Breakfast in Siem Reap - Local foods and the best brunches in the city
If you are off to the ruins of Angkor Wat or looking to explore the overgrown courtyards of Ta Prohm you better not do it on an empty stomach! Siem Reap, home to the Angkor complex, has a thriving breakfast and brunch scene with amazing local eats sitting alongside luxurious Western fare. We spent a good long time in Siem Reap eating our way around town (it is a hard job but someone has to do it) so we can now bring you our guide to the best breakfasts in town!
Siem Reap will always reward those who venture out in the mornings in search of munch. Home of some fantastic local foods, the markets and streets of Siem Reap offer some delicious delicacies to the early riser. For those backpackers looking for a little luxury or just a taste of home, Siem Reap has a thriving brunch, coffee and baking scene. Read on for all our top breakfast picks.
Local Food - Breakfast like a Cambodian
For those looking for delicious cheap eats, local food is always the way. We love and travel for food, it is one of our favourite things about our adventures, landing in a new place and sampling what local flavours are on offer. Breakfast and the early morning seem especially important in Cambodia, we often found that lots of the local options had closed up by lunch time. Get up and get out for breakfast if you want some delicious backpacker budget friendly food!
Nom Banh Chok
(location)
In amongst the chaotic whirl of colour and smell that is Siem Reap’s Old Market we found one of our favourite Cambodian breakfasts. Opposite a table groaning under the weight of vegetables was a small stall with four stools crammed up next to an ancient looking wooden counter. We would have walked past without a second glance if it wasn’t for the little old ladies sat there eating amazing, vibrantly coloured bowls of noodles. Giving into curiosity we grabbed the remaining two stools and sat down.
Nom banh chok is a noodle dish similar to the Thai dish khanom jeen. White fermented rice noodles are covered with a rich coconut based sauce/soup and then topped with fresh herbs, vegetables and other toppings. The whole bowl is served at room temperature and appears alongside a huge punnet of raw veggies and herbs that you add to the bowl while eating.
When we said they gave you fresh vegetables with your nom banh chok, this is what we meant!
At the stall where we were sat, the nom banh chok came in two varieties: Red with a spicy rich sauce topped with chicken, bean sprouts and blood cake or green, with a lighter coconut broth with lime and flowering vegetables.
The stewed pumpkin in the red nom banh chock was so good!
We tried both over two days breakfasting at the little market stall. It is hard to pick a favourite but the green one was so unique. It felt simultaneously refreshing and rich, healthy yet indulgent. As we slurped our way through the noodles we added more and more raw veg to the delicious coconutty sauce. It was a great breakfast and not quite like any we have had before.
The nom banh chock was very reasonably priced at $1.00 per bowl in the market. We saw a few restaurants and posh hotels with it on the menu but honestly couldn’t see what was to be gained by ‘poshing’ the dish up. It was simple, satisfying and great as it was.
Borbor - Cambodian Rice Soup
Not to be confused with the expensive jackets worn by the landed gentry and Wimbledon wannabees, borbor is a Cambodian rice soup eaten for breakfast and throughout the day. Rice soup does not sound exciting, quite the opposite in fact, it sounds like something you eat when you have a cold or are missing your teeth. Borbor however is delicious, hearty and moreish, with amazing depth and flavour.
We found some great bowls at Sinorn borbor Monsrae - សុីណន បបរមាន់ស្រែ (location ) costing around $1.75 a bowl. You could buy chicken or fish variants and they served them alongside crispy, fluffy Chinese style donuts. Borbor is served throughout the day but, for us, it was the perfect breakfast.
Borbor also know as: a hug in a bowl
The rice soup is less gloopy than a Thai or Vietnamese congee, it was perfectly balanced between light and hearty. The soup itself was saturated with rich chickeny flavour (we went for this over the fish version). The stock was made with both meat and seafood to give it a real umami kick. Sticks of raw ginger broke up the richness and added a spicy zing to the dish. The bowl was topped with shredded poached chicken and deep fried garlic and shallots. Anyone who knows us already knows our feelings towards deep fried shallots (it is the love that borders on obsession).
The borbor had a luxurious texture from the rice, deep flavour from the stock, satisfying protein from the chicken and lightness and spice from the ginger. It was damn near perfect. We say near perfect because, like many southeast asian dishes, it is finished at the table by you and a cruet of spices and vinegar. We found (on bowl number three) that for our perfect bowl it only needed a small spoon of chilli vinegar and a large shower of dried chilli. Stained red with spice and with the extra hum of vinegar in the background it was probably our favourite Cambodian breakfast.
