I'm still trying to recapture the taste of my first amok.
On a visit to San Francisco in the early 1990s, I made my way to the Mission District and a small Cambodian restaurant called Angkor Borei to try what the menu still describes as "curry fish mousse." The restaurant's version of ahmohk (one of many homophonic spellings) began with a firm-fleshed, mild fish that was wrapped in a banana leaf with spices, and likely with coconut milk, then steamed at length until it quivered with a sublime texture worthy of a dessert spoon.
I didn't find its like anywhere in Phnom Penh. (The German gentleman who introduced me to Psar Kandal had observed that during the upheavals in Cambodia following the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia, preservation of the national cuisine was not a priority.) What Khmer Borane called hamok ($2.40), "steamed fish cooked in coconut milk," had the texture of tunafish salad. I also tried the lok lak beef ($3.10), a hot salad of slightly rubbery meat with a mild lemon-pepper dipping sauce — related, no doubt, to the Vietnamese dish called bo luc lac.
Khmer Borane
389 Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
(From a November 2006 visit)
