it is wow, and this is in a country with a GDP per capita like a poor African nation. What's more, I have had similaely superb food across the country, it is not just the capital
The kicker: Cambodia has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world, about 3%
The food in Phnom penh is some of the best in the world. How can it be? It is so poor. But it is so
I think it is better than Thailand and possibly better than Vietnam. A collision of China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malyasia, and an obsession with flavours and a passion for seafood but also a young, food-obsessed populace
Take one tiny example, my local bar does great gin and tonics with Hendricks or Tanqueray 10 with loads of ice and long thin slices of cucumber. Perfect
But they also serve them with these tiny saucers of slender flash fried sliced banana dipped in a piqaunt chili and nut powder. ie a perfect bar snack - satly but more-ish and quite healthy. Made there and then
Cambodia: the next foodie destination. You read it here first
What proportion of the food has chilli in it ? (I can't eat it.)
Nothing like Thailand (eg they don't have prik nam pla, that ubiquitous Thai condiment of chili and fish sauce). They have prahok, which is fermented fish sauce, pungent but delish
They do eat chilis and they like them, but not on the same scale as Thailand. It is all much more.... subtle
I think it is the Chinese influence. The Khmer are basically Chinese people who moved south
The fish sounds like the garum which was ubiquitous in ancient Roman cuisine. Wouldn't be a problem for me. I love any and all fish.
It's rather that even small amounts of chilli render food inedible for me. The allergy won't kill me, but means a rash and severe indigestion... so I prefer to avoid it.
The food in Phnom penh is some of the best in the world. How can it be? It is so poor. But it is so
I think it is better than Thailand and possibly better than Vietnam. A collision of China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malyasia, and an obsession with flavours and a passion for seafood but also a young, food-obsessed populace
Take one tiny example, my local bar does great gin and tonics with Hendricks or Tanqueray 10 with loads of ice and long thin slices of cucumber. Perfect
But they also serve them with these tiny saucers of slender flash fried sliced banana dipped in a piqaunt chili and nut powder. ie a perfect bar snack - satly but more-ish and quite healthy. Made there and then
Cambodia: the next foodie destination. You read it here first
What proportion of the food has chilli in it ? (I can't eat it.)
Nothing like Thailand (eg they don't have prik nam pla, that ubiquitous Thai condiment of chili and fish sauce). They have prahok, which is fermented fish sauce, pungent but delish
They do eat chilis and they like them, but not on the same scale as Thailand. It is all much more.... subtle
I think it is the Chinese influence. The Khmer are basically Chinese people who moved south
The fish sounds like the garum which was ubiquitous in ancient Roman cuisine. Wouldn't be a problem for me. I love any and all fish.
It's rather that even small amounts of chilli render food inedible for me. The allergy won't kill me, but means a rash and severe indigestion... so I prefer to avoid it.
It is easy to avoid. I'd say 70% of Khmer food involves no chili at all
They generally get their heat from black Kampot pepper, the local pepper, and the best pepper in the world!
Janen Ganesh has written a playful article about the problems of PB, sorry, Soho house
‘A friend of mine first entertained doubts that Soho House was cool when he saw four alumni of his school there. “Accountant, accountant, solicitor, accountant
Basically, they are letting anyone in - accountants and lawyers etc. But the plonkers are still angry. He sees this as a societal issue
It's funny that the fact that four of his school alumni were there didn't raise any alarm bells,and isn't the subject of the piece. The only place I'd expect to run into four people from my school would be Tescos in St Andrews. It's extraordinary to think there are people (other than those who live in a small town they grew up in) for whom it is utterly normal to live in a professional world already densely populated with people they know.
I presume we are talking a fairly posh London public school, here
It’s several years since I’ve met anyone who was at my old school at the same time as I was. Although I don’t get out a lot nowadays.
It's difficult to blame Irish negativity towards the United Kingdom, given the multiplicity of kickings that England has given Ireland over the past several hundred years
So all those European countries that have reconciled themselves with Germany have got it wrong. Much better to pick at scabs hundreds of year old and top up the bile.
To some degree I agree, but 'Germany' hasn't been the Germany we know for more than 150 years. Before then what we now know as Germans were quite capable of fighting each other.
Nor in the last 100 years has England been the England of old. The Irish just need to grow up and stop living in the past.
