by Bank Takaeng

With this soup, you can either eat with rice or make a noodle.
Ingredients:

• Chicken carcass, bone – 1kg.
• Water – 10 cup / 2,400ml
• Chinese radish, medium size, peeled and cut – 1
• Celery, chopped 3 inches long – 1 stalk
• Bay leaf – 3 leaf
• Salt – 1tsp / 5ml.

Preparation:

• Chopped chicken bone into pieces and place in a pot
• Put in the Chinese radish, celery, salt, and bay leaves, and boil over heat for 1 hour.
• Filter though a clean thin cloth.

This is for 2

by Scott Coates

Phnom Penh (PP) is one of those places that sounds exotic, strange and conveys all kinds of wild images to travelers, especially if you’ve never been there. And it is all those things. With a storied history, most visitors go to see the notorious S21 Prison and Killing Fields, truly chilling but highly worthwhile stops.

The city is a collision of the working poor, the ruling rich and lots of foreigners working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the

Drinks at the FCC

United Nations (UN). As a result PP is a city of two worlds – one for locals and one for foreigners making foreign salaries. All this foreign money buzzing around requires spending and we foreigners love to drink and dine.

While you wouldn’t initially think of PP as a top place to enjoy food and drink, it’s a wonderful place to do so. As there are foreign residents from around the world calling it home, there’s almost every kind of cuisine on offer, and at very affordable prices compared to the west. The same can be said of places to relax, drink and party the night away.

Bangkok truly has everything but when I want a fun weekend indulging on food and beverage I jump a flight to PP, meet up with friends and let the good times roll. Here are some of Smiling Albino’s favorite haunts:

Food
FCC: 363 Sisowath Quay, 023-724-014
While a stop on most travelers’ list, the FCC is well worth popping in to, be it for a relaxing drink or tasty bite to eat. Enjoy the breeze and great river views. A bit pricey but a perfect place to see and be seen.

Friends: 215 Street 13, 012-802-072
Eating has never been so helpful! Friends takes street kids and trains them in the hospitality industry with all profits going to support the training of more people. Eat, eat, eat!

Java Arts Cafe: 56 E1 Preah Sihanouk Bvld., 023-987-420
Near the Independence Monument, this café/gallery serves awesome sandwiches, sweets and coffee. Closed on Mondays.

Rooftop patio at Tamarind

The Tamarind: #31 Street 240, 012-830-139
Mediterranean food is the order of the day – a seriously tasty establishment and healthy too. There’s a good number of bars nearby for after dinner drinks too.

Freebird: #69 Street 240, 023-224-712
Fancy a bit of Americana then this is the place. Burgers, beer and a truly western atmosphere make this place a favorite of the expat community.

Beverage
Maxine’s (Snow’s): Tonle Sap Rd, 012-200-617, closed Mondays
Known as ‘Snow’s’ you’ll need a local ‘in-the-know’ to get here. Without a doubt one of the most unique places you’ll ever drink at. Over the Japanese Bridge, down a dark road and you’re there. A wild décor, balcony overlooking the river and funky host ‘Snow’ make this an insider’s gem. You’re likely to come back for seconds.

Equinox: #3A, Street 278, 092-791-958
A lounge, bar, gallery and one of the city’s hottest nightspots, you’re sure to make friends and enjoy great beverages.

Café Metro: Corner Sisowath Quay & Street 148, 023-222-275
A very modern lounge/restaurant that truly exemplifies modern Phnom Penh – come and rub shoulders with the city’s upper-crust. Great place for mojitos and wine.

Rubies: Corner Streets 19 & 240, 012-823-962
Dark reds both in bottles and on the wall make this a soothing place to sip

Freebird's novel toilet freshener

wine and really chill out. There are a good number of other places nearby making a night out easy.

Elephant Bar: inside Raffles Hotel Le Royal, 92 Rukhak Vithei Daun Penh, 023-981-888
One of the city’s oldest bars and most upscale, enjoy half-price drinks during happy hour from 4-8pm and mix it up with the expat community and well-healed travelers.

Zeppelin Café: #109C, Street 51 (next to Walkabout), 012-881-181
The theme is rock n’ roll spun from vinyl. A laid-back atmosphere, cold beer and great Chinese dumplings make this a good place to rock-out.

