Let’s Talk About Khmer Pancake

Ban Chow (Khmer Pancakes) at SAN restaurant

Now let me just tell you there are many different pancakes out there, and I personally think that the best one is the Cambodian pancake—of course. It’s savoury and not sweet like most pancakes and is eaten with heaps of salads. We call the pancake Ban Chow in Khmer, which is a thin, bright yellow crepe filled with either minced chicken or pork and bean sprout.

Making these is an art and requires a lot of patience. Believe me when I say it requires patience because making one piece takes at least two to three minutes, and when you make a lot for the whole family (especially one as big as ours) it usually takes at least the whole morning. (We make at least one hundred pieces of pancakes and it’s a whole lot of preparation in itself.)

Ways of Eating These Delicious Pancakes

There are at least three ways of eating these healthy, delicious pancakes. You have to eat them with the SAN sauce. Without this sauce the pancakes would be bland. So here’s how to eat them properly.

SAN Sauce

The first and most popular here at SAN restaurant is to drizzle the SAN sauce over the pancakes and eat it with a fork and knife, like we do with most things. I think this is very prime and proper. 

The second is to tear the pancakes off with your hands and dip the pieces of pancakes into the SAN sauce before eating. 

Thirdly, you can tear the pieces of pancakes up, mix them with salads, and pour the SAN sauce all over them. Afterwards give them a good toss and then enjoy, using either fork or a pair of chopsticks.

The last method is the official way of eating Ban Chow. It is supposed to be eaten like a salad—adding lots of lettuces, cucumbers, Asian herbs, crush peanut, and last but not least, lots and lots of chilly flakes. It’s even better when you add lots and lots of fresh chillies. Yum!

I do hope that next time you order Ban Chow here at SAN restaurant, you’ll try eating it the Cambodian way and that is to toss everything together and just enjoy the light, healthy food. Some people say the flavour is very delicate, and I do agree. This is a special food in Cambodia and is only made once in a while for the whole family to enjoy together. In our house, Mom would put the pancakes in the middle of the dining table along with Asian herbs (Vietnamese mint, Thai sweet basil, coriander, and spring onions), heaps of lettuces, cucumbers, bean sprouts, crushed peanuts, chillies (fresh and flakes) and of course the SAN sauce. Then we’d sit around the table and have fun competing each other for the ingredients to put in our bowls. It’s a mess, I tell you, but damn fun and delicious.

So there, that’s Ban Chow for you. I do hope you will like these pancakes as much as we do, especially the Ban Chow fanatic Miss Wanitta Praks who wouldn’t have survive the ordeal of her days if it were not for the famous Ban Chow.

Cheer,

Alexia Praks

Khmer Rice Roll

Khmer Rice Roll at SAN restaurant

So what is Khmer rice roll? Now most people out there would ask, ‘isn’t it the same as the Vietnamese roll?’ The answer to that is it’s similar but not the same.

Here’s what Khmer rice roll is in a nutshell. It’s rice paper (cooked of course because the uncooked one is dry and hard, and you wouldn’t be able to roll it) wrapped around various fresh ingredients such as lettuces, cucumber, bean sprouts, vermicelli, Asian herbs and chicken or prawn, or if you like, both. Basically you put in what ever takes your fancy. I say the more the merrier. These fresh ingredients could have a party in there if they want and that’s cool.

Here at San restaurant we put in fresh green salad (cos it’s damn healthy), julienne cucumber and carrot, bean sprout, rice vermicelli and either chicken or prawn, depending on which you want. Yes, that’s it. Nothing more and nothing less. Sounds a bit like sushi, don’t you think? Hmm, may be it’ll be the next sushi.

Khmer Rice Roll with SAN sauce

Now the dipping sauce.

You can eat the rice roll as it is or you can dip it in various sauces such as Thai sweet chilly sauce, fish and sour sauce, and many other different Asian sauces out there that are in existence today, or you can make your own and be creative. Here in our restaurant we use SAN sauce, a Cambodian home made dipping sauce that we (I mean mum) formulated specifically to accompany the lovely rice roll. We have many customers raving about it. Secretly I feel my chest puff up with pride. And sorry we can’t tell you how to make it because it’s top secret.

SAN sauce

To make it more exciting when you eat this delicate and fresh food, you should add lots of crushed, roasted peanut and chilly flakes. Yes, lots and lots of chilly flakes. The combination of fresh vegetables in the roll when dipped into the sauce will explode in your mouth, giving you that tangy sweetness with heat. But of course if you don’t like hot food then just go without the chilly flakes, which is still damn delicious.

SAN sauce with chilly flakes

So if next time you happen to come into SAN restaurant here at 2 Dowling Street in Dunedin, why not ask for Khmer rice rolls as your entrée, or even better yet, as a main – that’s if you want something light and healthy to eat.

Cheer ^_^