Fancy Khmer sweets and want to know how to make them? DINE WITH THE LOCALS is organizing it’s first event in Siem Reap on Womans Day 8.3.2019with a dessert workshop and and a delicious Cambodian meal. Participants will learn how to make Num Chak, the layered and sometimes colorful Khmer dessert, made from rice powder and coconut milk. Our host Sareth and her sister will explain how it’s made. While the sweets are chilling, you can go into the mushroom farm (also good for chilling), and harvest some of the mushrooms there.

Khmer dessert making workshop and lunch

Meanwhile the hosts are preparing the meal, and participants can cover their mushrooms in tempura and fry them in a pan. Lunch will be then served at noon, and we all together enjoy the food in a local setting.

PRICE: 20 USD adults, 10 USD children

EVENT IS LIMITED TO 10 people!

BOOKINGS through this link:

http://new.dinewiththelocals.com/blog/events/dessert-workshop-and-local-lunch-in-siem-reap/

Meal:

Khmer food

Fried tempura mushroom

Teuk Kreung Chha: Curry style soup with fish, pork, vegetables, looks more spicy than it is.

Samlor Chi: Soup with pumpkin, eggplant and fish and Chha Knhey paste

Khmer desserts (including the one you made)

Not too far from Banteay Meanchay in Cambodia is a very special farm. Olivier and Darin, a french guy and his Khmer wife, build an organic farm where the serve Khmer food for Dine With The Locals, but more important trying to be as sustainable as possible.

Darin and Olivier promote Khmer food and sustainable living in Svay Check.

In the heart of the project in Svay Check is the method of permaculture. This means not only a sustainable but also self-suffiencent way of farming and living. The couple bought land what a former rice fields but then abandoned and turned it into an oasis of living conscious and aware of the environment.

What they get from farming is what they cook. That also means that it is impossible to say, what vegetables they will exactly use – or what kind of flowers. We usually ask our hosts to prepare three dishes, but in the case of the organic farm you may can expect some variations. But you can be sure that as much as possible comes from the farm.

Khmer food with organic flowers

One example and not so often seen in Khmer food are fried flowers in tempura. The pick a beautiful arrangement of flowers from the garden, like yello pumpkin flowers, purple butterfly pea and many others. They will then dipped in tempura-water-solution and quickly fried. And don’t worry, the flowers are eatable.

Many flowers can be fried with tempura, its comon in Khmer food and available with Dine With The Locals.

Another example of Khmer food got its Inspiration from neighboring countries is Ban Cheo. In Vietnam people call it Ban Xeo, and its a thin pancake filled with herbs, dried shrimps and pork. You can find it at many markets and street stalls, but usually not at homes. The reason is that you have to make quite an amount of batter, but that is usually too much for a whole family. At Dine With The Locals you have a chance to try this common Khmer food with organic vegetables.

Served will be Khmer food from sustainable farming

One of the reasons why we started Dine With The Locals was to support sustainable living and the locals food. Darin and Olivier are the perfect example that it is possible to live sustainable. If you want to try it, you can book a visit at the farm and a delicious meal at Dine With The Locals.

Dine With The Locals was founded by Cambodian Sorida Nhim and German Thomas Wanhoff in 2018. It is based in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We both came together for the first time in November. Thomas had the idea for a platform for a while, but was looking for a local co-founder. He also wanted a woman for this position, because part of Dine With The Locals is supporting women, and that should always start at the top.

Thomas (right) and Sorida (left) with our host Mom and her daughter.

Shortly after, the idea for Dine With The Locals was born: A platform, where locals can promote meals and experiences and where travelers can connect with locals for a real authentic experience.

We started talking with families in Siem Reap about the food project and got positive feedback: Many woman stay at home and take care of children and house, but would also like to have opportunities to get some additional income. We also talked with tour operators and tourists about our idea, and many told us, that the were looking for exactly this kind of authentic experience.

Thanks to a great developer Team (shoutout to Sinal and Bun Huot!) we were able to move our WordPress site to a modern platform with a better backend. By end of December 2018 we had 7 hosts in Siem Reap and were in talks with hosts in Banteay Meanchey and Battambang. The new version of the website was launched on 30.12.2018.

January 2019 will be a busy month for us: we will register as a company and start offline promotions, in particular flyer, to attract customers. We will also expand our social media activities on Instagram and Facebook.

We progressed through spring 2019 and expanded the team: Leaphy and Thyda joined us and will help us from Phnom Penh. We started to make our first deals with other businesses to sell our service and get commission or just help to promote us. We are listed on BookMeBus and Camboticket as well as on Tripadvisor and I like Local.

In June 2019 we had a change: Sorida left us to work on her new venture, als natural soap company. In July Mealea joined us to help in Siem Reap with sales.