We're here...and we're cooking!

So here we are in beautiful Siem Reap. Ah. Home sweet home. We arrived a few days ago and have spent the time getting to know the town a little bit and running around getting ourselves set up with all that one needs to live out here - cell phones, wireless internet cards...just the basics really. We've also spent some time meeting some of the other folks in the restaurant scene out here. We've met Carl who runs the Ivy Guesthouse and Restaurant. He's from England and has been here since the early nineties (very hard core) and whose resturant has served to answer some of our western culinary appetites - namely blue cheese burgers and eggplant parmesean. He also served as one of the taste testers of our new menu last night - apparently all you need is a little home made chutney and the man is yours. We have also met Scott from the States, who is part owner of the mexican restaurant Viva next door. Burritos, nachos, chimichangas, and a nice and spicy salsa. And last but not least we've met Mac and Trixie, a couple from England who own a bar/restaurant around the corner called the Funky Monkey. We had an authentic English Sunday roast dinner there this past Sunday including pork, cracklin', mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, cabbage, carrots, green beans, and of course a generous helping of gravy. Needless to say the idea that we would be stuck on a diet of rice and various curries has quickly gone to the wayside...as of course has that brilliant book title I had come up with, "My year without cheese." I think it's probably a bit more like "My two weeks without cheese."

So you may have noticed that I said that Carl was one of the taste testers of our new menu last night. That's right, much sooner than expected, we are up and cooking! Which of course is a bit dramatic since we cooked some food last night and have yet to even start work today and its almost 4. It started with what we believe was a small grease fire (we were not actually there to witness it) and ended with the current chef convinced that the kitchen was going to blow up and promptly quitting despite all efforts to convince him that nothing of the sort was going to happen. So there you have it and here we are. We have a new cook starting tonight and the three of us will slowly but surely start to get the show on the road again. In the meantime, Viva will make a little extra cash sending food to the folks drinking here...