The way Tory MPs were talking about Ireland in recent years demonstrates otherwise. In fact, not just talking about Ireland come to think of it.
Mostly because Varadkar decided to use Brexit as his political CV for a job in Brussels. Anglo Irish relations were improving prior to that but Varadkar decide to drag us all back to the 1900s.
Well Brexit didn't exactly help did it? Leaving the EU without giving any thought to the Irish border, apart from "Well maybe Ireland could leave too?" was pretty shitty.
Janen Ganesh has written a playful article about the problems of PB, sorry, Soho house
‘A friend of mine first entertained doubts that Soho House was cool when he saw four alumni of his school there. “Accountant, accountant, solicitor, accountant
The food in Phnom penh is some of the best in the world. How can it be? It is so poor. But it is so
I think it is better than Thailand and possibly better than Vietnam. A collision of China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malyasia, and an obsession with flavours and a passion for seafood but also a young, food-obsessed populace
Take one tiny example, my local bar does great gin and tonics with Hendricks or Tanqueray 10 with loads of ice and long thin slices of cucumber. Perfect
But they also serve them with these tiny saucers of slender flash fried sliced banana dipped in a piqaunt chili and nut powder. ie a perfect bar snack - satly but more-ish and quite healthy. Made there and then
Cambodia: the next foodie destination. You read it here first
What proportion of the food has chilli in it ? (I can't eat it.)
Nothing like Thailand (eg they don't have prik nam pla, that ubiquitous Thai condiment of chili and fish sauce). They have prahok, which is fermented fish sauce, pungent but delish
They do eat chilis and they like them, but not on the same scale as Thailand. It is all much more.... subtle
I think it is the Chinese influence. The Khmer are basically Chinese people who moved south
The fish sounds like the garum which was ubiquitous in ancient Roman cuisine. Wouldn't be a problem for me. I love any and all fish.
It's rather that even small amounts of chilli render food inedible for me. The allergy won't kill me, but means a rash and severe indigestion... so I prefer to avoid it.
It is easy to avoid. I'd say 70% of Khmer food involves no chili at all
They generally get their heat from black Kampot pepper, the local pepper, and the best pepper in the world!
Janen Ganesh has written a playful article about the problems of PB, sorry, Soho house
‘A friend of mine first entertained doubts that Soho House was cool when he saw four alumni of his school there. “Accountant, accountant, solicitor, accountant
Some numbers on US charity: " Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household.
There are many more numbers in that longish article.
(In recent years, I have observed a possibly signficant local exception to that pattern: There is a Google operation within a couple of blocks of me, and, if they give anything to charity locally, they have kept that fact well hidden. For example, when the COVID vaccines became available, Microsoft here opened up their facilities for mass vaccinations, and provided volunteers to direct the operations. (They were so nice the first time I went there that I brought them some teas and cookies on my second vist.)
In contrast, Google did nothing for us locally. And that in spite of being pampered by local governments.)
It's difficult to blame Irish negativity towards the United Kingdom, given the multiplicity of kickings that England has given Ireland over the past several hundred years
So all those European countries that have reconciled themselves with Germany have got it wrong. Much better to pick at scabs hundreds of year old and top up the bile.
To some degree I agree, but 'Germany' hasn't been the Germany we know for more than 150 years. Before then what we now know as Germans were quite capable of fighting each other.
Nor in the last 100 years has England been the England of old. The Irish just need to grow up and stop living in the past.
I don't think they do. In over fifty years of visiting and living in Ireland I have never heard any Irish person complain to me about English history in Ireland. Maybe they are too polite.
Some numbers on US charity: " Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household.
There are many more numbers in that longish article.
(In recent years, I have observed a possibly signficant local exception to that pattern: There is a Google operation within a couple of blocks of me, and, if they give anything to charity locally, they have kept that fact well hidden. For example, when the COVID vaccines became available, Microsoft here opened up their facilities for mass vaccinations, and provided volunteers to direct the operations. (They were so nice the first time I went there that I brought them some teas and cookies on my second vist.)
In contrast, Google did nothing for us locally. And that in spite of being pampered by local governments.)
A generational thing, perhaps?
Religious practice is falling off a cliff in America alongside in the rest of the West, with a big flip between (say) the Microsoft generation and the Google (or TwiX) generation.
