Southeast Asian desserts
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660 S King St International District
206 / 748-9825 website
-closed Wednesday
Interview with founder, Seng "Sam" Ung
“People call me Sam. My family name’s Seng, though. People recognize me as Sam. My last name: Ung. U-N-G. And I’m the owner and the chef at the Phnom Penh Noodle House.”
Sam learned to cook while growing up in Cambodia.
“I grew up and my parents have a cafe, restaurant, that seats about 80 to 90 people, inside the public market of Battambang, Cambodia. So I work there, and I became the cook since I was about 16 or so. And I cook for my parents. So what I learn, I just watch the cook we have, and you know: watching, and listen, practice. That’s how I became who I am.”
“I left Cambodia in ‘79 as a refugee, so at the end of ‘79 after the civil war and the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese invasion. So I got here in 1980, in August. So I was in school, so the teacher say, ‘What do you want to do in the future?’ I said, ‘My dream is to have a small cafe.’
“So in ‘87 I found the place around the corner and I open it up. I didn’t have money; I worked by myself, you know. I achieve my dream. Very low-key. Nobody even believe I can do that. I did it.
“My wife said, ‘Where’s your money?’
“I said, ‘Don’t have it.’
“She said, ‘How can you run a business?’
“I said, ‘Wait and see: I’ll make it happen.’”
And he did; the first Phnom Penh Noodle House was a tiny restaurant with a tiny menu:
“There was only seven item then--noodles--on the menu, for ten years.”
When the roof of the original location collapsed, Sam jumped at the chance to expand. Five months later, Phnom Penh reopened in a new, larger space around the corner, with a bigger staff--including two of Sam’s three daughters--and a bigger menu, including a number of desserts.
In Cambodia, desserts aren’t typically found on restaurant menus.
“You know, it’s different culture from here. In restaurant they don’t serve dessert. People, after dinner, then...that’s it. Hardly they eat dessert, unless they have a big banquet.”
Sweet snacks are more commonly sold by market vendors and eaten during breaks in the day.
“And the dessert they sell in the market, like, you know, independent vendor, like family-style, they have a whole bunch, all different, like eight to ten choices everyday. People go like late afternoon or morning or late afternoon or late night: snack. They eat very little, but they have that snack after meal, in between meal.”
In that sense, Phnom Penh’s desserts aren’t traditionally Cambodian. But they’re also European-influenced updates of Cambodian street-vendor classics--a combination that is, in itself, very Cambodian.
“Yeah, in Cambodia, you know, they have a lot of mix culture: the Chinese, Vietnamese, the Thai, the French. In Cambodia, we have a lot of French influence, and like French baking. I like European pastry!”
The restaurant’s durian custard is Sam’s reworking of his favorite dessert from childhood, durian with black sweet rice.
“Actually the durian and sweet rice, like back-home-style, they do like saucy gravy durian, and they pour over the sweet rice, and they have the coconut cream over it. So I have the idea of making it like a custard, and serving in fancier way. So I did my own style. I took the similar like creme brulee, the ingredient, and I kind of worked it into the custard.”
To those who are wary of durian’s legendary odor Sam offers this reassurance: “The custard, it smells lighter than the fresh one. Durian is the king of the fruit in Asia. It’s really expensive fruit!”
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| pumpkin custard $4.00 |
“It’s take a lot of time to bake, you know: really slow bake. It’s at a low heat; you get too much heat it’ll puff and crack up. So I did the same, it’s similar like durian custard, except for having durian I have, more, like coconut flavor. So I hot water bath the custard until it kind of like halfway, and then pour in the squash and slow bake it for a couple of hours, at least.”
One dessert in particular is a sign of something Sam’s very proud of.
“We even have the third generation of customer. They used to come with their parents, now they bring their kids: that’s nice! We’re a kid-friendly restaurant. A lot of kids.”
To welcome his littlest customers, Sam came up with the dessert waffle: “That’s American style, because we have a lot of kids here. Actually some kids they come and they say ‘I want that one.’”
