Best Food Markets in Siem Reap & Angkor Wat
A visual guide from the Siem Reap and Angkor Wat travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
The best eating in Siem Reap happens at plastic-stool height. At Psar Leu, the sprawling local market on National Road 6 east of the centre, women sell num banh chok from shoulder baskets soon after dawn — cold rice noodles under a green fish-and-lemongrass gravy, with banana flower and raw beans piled on top. By evening the action moves to Road 60, near the Angkor ticket office, where a long strip of charcoal grills, fried-noodle carts and fruit-shake stands serves almost entirely Cambodian families out for the night.
The markets worth the trip
Psar Leu is the serious one: river fish still moving, tubs of prahok, palm sugar in banana-leaf cups, and the full run of tropical fruit — rambutan, longan, mangosteen, custard apple in season. Go before nine. Psar Chas, the Old Market in the tourist centre, keeps a proper wet-market core at its back, which is the easiest place to see kroeung pastes and dried fish without leaving town. Road 60 Night Market opens from late afternoon and is where to try grilled frog, fried crickets and skewered pork with pickles. Psar Kandal, north of the centre, is smaller, quieter and mostly produce.
How to eat well and safely
At Road 60 almost everything is grilled or fried to order in front of you, which makes it the easy place to eat confidently; at Psar Leu, follow the num banh chok baskets that are emptying fastest and be warier of pre-cut fruit and drinks built on standing ice. Beyond the obvious fish amok, look for kuy teav noodle soup at breakfast, bai sach chrouk — grilled pork over rice with pickles — from morning carts, num pang baguette sandwiches, and kralan, sticky rice with coconut roasted inside bamboo, sold along the Banteay Srei road. Expect street plates to cost a couple of dollars or a little more. Carry small riel notes, since change from dollars usually comes back in riel at roughly 4,000 to one.