And whilst I can get people's disbelief in the Sky Fairy, we haven't found an alternative mechanism to force people close enough together to see each other as actual people sharing a common life.
And that removes some important guardrails from society, with some of the consequences we're seeing around us.
People are unfailingly polite to me wherever I go, but the one nasty incident I experienced was on a trip to Dublin in 2001.
An older drunk (as he seemed to me then - who knows how old he actually was) learned I was from NZ and started effing and blinding at me for “keeping the Queen”.
Dublin seemed like a very dreary, run-down place. I have not been back.
Some numbers on US charity: " Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household.
There are many more numbers in that longish article.
(In recent years, I have observed a possibly signficant local exception to that pattern: There is a Google operation within a couple of blocks of me, and, if they give anything to charity locally, they have kept that fact well hidden. For example, when the COVID vaccines became available, Microsoft here opened up their facilities for mass vaccinations, and provided volunteers to direct the operations. (They were so nice the first time I went there that I brought them some teas and cookies on my second vist.)
In contrast, Google did nothing for us locally. And that in spite of being pampered by local governments.)
A generational thing, perhaps?
Religious practice is falling off a cliff in America alongside in the rest of the West, with a big flip between (say) the Microsoft generation and the Google (or TwiX) generation.
And whilst I can get people's disbelief in the Sky Fairy, we haven't found an alternative mechanism to force people close enough together to see each other as actual people sharing a common life.
And that removes some important guardrails from society, with some of the consequences we're seeing around us.
Gen Z don’t even seem to have the received memory of religious practice, which is a loss.
Having said that, I’d be totally unsurprised if religiosity started to increase notably. Social media, AI, and deepfakes will surely make us re-consider the difference between body, mind, and soul?
Some numbers on US charity: " Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household.
There are many more numbers in that longish article.
(In recent years, I have observed a possibly signficant local exception to that pattern: There is a Google operation within a couple of blocks of me, and, if they give anything to charity locally, they have kept that fact well hidden. For example, when the COVID vaccines became available, Microsoft here opened up their facilities for mass vaccinations, and provided volunteers to direct the operations. (They were so nice the first time I went there that I brought them some teas and cookies on my second vist.)
In contrast, Google did nothing for us locally. And that in spite of being pampered by local governments.)
What portion of US charitable donations is people giving up their hard earned wages to their megachurch grifter pastors? I’ve never really got over the guy who put out TV ads claiming that God had told him he needed another private jet...
Question - if Putin has nothing to hide why isn't Navalny's body being released to his family?
I'd agree, it seems very fishy and it should concern all Russians that the days of Stalin seem to be making a comeback.
With that said, there is something to Beverley Turners *sort of* point, that the most convoluted and Machiavellian plots by Putin (or anyone else on the current shitlist) are happily touted as virtual confirmed fact by the same commentors who loudly and insistently mock 'loony conspiracy theories' when they pertain to the USA or the West. Are the Americans too nice to do conspiracies?
It's difficult to blame Irish negativity towards the United Kingdom, given the multiplicity of kickings that England has given Ireland over the past several hundred years
They just need to get over on it
I’ve been watching in a mixture of dismay, disbelief and mild amusement on debate on another website
Some Irish bloke is getting very exercised that the term the “British Isles” is a neo-imperialist attempt by the UK to repress Irish identity and that we all live on the “Irish Isles”.
If it was on here I’d assume it was a joke/sock puppet…
Some numbers on US charity: " Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household.
There are many more numbers in that longish article.
(In recent years, I have observed a possibly signficant local exception to that pattern: There is a Google operation within a couple of blocks of me, and, if they give anything to charity locally, they have kept that fact well hidden. For example, when the COVID vaccines became available, Microsoft here opened up their facilities for mass vaccinations, and provided volunteers to direct the operations. (They were so nice the first time I went there that I brought them some teas and cookies on my second vist.)
In contrast, Google did nothing for us locally. And that in spite of being pampered by local governments.)
But there's a reason for that. Continental Europeans pay very high taxes, so that's an alternative way of giving money to good causes. Taxes are pretty low in the USA so maybe people donate more to charity to make up for that fact.
