Liquid Bar has really raised the stakes for interiors of shop-front style bars. With its polished concrete, gun-metal grey floor, chocolate leather seats, exposed tiled roof and well appointed and fabulously backlit bar (lots of real bubbles!), it really is a swish space indeed. You don't have to fight past the usually obligatory terrace furniture to get into the bar and once in you could swing a dead cat freely.
Despite what my European and Aussie friends think, some people do appreciate a tinge of the American dining experience - and K-West is such a place. I mean, who is going to turn down a banana split when faced with one?
Lucky for my Aussie dining partner, K-West, pleasantly situated on the heavily trafficked corner of Sisowath Quay, does not pigeon-hole itself. It symbolizes a new Phnom Penh. A mixture of French, Khmer, and American cuisine, it capitalizes on layers of history. Feel like wonton soup followed by steak tartar and a brownie sundae? You got it.
We were both under the weather. We had packed the kids off to stay with friends and my Cambodian partner had decided to celebrate moving house by spending the night trawling bars, thoughtfully taking my keys with him and leaving me outside with the guard until the small hours of the morning. A whole dead chicken complete with head and legs on the doorstep was the last thing I needed, but there it was. Roasted, Chinese style, its eyes staring and looking a little rancid already in the morning heat and no more attractive for the fact it was reclining on a bed of fruit.