{"id":33156,"date":"2023-02-21T07:00:51","date_gmt":"2023-02-21T15:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000029822"},"modified":"2023-02-21T08:57:20","modified_gmt":"2023-02-21T16:57:20","slug":"cambodian-restaurant-week-is-officially-kicking-off-in-march-after-being-canceled-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/cambodian-restaurant-week-is-officially-kicking-off-in-march-after-being-canceled-last-year","title":{"rendered":"Cambodian Restaurant Week will kick off in March after being canceled last year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long Beach’s Cambodian Restaurant Week will launch next month with dishes like Cambodian tacos, the delightfully pungent fish amok and a lineup of more traditional fare and fusion.<\/p>\n

The festivities begin March 18 with a Cambodian kickoff festival at Long Beach City College that will include a long list of food vendors, candle makers, tattoo artists and more. Then, the official first-ever restaurant week will begin March 19 and end March 26, featuring at least a dozen eateries.<\/p>\n

The celebration\u2014arriving on the heels of another successful Black Restaurant Week\u2014was supposed to happen last year, but it was canceled after it didn\u2019t gather enough sign-ups from restaurants, said Visoth Tarak Ouk, otherwise known as Chef T.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Cambodian dish somlor machu youn, or a type of sour soup, with fish and tomatoes in Long Beach Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ouk, 42, is returning home to the 6th District and his alma mater LBCC to co-organize the inaugural festival and eatery week with nonprofit United Cambodian Community, which was founded in Long Beach by a small group of Cambodian refugees in 1977.<\/p>\n

Chef T struggled to get participants on board last year, but he told the Long Beach Post: \u201cThis time around it\u2019s like, \u2018Woah!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited for the moms and pops, the smaller ones, because they don\u2019t get as much exposure as the bigger restaurants,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For curious Cambodian cuisine newbies, Ouk insists that participants \u201cmust go with the stinky-stinky\u201d (the beloved, albeit smelly, amok dish we mentioned above).<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans, you know, love a blue cheese, limburger cheese\u2014they got a little funk to them,\u201d Ouk said. Similarly, amok \u201cis stinky, but it\u2019s so delicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fish amok, a Cambodian national dish, is a steamed and fermented fish coconut curry with a fluffy consistency, all tucked neatly within banana leaves.<\/p>\n

There will also be several restaurants offering Cambodian fusion fare and other dishes that are unique to the Long Beach food scene, Chef T said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike technology, food evolves,\u201d he said. \u201cYou gotta put your plate a little more modern\u2014nobody really do no Julia Child stuff no more, you know, bless her heart, she\u2019s still one of my idols.\u201d<\/p>\n

To achieve this, he said many chefs on scene are \u201ctaking it a step further into finding out how to fuse being American and being Cambodian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lakewood\u2019s Chinitos Tacos is exemplary of that concept.<\/p>\n

\u201cChinitos is a taco spot, but it has all of the Asian and Cambodian ingredients in the tacos, so you\u2019re getting the best of both,\u201d Chef T said.<\/p>\n

Shlap Muan (that\u2019s Khmer for chicken wings), in the North Long Beach area, is another.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a wing spot that actually has the ingredients and recipes that, like, my grandma would make, but then, on top of wings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A popular Vietnamese fresh-herb rice-noodle soup, pho, will also join the lineup, since it\u2019s a staple for Cambodians, Chef T said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCambodians love pho,\u201d he said, explaining that at one time, the Khmer Empire ruled what is now Vietnam. \u201cSo it\u2019s basically kind of a comfort food for all of us over there in Southeast Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, the weeklong event is set to feature 12 different local restaurants, but Chef T will accept additional sign-ups until the last possible minute. He\u2019s been doing everything he can to convince local mom-and-pop joints to toss their hat in this inaugural ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cCambodians tend to do stuff very, very late,\u201d he laughed. \u201cIt was hard to convince some of them, they\u2019re still in the old school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chef T\u2019s storied Long Beach history is flavorful in more ways than one, having worked as a chef for 25 years after leaving a violent gang life. Earlier this month, he parted ways with Gladstone’s, where he served as executive chef, to pursue a catering company and food truck pop up under his new venture, The Rising Phoenix, after publishing a part memoir, part cookbook, \u201cKroeung: Cambodian Cooking with Chef T.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Ouk also hopes to have his new food truck up and running by the time Cambodian Restaurant Week rolls around to share his Cambodian taqueria and tapas recipes.<\/p>\n

But most of all, he\u2019s determined to put the spotlight on the city\u2019s many Cambodian restaurants next month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want all the restaurants to get their shine on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Restaurants can still sign up for the restaurant week <\/i>here<\/i><\/a> (ignore the Jan. 31 deadline) for $150. The nine-day event will start with a kickoff festival at Long Beach City College on March 18 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. During Cambodian Restaurant week, March 19 to March 26, restaurants will offer specials and deals across the city. For more information and to see the growing list of restaurants, <\/i>visit the official website. <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The long-anticipated celebration of Long Beach\u2019s Cambodian food scene will arrive in March after last year\u2019s restaurant week failed to garner enough participation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":302,"featured_media":72280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[32002],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[32065],"class_list":["post-33156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-cambodian-restaurants","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33156"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=33156"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=33156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}