I was hankering to try some cambodian style noodles. I thought I’d never had this before, but then remembered that I had some at Kirirom near Seattle. Sadly, that place is no longer open, but that’s ok, I’m thousands of miles from Seattle. New Phnom Penh is indeed open, and we headed out there to try cambodian style noodles for the first time… at least for my first time in Philly. H/A and his rainbow drinks, which he orders whenever he gets vietnamese/cambodian food. Is this cambodian? Is thish vietnamese? No idea, but he’s into it, and it is crazy looking.
None of us were cambodian, or vietnamese for that matter, so we had no idea what we were doing. When I ordered some noodles, they asked if we wanted bread. H/A talked with her, possibly in chinese, and eventually, they brought out this fried dough stuff. E said it looked like big churros, without the sugar and cinnamon. And it really did. It was basically fried dough that you could just eat on its own, or dip into soup. Greasy goodness.
H/A ordered a chicken and broccoli pan fried noodle dish. This really could have been found on the menu of many different restaurants – chinese, vietnamese, etc., but regardless of what kind of food this was, it was good!
E had wanted a sour seafood soup dish, but unfortunately, the ladies who worked there told us that the chef who could make that had gone home already. Oh yes, we were here on a sunday night, and we were the only ones here. And um, well, it’s not in the friendliest or safest of neighborhoods of south philly. Not that I’m an expert, but I’m just saying. So without being able to get that soup, the lady suggested shrimp and noodles, and E just agreed! And out came this dish with shrimp, chinese broccoli, and side rice noodles. I love food like this. Simple and hearty. Again, who knows what type of cuisine this is. Plain and simple, E found it delicious.
So indeed, I went with the soup, and I wasn’t sure which to order or what any of them were, so I just got the combination noodle. There’s no explanations on the menu either, so I really had no clue. I just took a guess. This is not pho. It’s got rice noodles like pho, and broth, and other stuff. But the broth is not beef based. It’s much lighter. This soup came with liver (um, I skipped), pork, fish cake, and shrimp. It’s a good broth, with a strong smell. There’s no need to adulterate it all, with hoisin sauce, or sriracha, or anything really. Just dump some sprouts in there, maybe put a squirt of lime in there, but that’s really it. It’s just fine as is.

The food here is super cheap. Super good, too. The service? Eh… well, it’s not one of those places you go to for the service. We got our water… way after we got our food. Most of the time, we were left to ourselves. The ladies went back into the kitchen and stayed there most of the time. I kind of think that when we came in, they were disappointed. They probably wanted to go home and here we go showing up and ruining their perfectly good sunday evening. But who cares, it’s a hole-in-the-wall joint in a scary neighborhood with good food. Come out and visit during the day, it’s fun!

New Phnom Penh
2301 S. 7th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19148
(215) 389-2122

Over the weekend of the first snowpocalypse of 2010, I actually wasn’t at home to witness it. Instead, I was in the poconos, where they got about 2″ of snow, as opposed to the 20+” laid down at home. While there, we were treated to some fine home cooked meals. For saturday brunch, we had eggs benedict that M made. How come whenever I try to make poached eggs it turns into a mess, but when M makes them, they’re perfect?

After snowboarding in mostly artificially created snow, we had some appetizers, including cheese and crackers. Everyone was particularly fond of the triple cream blue cheese from trader joe’s. I don’t like stinky cheese of any kind, so I stayed away from it. And who doesn’t like ritz crackers?

Also had some chips and green salsa. These chips tasted like they were guacamole flavored or something? Delicious!

For dinner, we had some of this belgian onion and pepper soup.  It had been made awhile back and the pepper had been stewing for awhile, so it was extremely peppery. Tasty, but peppery.

The main course was a chili. This was also tasty, but a bit on the spicy side. I was fine with the spice, but had to take my time with this. It ended up being too spicy for E, poor thing. She ended up eating a bunch of salad instead. D had added a whole can of jalapenos to this, and man, the hotness had been infused through and through. The sour cream was necessary to cut it, and also, because it just tastes darn good with chili. It was a fun weekend away!

As the weather stayed freakishly cold, it further fueled our love of pho so that we had to go eat it two days in a row. We ventured to our favorite place – Pho Ha. I’m not exactly sure why I love this place so much, I just do. It’s just a gut feeling. J got the steak and brisket pho, as usual. I wanted a bit of spice, so I got the pho bo kho. It looks firey hot, but it’s really not that spicy at all. It’s just the right amount of spice. The meat in pho bo kho is not the fancy meat that’s in regular pho, it’s much cheaper cuts of meat with plenty of fat and other less illustrious bits, but I like it just fine. I just get rid of the fat and avoid eating the knuckley parts. After trying my pho bo kho, J realized just how good it was and he was jealous.

It seems like Pho Ha has changed ownership since I was there last. The big paintings with horses and goldfish were gone and replaced with normal sized conservative pieces. The once red chopsticks are now green. The squeeze containers for all the condiments are different. The servers were all new and different, and none of them had super spiked hair. The menu didn’t change though, and neither did the food. And as hard to believe as this may be, the food came out even faster this time than before! And it came out pretty damn fast in the past! Pho Ha, you’re still my fave!