Fancy hitting some of these places in style? Sign-on for our magical, six-day Classic Cambodia trip!

by Scott Coates

Thai massage is one of life’s great treats. Generally 1-2 hours in length, you’re poked, prodded, rubbed, bent and sometimes pushed to your limits, but for fans, there’s nothing like it. I’m a fan.

I’d heard of a massage service at the Chiang Mai Women’s Prison for quite some time but had never been. A March 2010 trip to Chiang Mai found me with a couple hours free and feeling a bit sore after six days of biking on the Thailand Trek & Trail – the perfect time to give it a shot.

Opting to walk there through Chiang Mai’s charming old walled city instead of taking a tuk tuk, I passed numerous ancient temples, shop stalls and had only a sense of where the massage was. Turned out I committed the age old man’s fault of not asking for directions first and walked much further than needed, but saw some neat sides to the city that had previously eluded me. My legs were now truly in need of a good rubdown.

Located across the street from the Chiang Mai Woman’s Correctional Institution in the center of town, the massage service is one part of their Skill Development Center.  Started in 2001 by the institution’s director as a means for residents to gain life experience to ease the transition back into society after release, roughly 420 inmates have gone through Thai massage training and are now working as masseuses around the kingdom.

The massage center is not entirely easy to find and set among a group of buildings that are part of the Skill Development Center. There are a few small signs in English and I wasn’t sure until someone said, “massage?”, if I was in the correct place. Opting for a 1-hour Thai massage I was surprised by the very friendly smiles and demeanor of a few women who welcomed and handed me some massage clothing to put on. Surely these weren’t the criminal masseuses? In my new outfit I went into the room with mattresses on the floor and sure enough these pleasant looking women were the masseuses!

Bom was my masseuse and did an excellent job. I’ve had hundreds of massages over the years and her service was quality. While receiving my treatment I gently inquired into the program and her life. Turns out she’s 28-years-old, is serving just under three years for selling Ya Ba (methamphetamines) and very much enjoys her time practicing rather than being in a cell.

Thirty of the prison’s roughly 1,400 inmates study 180 hours of Thai massage training at one time within prison walls before being allowed to serve customers. Only non-violent and low-risk offenders are admitted to the program and the real bonus is the one month students get to spend giving massages outside of the prison at the center. Eight prisoners practice at a time then head back inside after their stint is up. They then wait in a queue to practice again.

Money from massage services goes to support the training initiatives of the center and the masseuses get a bonus the month they work outside prison walls (this amount could not be verified).

While a great experience and neat way to relax while giving inmates a sense of worth, the downside is the total lack of information about the program at the center itself. There is absolutely no information, leaving guests with no sense of what they are partaking in.

A nearby business worth visiting is Lila Thai Massage, whose employees are all ex-inmates who have successfully completed the program and served there time.

The massage center is open from 08:00-16:30, can be found at 100 Rachwithee Rd, in the city center (081-706-1041. Thai massage is 180B/hr and Foot massage is 150B/hr.

Enjoy your experience!

by Bank Takaeng

It’s good for breakfast, lunch, dinner or even snacks. You may have to do a load of work but is such a hit with guests that the effort is very well spent.

Ingredients:

• Rice flour – 1 cup / 120g
• Cornflour – 1/2 cup / 60g
• Wheat flour -1/4 cup / 30g
• Water – 2 1/2 cup / 560ml
• Spring onion, green and white part sliced separately – 3
• Minced pork – 250g
• nuoc mam – 2tbls (http://www.smilingalbino.com/blog/2010/02/thit-kho-to-clay-pot-pork/)
• Minced clove garlic – 2
• Prawn, shelled, cleaned and spilt – 250g
• Bean sprouts – 250g
• White mushrooms, sliced – 10
• Eggs, beaten vegetable oil

Preparations:

• Combine all the flours and spring onion greens to make a batter.
• Combine pork with half the nuoc mamma, garlic, spring onion whites and pepper.
• Combine the shrimp with the remaining nuoc mam, garlic, spring onion white and pepper. Arrange the above, and all the other  ingredients, handily near the stove.
• Heat a small skillet or an omelette pan to high. Add 1 tbsp of oil, then 1 1/2 tsp of pork and 2-3 pieces of prawn and cook for 2 minutes.
• Reduce the heat to medium and add 3 tbsp of batter, 1 tbsp of bean sprouts and a few slices of onion and mushroom. Cover and cook for 2 minutes, uncover and pour 3 tbsp of egg cover the crepe then cover again for 2 minutes.
• Uncover and fold in half, add more oil of needed. Continue cooking  with the lid on, turning the crepe from time to time, until it is very crisp. and server with nuoc cham.