Janen Ganesh has written a playful article about the problems of PB, sorry, Soho house
‘A friend of mine first entertained doubts that Soho House was cool when he saw four alumni of his school there. “Accountant, accountant, solicitor, accountant
Basically, they are letting anyone in - accountants and lawyers etc. But the plonkers are still angry. He sees this as a societal issue
It's funny that the fact that four of his school alumni were there didn't raise any alarm bells,and isn't the subject of the piece. The only place I'd expect to run into four people from my school would be Tescos in St Andrews. It's extraordinary to think there are people (other than those who live in a small town they grew up in) for whom it is utterly normal to live in a professional world already densely populated with people they know.
The last time I ran into a school friend was in a bordello in Tashkent
It's difficult to blame Irish negativity towards the United Kingdom, given the multiplicity of kickings that England has given Ireland over the past several hundred years
They just need to get over on it
I’ve been watching in a mixture of dismay, disbelief and mild amusement on debate on another website
Some Irish bloke is getting very exercised that the term the “British Isles” is a neo-imperialist attempt by the UK to repress Irish identity and that we all live on the “Irish Isles”.
If it was on here I’d assume it was a joke/sock puppet…
Sounds like an SNP type; they have apoplexies over "British Isles".
Comments
Also: I am not really trying. I've been to a couple of "posh" restaurants (and one was mind blowingly good: Sombok) but in general I am just ordering takeaway from the places around me -a newish posh-ish trendy district of PP, something like Shoreditch or Borough. But this is not expat land. I'd say 30% of the locals are white expats, the rest are young middle class Cambodians (which is great, it is definitely not a ghetto)
The grub is all good and much of it is wow, and this is in a country with a GDP per capita like a poor African nation. What's more, I have had similaely superb food across the country, it is not just the capital
The kicker: Cambodia has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world, about 3%
It's rather that even small amounts of chilli render food inedible for me. The allergy won't kill me, but means a rash and severe indigestion... so I prefer to avoid it.
They generally get their heat from black Kampot pepper, the local pepper, and the best pepper in the world!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampot_pepper
Some cuisines (Mexican for example) are almost completely off the menu for me.
Cambodian sounds fine.
" Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household.
There are many reasons for this American distinction. Foremost is the fact that ours is the most religious nation in the industrial world. Religion motivates giving more than any other factor."
source: https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/who-gives-most-to-charity/#:~:text=Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate,reasons for this American distinction.
There are many more numbers in that longish article.
(In recent years, I have observed a possibly signficant local exception to that pattern: There is a Google operation within a couple of blocks of me, and, if they give anything to charity locally, they have kept that fact well hidden. For example, when the COVID vaccines became available, Microsoft here opened up their facilities for mass vaccinations, and provided volunteers to direct the operations. (They were so nice the first time I went there that I brought them some teas and cookies on my second vist.)
In contrast, Google did nothing for us locally. And that in spite of being pampered by local governments.)
Religious practice is falling off a cliff in America alongside in the rest of the West, with a big flip between (say) the Microsoft generation and the Google (or TwiX) generation.
And whilst I can get people's disbelief in the Sky Fairy, we haven't found an alternative mechanism to force people close enough together to see each other as actual people sharing a common life.
And that removes some important guardrails from society, with some of the consequences we're seeing around us.
An older drunk (as he seemed to me then - who knows how old he actually was) learned I was from NZ and started effing and blinding at me for “keeping the Queen”.
Dublin seemed like a very dreary, run-down place. I have not been back.
They’re not alone - so are many British overseas dependencies.
Having said that, I’d be totally unsurprised if religiosity started to increase notably. Social media, AI, and deepfakes will surely make us re-consider the difference between body, mind, and soul?
With that said, there is something to Beverley Turners *sort of* point, that the most convoluted and Machiavellian plots by Putin (or anyone else on the current shitlist) are happily touted as virtual confirmed fact by the same commentors who loudly and insistently mock 'loony conspiracy theories' when they pertain to the USA or the West. Are the Americans too nice to do conspiracies?
I’ve been watching in a mixture of dismay, disbelief and mild amusement on debate on another website
Some Irish bloke is getting very exercised that the term the “British Isles” is a neo-imperialist attempt by the UK to repress Irish identity and that we all live on the “Irish Isles”.
If it was on here I’d assume it was a joke/sock puppet…