This is so happening – I was JUST telling a few coworkers how I’ve moved on from the Filipino “movement” and am now getting super into Cambodian food, predicting that it will be LA’s next “it” cuisine. This article is clearly a harbinger of things to come, and I can’t wait!
Thanks for sharing! Things like this a easier for me to get to because of it’s proximity. There’s actually a Noodle Shack opening up about 1-2 miles away from my office. Even more excited to try it now.
I love Phnom Penh Noodle Shack and can’t wait for their Cerritos location to open. I encourage you FTC’ers to go and go with a few people so you can try the soup noodles, dry noodles, tear drop noodles, student noodles, congee, sides of bone soup, and fried bread sticks.
I really need to eat more in Cambodia Town. Grilled pork, rice, pickled veggies, and soup sounds right up my alley for breakfast. A big pot of morning glory, beef, kreung and other spices/herbs/aromatics in a flavorful soup sounds so delicious for dinner. (Any recs for the best places for this?)
Hey, @JeetKuneBao…I’ll be frequenting Cerritos when it opens. What’s the one thing that I should definitely try in the list above? It will be my first time trying Cambodian food.
Definitely the noodles, wet or dry. But then the stir fry noodles are really good. The fried bread sticks are the best I ever had, but then you would want some congee to dip those in.
In comparison with Trieu Chau, it is more subtle while Trieu Chau is in your face with the pork fat/shallots floating on top.
Went to RiceString Noodle Shack earlier today, and it was pretty good! I had the Loak Cha. Service was…well let’s just say they were very apologetic, and I was very understanding because first day/soft opening and all.
Just returned from lunch at the Cerritos location with friends. It seems as if the staff is still getting ahold of the ropes. It was busy when we walked in a little after noon, and stayed busy until about 1:30PM.
The menu is pretty diverse for such a small place. We ordered chicken wings, soup noodles, a rice bowl, and the stir-fried tear drop noodles. The kitchen did not have their groove together so timing for delivery of all the dishes was not ideal. The soup noodles came our first, then a lull, then the rice bowl, then another lull, then the chicken wing appetizer, then a lull, and finally the tear drop noodles. All the food was solid.
The chicken wings were perfectly seasoned, super crisp, super juicy, and not one bit greasy…they were topped with raw onions and fried garlic and served with housemade pickles. The rice bowl came with this spicy lemon sauce that was perfect with the salad, rice, and proteins…but the fried egg was completely over cooked. The soup noodles was a lot like pho, but the broth was muddier and had more spices. The tear drop noodle stir fry reminded me of a dish my mom used to make when we were little…so I get the idea that Cambodian food is a mix-mash of Southeast Asia. Everything seems familiar, but is tweaked here and there to make it different.
My friends ordered the house iced coffee and the passion fruit-mandarin-cucumber tea drink that they both seemed to enjoy. The iced coffee was super chickory strong, so it may be a play on Vietnamese iced coffee.
Dessert here is not quite ideal. The Cambodian beignets covered in powdered sugar were super greasy…like the temperature of oil in the fryer was not hot enough to cook things properly so the food just soaks up the oil. Nice try, but not what it could be. The fried bananas are roughly the same…great bananas battered and fried with a light coating of black sesame seeds, but it takes on way too much oil so you can’t enjoy the dish for what it should be.
Service was friendly, attentive, and good. We were checked on frequently, and felt like the team here wants to impress you. They were apologetic with respect to our orders arriving in a disjointed fashion, and even discounted our bill by 25%.
But we all agreed that we would happily come back to try the entire menu.
I’ve tried this place based on @JeetKuneBao rec.
And I just cannot get my stomach to like this place. None of the noodle soups were anything to speak of, and one (the House Special), was just salty. We did enjoy the porridge with pig stuff.
@ipsedixit did you go to the Long Beach location or the new Cerritos location?
It may be worth mentioning that the Cerritos location has a larger menu than the Long Beach location…or at least, that’s what I overheard the staff saying to another diner.
Cerritos.
I just chalk up my experience to “user error”
I think the Cerritos is a franchise and not the original family.