Two twin restaurants have stood the test of time in Sydney’s cultural powerhouse of Cabramatta,serving Cambodian cuisine to the local community for more than three decades.

Run by brother and sister Soc Kieng Hua and Khieng Hua Houch,each of the Battambang restaurants are named after the city in north-west Cambodia where the family has ancestral roots.

Phnom Penh noodles are the most-ordered dish,served dry or with soup,plus noodles (egg based,rice or both),and customised to taste with bean sprouts,lemon,fish sauce and pickled chillies. Punchy stuff. Other favourites include crisp deep-fried pork casings served with a fiery dipping sauce,and lemongrass-fragrant sweet-and-sour beef soup humming with turmeric and makrut lime,not to mention an abundance of water spinach.

It’s this kind of hard-to-find Cambodian home cooking that makes Battambang’s humble dining rooms the most celebrated Khmer eating houses in Sydney.

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South Sydney

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