This is serve for 6.

by Bank Takaeng

It’s a stir-fried noodle dish and similar to Pad See Ew but more flavor. The distinctiveness of this dish come from chili and basil.

Ingredients:

• Vegetable – 2tbsp. / 30ml.
• Fresh yellow spur chili pepper – 2tbsp / 30ml.
• Chopped garlic – 2tbsp / 30ml.
• Sliced onion -1/4 cup / 60ml.
• Ground beef, pork or chicken – 150g.
• Rice noodles, soaked and drained – 1 cup
• Fish sauce – 1tbsp / 15ml.
• Granulated sugar – 1/2tsp / 3ml.
• Oyster sauce – 1tbsp / 15ml.
• Sweet basil or hot basil leaf – 1/2 cup / 120ml.

Preparations:

• Pound chili peppers and garlic into paste and fry at high in large frying pan. Add onion before paste brown.
• Add ground meat and the rest of ingredients stirring constantly.
• Add noodles when cooked, add bail leaves and toss.
• Serve immediately.

This is for 2 people.

by Scott Coates

Bangkok, Thailand was once known as one of the wildest, craziest cities on earth. And then it started developing. The main obvious growth has been in essential services/infrastructure, moving from a third world to second world country and a rapidly growing middle class. With development comes refining laws, coming in line with what the developed world considers proper, one of those things being night life ending about 2am, something I never thought I’d see here.

Backtrack about 5 years to a time when Taksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai

The author doing research

party was firmly in power and a few ministers in his cabinet decided to go on a moral crusade against drinking and late night fun. Seems despite having a reputation for nightlife and tourism being one of the Kingdom’s top sources of foreign revenue, drinking, dancing and having fun past 1-2am was no longer deemed appropriate by the government. Since that time Bangkok’s bar opening hours have been all over the board and without much rhyme or reason. Sometimes they closed at 1am, sometimes at midnight and then on another night they could stay open until 3am.

Lets be clear, I love this country and all it has to offer. That said, it’s a bit of a shame that there’s no consistency and Bangkok’s closing hours are often earlier than those in my conservative home city of Calgary, Alberta. Calgary open later than Bangkok?!

An interesting result of the earlier closing times for bars has been the emergence of roadside bars along Bangkok’s main thoroughfare Sukhumvit Road. From about Soi 1 (side street 1) all the way to roughly Soi 23, from midnight onwards, carts are rolled in, speakers, chairs and plastic tables unpacked and temporary bars set up on the sidewalks. Seems with all those people being kicked out of bars, still full of energy and thirsty, entrepreneurs have jumped in and filled the void. What you now have is an energetic bunch of small bars, well stocked (they have Jack Daniel’s, Bacardi, etc), run by enthusiastic people (strangely a majority of them seem to be lady boys – not sure why) and they serve until about 5am! So how/why do licensed bars have to close early and fly-by-night bars on the side of the road get to stay open until very late? That’s a good question.

Like anywhere in the world, corruption is a part of life and often in the developing world more so. While I haven’t done any official surveys as to how/why street side bars can be allowed to operate and do so until very late, the consensus seems to be that they are allowed to with unofficial authorization from the authorities. Monitors don’t see what’s going on, concentrate on the licensed bars and their closing times, then don’t visit Sukhumvit Road. A bit of incentive to not look ensures these mobile bars stay open.

That’s great news for those of us who enjoy staying out a bit later than 1-2am, but a sad situation for licensed bars and a city that once had a good image as a metropolis with great nightlife. Here’s hoping we can take it back indoors one day soon.