When are hanging around the riverside of Phnom Penh, kinda around the 110-130 street type range your bars are ten a penny, usually serve cheap beer and food that is relatively mediocre.
I was to accidentally end up at a place called River Bistro Lounge, accidentally as I needed to go it was pissing with rain and I medically needed to eat.
In many respects the bar/lounge restaurant was relatively indistinguishable from most of the other places along the river. It has all day breakfast, pizzas, burgers, football on the TV and all the other crap you come to expect.
Apparently though Riverside Bistro Phnom Penh had a little quirk or two to it, it seemed to be Moroccan themed and had seafood shawarma on the menu.
Now whilst the masses might well call in shawarma, I’m from the UK, so I am expert on all things kebab!
To read about the legend that is burger sauce click here.
What drew my eye though, apart from the draft Carlsberg, which they did not have was the fish shawarma. I had never seen, new heard of such a strange beast, so obviously it was ordered. What we were presented with was the perfect seafood shawarma, but instead of meat it had shrimp, tuna, and even squid, held together by the perfect pita, papaya salad and of course a little bit of hot Moroccan sauce (although it was not so spicy).
My first love will always be lamb shawarma coated in burger sauce, but I have to say that fish or seafood shawarma, at least at Riverside Bistro Phnom Penh has certainly stolen at least part of my heart.
If you find yourself around the riverside of street 110, or so and need a beer and snack, you cannot go wrong here.
