Lort Cha - Family Rice Noodle and Chives Cake in Siem Reap
Wherever you are in this world, you’ll soon realise that every country has a certain dish that just oozes comfort. A dish you seek out when you’re ‘under the weather’, hungover or just want to be reminded a little bit of home. For the Cambodian’s its Lort Cha.
What is Lort Cha?
Lort Cha is a stir-fried noodle dish. Made up of short, circular noodles, imagine a really thick piece of spaghetti that is chopped into short, inch long segments. The rice noodles are then stir-fried together with sweet soy sauce, protein, bean sprouts and vegetables to give a smokey, sweet, addictive taste.
The rice noodles are what makes the Lort Cha unique. Gummy yet firm, the noodles have an addictive texture that soaks up the sauce, egg yolks and anything else you put on top.
You can have Lort Cha with pretty much any protein you can imagine and it is usually topped with a runny fried egg for extra delicious richness! Add to this tasty pile of stir fried goodness a sweet vinegar sauce and then tweak at the table top with dried chillies, vinegars and white pepper.
It is the ultimate comfort food!
Where can Lort Char be eaten in Cambodia?
Lort Cha can be eaten all over the country, from markets to street side stalls, just look out for the huge metal pans and listen out for the traditional sizzle of hot oil! We found an especially brilliant example of Lort Cha at…
Family Rice Noodle & Chives Cake Restaurant - Lort Cha in Siem Reap
Lort Cha is delicious on its own, but there’s a restaurant in Siem Reap that’s raised the bar.
When you inevitably find yourself in Siem Reap which, let's face it you will, it is the home of Angkor Wat after all, make sure you head to Family Rice Noodle & Chive Cake Restaurant (located here) on Highway 63.
Open since 1987, this small restaurant has been a Siem Reap staple feeding both locals and tourists its tasty fare for decades. What sets this restaurant apart from other Lort Cha stalls, stands and shops is the addition of a fried chive cake to the noodles. This may not seem like much but it elevated the dish, transforming it into our favourite Lort Cha we’ve eaten so far in our Cambodian travels.
The small restaurant is located near the popular Pub Street in the tourist heart of Siem Reap. Despite this, it maintains a healthy clientele of local regulars as well as passing hungry tourists. Always a good sign!
We ordered two plates of Lort Cha with beef, chive cake and egg. The menu is small and just variations on the theme of Lort Cha plus chive cake plus topping. The base is always the same but the extras make the dish! We are always a little put off by large menus, they sometimes translate to a large freezer but there was no worry about this here. The restaurant does one thing and it does it very well.
You can have Lort Cha as a vegetarian dish if you want. The toppings can be swapped, mixed and matched to your heart's desire. You could have it topped with fish cake, tofu, chicken or beef. You can even have chive cakes served by themselves.
At the open front of the stall, our short noodles were thrown into a massive flat wok and quickly tossed and fried together with vegetables, beef and the addictive sweet, smokey sauce. In another large pan to the side, plump chive cakes sat sizzling away. Its sides charing up into a crispy, crunchy, golden crust. In one final move the lady scooped our noodles and cake together before quickly frying a runny yolked egg and topping off our plates.
What came to our table was two plates of smoking, messy, comforting goodness. The eggs were quickly smashed into the noodles and chive cake, coating everything in the golden rich yolks. We added lashings of white pepper and a generous scoop of spicy dried chilli flakes before delving into our Lort Cha.
Everything came together in a smoky, sweet, spicy explosion of texture and flavour. The short noodles clung on to the sauce and vegetables, the thin slices of beef added another dimension to the rich sweet sauce and the crunchy quick fried vegetables added a fresh angle to the plate. The chive cakes however stole the show.
The chive cakes were delicious. Soft, fluffy and full of minerally flavour. The cakes are, like much of Lort Cha, Chinese in influence, with a rich oniony taste of fresh chives coated in a goey, crunchy edged batter. The texture reminded us of mashed potato covered in a crisp, crunchy coating. The chive cakes were like an Asian take on bubble and squeak.
For those readers not from the UK, bubble and squeak is a soft, cake made up from the leftovers of your Sunday roast all smashed together with potato and then fried.
It was the texture that made the dish. The fried coating of the chive cakes gave a delicious bite that, along with its soft interior and the firmness of the noodles made for the ultimate addictive comfort food. Every mouthful had every texture you could want, all flavoured with the soy, stir fry sauce and perfumed with chives and chilli. It was sooo good!
The dish was everything we hoped for when we read about the “Cambodian comfort food” and more. It was a simple stir fry dish that was completely unique. You can say it was a little like bubble and squeak meets chow mien but this wouldn't give you half the picture. Lort Cha is Lort Cha, nothing else is quite like it. Whether you're nursing a hangover from too many Anchors on Pub Street, or just looking for some delicious comfort food, Lort Cha is an absolute must try. We tried it several times….
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
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