Eating in Phnom Penh: The Markets, the Street Food and the Mural Streets

Psar Thmei, the Central Market - the landmark. Its art deco dome opened in 1937 and was briefly among the largest in Asia; it is cool underneath and worth walking through for the building. The trade inside is mostly watches, electronics and gold. Eat at the edges rather than the middle.

Psar Toul Tom Poung, the Russian Market - named for the Soviet expatriates who shopped there in the 1980s, and the best of the four. Silver, silk, motorbike parts and knock-offs in a hot, low, cramped grid, with a food court in the middle that is genuinely good and genuinely local. Go before eleven; after that the heat under the roof becomes the main sensation.

Psar Kandal and Psar Chas (the old market) - the smaller working markets near the river, and the ones to walk through in the morning for produce, fish and breakfast rather than for shopping.

Psar Orussey - the biggest and the least visited by travellers, three floors of everything, where the city genuinely does its shopping.

The pattern across all of them: the food is a morning thing. Breakfast trade at a Cambodian market is finished by nine or ten, which is why so many visitors conclude the food is unremarkable - they arrived at two in the afternoon.

Kuy teav is the Phnom Penh breakfast: a clear pork-bone broth over rice noodles, with pork, offal, dried shrimp and fried garlic, which you finish yourself from the tray on the table - lime, chilli, herbs, bean sprouts, a spoon of sugar if that is how you take it. A dollar fifty, eaten sitting on a plastic stool before eight, and it is the most Phnom Penh thing there is.

Num banh chok - cold rice noodles under a green fish-and-lemongrass gravy, piled with raw banana flower, cucumber and whatever herbs are in the basket. Sold from a shoulder pole or a cart, and gone by mid-morning.

Bai sach chrouk - grilled marinated pork over broken rice with pickled vegetables and a bowl of clear broth on the side. The other breakfast, about a dollar fifty.

Lok lak - beef seared hard with black pepper over salad and rice with a fried egg, and a dipping sauce of lime, salt and crushed Kampot pepper, which carries a protected geographical indication and is the reason the sauce works.

Fish amok - the national dish, a coconut and kroeung curry steamed in a banana-leaf cup until it sets. Steamed, not stirred in a wok; the loose version is the shortcut.

Prahok ktis - fermented fish paste with pork and coconut, eaten with raw vegetables. A genuine acquired taste and the most honest thing on a Khmer menu.

Cambodian food is much less chilli-forward than Thai. Heat sits on the table, not in the pot.

Bassac Lane - a cluster of narrow bar-and-kitchen spaces off Street 308, small, good and busy in the evening. This is where the city's own restaurant scene got interesting.

Street 240 and around - independent kitchens, coffee and the pleasant end of the colonial grid, walkable from the palace.

Boeung Keng Kang (BKK1) - the expat district, which cuts both ways: reliable international food, less reason to have flown here for it. Good for a night when you want a salad.

The riverfront, Sisowath Quay - the view is the product and the food is priced for it. Have a drink, eat elsewhere.

The training restaurants are a real Phnom Penh thing and worth seeking out: several kitchens in the city run as hospitality training programmes for young Cambodians from difficult backgrounds, and a few of them cook as well as anywhere in the city. Ask your guide which are currently operating - the list changes.

Street food safety works the same as anywhere: eat where there is turnover and a queue, prefer things cooked to order in front of you, and be more careful with cut fruit and ice from unbranded sources than with hot food off a busy stall. Bottled water throughout.

Phnom Penh has quietly become a street-art city since around 2015, and the work is concentrated in a few areas rather than scattered: the lanes off the riverfront, around the White Building site, and pockets across the south of the centre. A lot of it is Cambodian rather than imported, and several pieces deal directly with the city's own recent history.

It pairs naturally with food, which is why most of the good tuk-tuk tours here do both - murals in the late afternoon, then eating as the light goes, then the river. The city is flat and compact enough that a tuk-tuk covers a lot of ground in four hours.

A good eating day in Phnom Penh looks like this: kuy teav at a market stall before eight; the Royal Palace and the National Museum in the cool of the morning; the Russian Market food court before eleven; the middle of the day indoors, because it is genuinely hot; murals and street food from four; and an hour on the Mekong at sunset.

Coffee deserves a note. Cambodian iced coffee is dark, often butter-roasted, and served over ice with condensed milk - ask for *kafe tuk doh koh* and expect sweet. There is also a serious third-wave scene here now, much of it sourcing from Mondulkiri in the east, which is a genuinely good Cambodian arabica most visitors never hear about.