Friday, July 1, 2011

The Loose-Ends Post


I was flipping through my camera, and came across some shots of various outings that I meant to post here but never really got around to doing so. 

Kingdom Brewery

A group of us went on a brewery tour after work a few weeks back to learn about a beer that, surprisingly, wasn't Angkor or Anchor. It's brewed using imported German and Czech hops, and tastes a little more bitter and crisp than other Cambodian beers. Actually, to call it a Cambodian beer isn't exactly true; it's owned by a German CEO, and was funded in part by American and Dutch investors. It's marketed as a boutique brewery with quite an impressive bar overlooking the river, and I would absolutely recommend the brewery tour to anyone passing through Phnom Penh. For $6, they give you three full glasses of beer to start, and then allow your group to continue ordering rounds of your favorites (none of those crappy little  6oz glasses like the Sam Adams tour). 



Learning about the brewing process:








The packaging section:







The upstairs sampling bar (with some of our group's moto helmets in the foreground):




View from the balcony:



Nick blinking in an otherwise lovely post-tour photo:



Friends Restuarant:

I also wanted to post about a restaurant Leah and I went to a couple of weeks ago, called Friends. It's run by an NGO that helps street kids by providing housing, food, education, and training in different industries. the Friends restaurant is a branch of their hospitality training program, and is run completely by students and their teachers. When you walk inside, you can see a chalkboard displaying the names of students who are at Levels I, II, or III (based on hours of training, language skills, etc). You place your order with a student, with the teacher monitoring nearby. The menu is mostly tapas, so we shared some fish, cucumber salad, and hummus. We also had pineapple chili (yes, chili) margaritas, based on a recommendation from the manager of my guesthouse:




Blueberry Ice Cream Oreos

Since we're on the topic of food on my I-don't-know-where-else-to-post-this post, I thought I should mention a rather horrifying snack experience we all had on the van ride back from the coast. Before embarking on the trip, Bridgette decided to pick up some Oreos for everybody. These weren't your classic white-filling chocolate crackers goodness. Nor were they the more exotic Halloween edition. Instead, we got this:




It tasted like children's decongestant medicine. Who thought this was a good idea? Why is Kraft making Oreos instead of Nabisco? And who thinks that REAL blueberry ice cream tastes anything like an oral vaccine? 



That's it for the loose-end pictures. We're having a very busy weekend right now; I'm moving into my new apartment (yay for no more guesthouses!), Canada Day was last night (deserves its own post), and our July 4th celebration at the U.S. Embassy is happening tomorrow. Will keep you updated!

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