Kuy Teav - Breakfast Pork Noodle Soup
This is a true Cambodian staple, for sale everywhere from restaurants to street stalls. From the high end bankers to the most humble fruit seller, every Cambodian will have a favourite spot for a bowl of this breakfast noodle soup. Bowls can cost anywhere from $1.00 or less to, up to $3.00 for massive helping from a street side stall. If you buy this from a restaurant expect to pay more of course. Typically on sale from early in the morning until it sells out sometime before lunch, kuy teav is endlessly variable. Like pho in Vietnam or Thailand’s tom yam, no two bowls of kuy teav will be the same.
We had fallen for kuy teav’s flavours during our time in Battambang (Read all about that here) and made it our mission to find a good bowl in Siem Reap. Luckily for us the Old Market came up trumps again and provided us with a perfect little stall selling the delicious breakfast dish.
Kuy teav, as we have mentioned, can come in many varieties, from seafood to pork, chicken to beef. The stock is usually consistent with a rich deep flavour made from long simmered pork, prawns and seafood. The prawns and the seafood may sound odd but they really just add a deep savoury flavour to every mouthful.
The stock is then piled high with rice noodles and your protein of choice for topping. We always went with the pork and this meant every cut, off cut and entrail you can imagine! The delicate soup was studded with bits of heart, ear, lung, intestine and liver alongside tender pork patties and slices of roasted pork. If you are used to pork only in the form of chops or bacon this might all sound like something from a horror film but trust us it was delicious! Everything had different textures and every bite was deliciously unique. If you were looking for a good way to try some more ‘exotic’ cuts of meat, kuy teav would be a great introduction.
We should have probably mentioned, you can have kuy teav without any of these offaly additions, just ask for plain meat and the lovely lady at the stall will oblige. You would be missing out though! There are stalls serving kuy teav everywhere in Siem Reap, we had a great bowl at the Old Market here
Kuy teav is a great bowl of noodles and easily takes its place in the South East Asian Noodle Soup hall of fame...We know that doesn’t exist ok, but it should!
Lort Cha - Cambodian comfort noodles
Family Rice Noodle and Chive Cakes
(location)
This suggestion may be cheating as we usually had it for lunch or dinner but Google says it is open from eight in the morning so someone must be eating it for breakfast! Lort cha is the ultimate comfort food, stir fried pin noodles in a sweet and savoury sauce served with a fried egg on top. Our favourite place to eat it in Siem Reap, Family Rice Noodle and Chive Cake, also added a crunchy, chewy chinese chive cake to up the indulgence and comfort food feels. We loved this dish, so much we have written a whole article about it - check it out here
Lort cha - works as both a hangover preventer and cure!
Lort cha is a fantastic comfort food any time of the day and would be a great hangover cure for those who have overindulged on pub street the previous night. It is also very reasonably priced, we paid $2.50 each for plates of piled high with chive cake, beef and fried egg.
Western Comforts - Brunch in Siem Reap
For those looking for a little home style cooking, looking for their flat whites and avocado toasts (no shade intended, we are partial to a flat white), Siem Reap is an oasis of great international food. Mexican to Sri Lankan, Greek to Japanese, Siem Reap has restaurants catering to every cuisine and whim of its international visitors.
Brunch is especially well represented in the Siem Reap food scene. We are not immune to the siren song of coffee and baked goods and have compiled a list of our favourite Western breakfast and brunch spots in the city:
The Muffin Man
(location)
Away from the main tourist hub, across the river from the Old Market and Pub Street you can find the Muffin Man Café. Grown out of the real success story of a local man and his gamble on muffins, the cafe serves coffee, large brunch plates and, you guessed it, muffins!
We headed down there after a ...lively... night on Pub Street in search of good coffee and something to fill the roiling void where our stomachs used to be. We settled into the cute and cosy outside area and ordered a cappuccino, A lime iced tea and two plates of the cockily titled “Best Scrambled Egg Toasts”. The plates come in “full” or “half” sizes, our stomachs gurgling, we ordered full size.
The coffee was great, just the right kind of bittersweet rocket-fuel to kickstart a fuzzy brain. The lime iced tea was sharp fresh and a slap in the face - in a good way! The food soon arrived and we realised we may have overestimated our stomachs capacity for food. The “full” size plate was huge, we could probably have shared one between the two of us!
