Blue Pumpkin, Siem Reap

The Blue Pumpkin cafe is quite an establishment in its own right, offering an array of pastries, sandwiches, coffee, ice cream - and even their spin on local food. There are now several branches across Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, you're bound to spot one at some point!


There is one conveniently located across the entrance to Angkor Wat. That is, if you can get past the scores of Cambodian children and women accosting you to buy postcards (10 for USD1) and other trinkets.

Before venturing to the magnificent temple we fortified ourselves with lunch. Waiters are nice and friendly (as are most locals!) and the best thing about this cafe are the cold towels provided! Sorely needed on a blazing hot day, these towels were refreshingly ice-cold and had a herbal whiff that is very energizing.

Anyway, on to our meal:

This fish amok dish is a twist to the regular local delicacy. Instead of being encased by banana leaves, the fish amok is wrapped inside ravioli drowned in tasty coconut sauce.


We found this to be a bit too salty, although the flavours were very pronounced (esp the coconut sauce!). Yumm.

I found the ravioli to be rather fantastic - the yummy coconut-ty flavour of the fish amok wrapped in ravioli was a brilliant idea, but there was enough salt in this thing to kill a rhino.

Spicy pork curry with local crudites in french baguettes. The khmer curried pork had the same strange non-spicy lemongrass peanuty flavour to it, the taste was rather mild for my liking. Similar to vietnamese baguettes, it was filled with raw vegetables which gave that rather nice crunch, but the whole thing was generally lacking in flavour.

We had the ice cream and buns from Blue Pumpkin on separate occasions but we don't feel too strongly about them. Would strongly recommend this place only for the ice cold fruit shakes and the life saving towels!
Rating (out of 4) :