Cambodian Fear Factor

It's impossible to eat around here and not think of Fear Factor occasionally.  There are lots of street vendors and markets.  Sometimes it's obvious what things are and other times it is not remotely obvious.  For the most part I like to know what I'm eating.  Some people love to just try new things - no matter what it turns out to be.  I worked with my friend Ben on Fear Factor. He did the same teaching program I'm doing and now lives in Vietnam.  On Fear Factor we always needed crew and staff members to test stunts, usually on the shoot day for a camera rehearsal and to make sure the stunt actually worked properly.  Sometimes we had to literally beg / bribe people to test.   If you haven't seen Fear Factor before stunts could be eating a live spider, eating intestines, driving a car under a truck, or swimming in an ice cold muddy swamp.  Ben would have done the first 2 and I did the second 2.

I tested some scary stuff but I would NEVER test the eating stunts no matter what.  So it shouldn't come as a shock that I hadn't eaten a lot of food from the street vendors and I think Ben almost always eats from the street vendors.   I got an email from him telling me to stop eating at restaurants.  FINE BEN!

And of course he was right -not only is the food pretty darn good from the vendors it's a big portion for only a little money.  I usually choose foods that I know so I'm not VERY brave - yet.

Fried noodles with pork = $1.50

Bananas = 500 riel = $.12.    This vendor wheels his cart around grilling bananas and some dough things.

Dumpling with Mystery Filling = $.50.  These dumplings are Chinese and usually really awesome so I'm excited to see what I find in China.  The problem is you never know what's inside.  This had an egg (duck egg?) and maybe some pork.   Very tasty.

These kabobs are extremely good.  There's a lot of fat on the pork but whatever sauce they put on it is delicious.  It makes a great sandwich.  5 for $1.00!

I also get corn on the cob for $.35.  Lots of other rice / noodle dishes for around $1.50. 

The food markets are pretty crazy.   I could never bring myself to buy this uncooked meat.  Although I have a feeling this is probably what I'm eating at restaurants and from vendors.

Look at those intestines.  Yum.

Sometimes fish sauce was used on Fear Factor to make whatever gross food the contestants were eating even grosser.   I always thought the TV audience never got to experience how gross the stunt truly was because they could not smell it.  For me (someone who never actually ate anything but was around it) the smell was the worst part.  Guess what popular ingredient Asian's add to their foods??    Yep, Fish Sauce.  Luckily it adds flavor and isn't like eating a FF stunt.