A generous two doorstops of wholemeal bread was topped with mounds of smashed avocado, tranches of smoked ham and snowdrifts of fluffy scrambled eggs topped with chunks of crumbly cheese. It was too much but it was so good!
The Muffin Man - do you know him? He does brunch right!
The Muffin Man was exactly what was needed that morning. Coffee to reawaken parts of our brain that had been slacking off and a great plate of filling breakfast much to refuel us and get us in gear for the day. The one thing we didn't have was … a muffin (they did look delicious)!
The Muffin Man is (obviously) more expensive than eating Cambodian noodles in the market. It set us back $14.00 for our meal and coffees but, you do have to treat yourselves sometimes don’t you?!
Sister Sray
(location)
You know somewhere is Instagram popular when Google Maps has over one thousand eight hundred photos of its food uploaded. Sister Sray seemed to be the unofficial meeting hall for the backpacking crowd. There was permanently a throng of bedraggled travellers hungrily tucking into its menu or slurping on their smoothie selection.
Sister Sray is definitely one of the most popular cafe / brunch spots in Siem Reap. It has a wide ranging menu from soup to burgers, all day breakfasts to fried noodles. The menu has plenty of vegan and vegetarian options, which adds to the popularity. Everything that came out of their kitchen looked fresh, vibrant and yummy. The food is a little pricier but they do have some great value treats to enjoy.
We ordered the banana and coconut bread along with a pot of earl grey tea (I know we were living up to the stereotype). The tea came in at $3.25 for a pot big enough for two people and the banana bread was only $1.50, which we thought was a bargain.
The bread looked like an even better deal when it arrived, a thick wedge of moist banana and coconut bread, served hot with pots of butter and honey on the side. It was the perfect indulgence and worked beautifully alongside a pot of floral, astringent earl grey tea.
Eric Kayser Bakeries.
Sometimes we just want a little Parisian luxury in our life. Even in Cambodia, in the midst of a backpacking adventure across South East Asia, the craving for croissants can strike. The seeds of desire were planted on our first day in Siem Reap where, backpacks weighing us down on the way from the bus station, we passed by the windows of one of Eric Kayser's bakeries.
Seriously the windows should have come with blinds, or a parental warning, the pastries on display were sexy. Food should not be sexy, not in public. We knew it was only a matter of time before we succumbed to the buttery succubus and caved to the expensive pastries.
It happened, in fact it happened more than once. The excuse we told ourselves is we needed portable food for a picnic among the temples of Angkor, it was a good excuse. It definitely excused us buying expensive (not really) french patisseries.
Over the course of our Siem Reap stay we tried the pain au chocolat, the almond croissant and an olive stick. They were not style over substance, their enticing exteriors were matched by their delicious taste. The almond croissant and pain au chocolat were many-layered things of beauty; crunchy, buttery with the perfect chew and texture. The olive bread was fantastic, dense and studded with dark olives, a perfect savoury snack.
There was also a selection of cakes, sandwiches and pastries on display. They looked so good it would have almost been a crime to eat them. Glazed tarts, sandwiches stuffed with imported charcuterie and all manner of deliciousness tempted us. With a herculean effort, we managed to resist these further temptations, if you give in let us know what we missed out on in the comments!
We have dressed Eric Kayer’s bakery up to be expensive, it really wasn’t. It was luxurious but not expensive. Our pain au chocolat was $1,20 for a small one and this was well worth the price. It is true that we could have had a whole plate of noodles for around that price but that does not make $1.20 expensive. On long term travels it is worth differentiating between indulgent luxury and needless expense. One should be avoided and the other indulged in when the need arises.
Victory! …. For excuses to buy pastries!
Siem Reap is a large city - the second biggest in Cambodia. As the tourist hub for Angkor Wat and the temple complex, it has dozens of brunch spots, coffee shops, local markets, slow bars and street stalls. You could live here for years and not sample half what the city has to offer. That is our roundabout way of saying that this is definitely not an exhaustive guide to the breakfasts you can enjoy in Siem Reap. If we have missed your favourite place, local or Western, let us know in the comments.
Being such a tourist friendly city means that it is possible to eat both badly and expensively in Siem Reap; we saw any amount of flaccid omelettes and boring benedicts being served around town. The above places all impressed us with genuinely good food. We usually stick to a backpacking budget friendly diet of local and street food, but in Siem Reap we indulged in some home comforts and were very glad we did. Siem Reap is a city to treat yourself in, do not resist the call of the croissant!
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
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