Samot Fine Cuisine & Wine, Siem Reap, Cambodia

After spending a good part of the day travelling to Siem Reap, we were eager to go out to experience the local cuisine and nightlife.  

Samot appears often on top ten lists of places to dine in Siem Reap and apparently specialises in seafood, a combination which made the choice for our first night's dinner venue, easy. 

The Chef de Cuisine, Patrick Guerry, formerly worked at the Sofitel before starting his own restaurant.  Looking at the website, a 10-course menu was supposed to be on offer, but all we got was a rather limited menu and somewhat grim service.  Still, there was seafood to be had, however the pasta with clams barely had even a shred of clam in it.  The location was charming on a little side street with a Parisian feel.  

The seafood was fresh and the dishes nicely presented but somehow, the food lacked oomph.  Perhaps we were not French and therefore could not appreciate the finer points of the cuisine - the reviews on Tripadvisor (mostly in French) were certainly complimentary - but I guess it was not too expensive given what we ordered.

We had a complimentary amuse bouche of Tonle Sap shrimp to be dipped in salt and eaten with a squeeze of lime.  My Prawn Starter was nicely prepared but my Scallops on Asparagus was on the salty side.  The Penne, as mentioned, had hardly a trace of clams, but after our "feedback" the chef sent out a dish of clams in their sauce.  Sadly it was not very appetising.  A somewhat disappointing first meal in Siem Reap, but I guess it is not known as one of the culinary capitals of the world given the poor state of the economy.  Perhaps, the experience was more a reflection of our "big city" expectations than anything else.