LB Does It Best: Cambodian Food
The Cambodian community in the United States has found their home away from home in Cambodia Town, Long Beach.
Residents can find Cambodian restaurants, markets and shops along this mile-long stretch on Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero avenues.
Cambodia Town, a mile-long stretch of Anaheim Street, is home to various aspects of Cambodian culture including tailors, jewelry shops and restaurants. – Photo by Acsah Lemma
According to Visit Long Beach, this city has the “largest concentration of Cambodians of any city outside of Cambodia.”
Sovachana Pou, a Cambodian elder in the Long Beach community and former university lecturer in Cambodia, says that the first wave of Cambodian migrants were students studying at California State University, Long Beach in the 1950s-60s.
The next few waves of Cambodian residents would be refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia between 1975-1979. According to Pou, The Khmer Rouge were an extremely brutal “wholly communist” party that considered every freedom as societal exploitation. “They wanted a utopian society of equal treatment,” Pou said.
Due to anti-Western sentiment that had grown over the course of years of the United States bombing Cambodia in their war with Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge were able to overthrow Cambodia’s monarchy and establish themselves as the head of the country’s government.
In the years that followed, “an estimated 1.7 to 2 million Cambodian men, women and children perished under the Khmer Rouge,” according to a bio-sketch from Leakhena Nou, a Cambodian sociology professor at CSULB.
Pou states that the first few waves of refugees were highly educated and those who supported the United States government. Towards the end of the 1970s, closer to the fall of the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian immigrants coming to Long Beach were mostly farmers and people with more rural backgrounds, according to a CSULB historical summary.
The students that originally chose to settle in Long Beach after graduating provided the refugees with resources to help them better assimilate to a Western society.
Cambodian refugees that fled their homes with next to nothing were able to establish themselves in Long Beach and create new lives through hard work and determination.
A perfect example of the Cambodian spirit of perseverance is Phnom Penh Noodle Shack, located on Cherry Avenue.
Co-owner, Moulino Tan, is photographed in front of the Phnom Penh Noodle restaurant located near Cambodia Town. – Photo by Acsah Lemma
Named after the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh Noodle Shack underwent a few name and interior changes before settling on the current one.
The restaurant was originally a Vietnamese café until former owner and Cambodian refugee Bunheu Tan bought it and transformed it into a Cambodian restaurant.
Current co-owner, and son of Bunheu Tan, Moulino Tan, says that his father was always entrepreneurial.
“Back before the war, in Cambodia, he used to run a rice factory,” Tan said. So, when the option came to buy the café, he couldn’t pass it up.
Tan shared that his father had always loved food. Sharing meals together with his wife and kids was always a special moment.
“He just loves food. He loves to cook, he loves talking to people, he loves building that connection with people…” Tan said.
Bunheu Tan photographed in Phnom Penh Noodle Shack in its early days. – Photo by Acsah Lemma
Food is special for all Cambodians according to Nou. “Cambodian food represents that intimate aspect of our identity, it confirms our continuity with our family members, the living and nonliving,” she said.
Nou recalled memories of her dad making a vegetable beef stew dish that contained lemongrass, morning glory and “all the herbs and spices that are unique to the Cambodian palette.”
It would take him all day to make it, but to Nou, that dish is “the epitome of comfort and feeling safe.”
“Every time I eat Cambodian cuisine, that’s what I feel, it affirms my identity and my place in the world,” she said.
Phnom Penh Noodle Shack’s history aligns with this sentiment. “(The restaurant) is a place for healing,” Tan said. “A lot of people who are struggling from the war and everything would go and eat there and that reminds them of home…”
When Tan’s parents passed away, he and his two siblings officially took over the restaurant in 2017. Having worked there since he was 12, and now at age 39, Tan hopes that his family’s story about coming to a new country with nothing and making something out of it “brings hope and inspiration.”
Tan’s parents legacy shines through in his and his sibling’s hard work and commitment to their customers. “We really care about our customer feedback. My parents instilled that in us, the customers first, always put people first,” he said. “Those values, my parents' values, pretty much became a part of my life.”
In an effort to franchise the restaurant and have it appeal to all palettes, Phnom Penh Noodles co-owner, Moulino Tan (Mo) created a different take on their classic dry noodles by taking out the pork innards that would traditionally be served with it. The dish is named “Mo’s Special Noodles.” – Photo by Moulino Tan
If you’re ever nearby, Tan recommends that all newcomers try “Mo’s Special Noodles.” This is a modified dish that Tan created that features their egg or rice dry noodles, paired with ground pork and beef. Originally the dish would come with pork innards, but in an effort to make the dish more palatable to non-Asian palettes, the restaurant serves it without.
“Food is not just about nutrition, it's also connected to memory… and a continuation of how to carry on the Cambodian legacy, through the practice of our culture by way of food and honoring the memory of our loved ones.” Nou says.
1644 Cherry Ave.
Open Tuesday - Sunday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed on Mondays.