Food trailer dishes out authentic Cambodian cuisine

Posted: Friday, July 11, 2014 9:37 am

Cambodian Sreyroth Phon met American Dru Dixon in Cambodia, where they were both volunteer teachers.
Dixon had originally gone to Thailand, but didn't like it as much as expected. Then he found Cambodia.
“It was how I imagined Thailand was 20 years ago,” Dixon said. “The air is fresh. People smile.”
When he came back to the states, Dixon settled in Bozeman, where the job market allowed him to find something to sponsor a visa for Phon. She joined him in Bozeman a little over a year ago and the couple was married here.
“I never thought, ‘Oh, I want to go to America,'” Phon said. “I never dreamed. But I like it so much.”
Now, Phon and Dixon run Amok, a food trailer they pull behind a pickup truck.
“I came here and looked around town and there was Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, but no Cambodian,” she said.
So she took to crowd fundraising, asking for $9,000 in a Kickstarter campaign this spring. She ended with $800 more and set about turning a trailer into a mobile kitchen.
A younger Phon was caretaker for her brother and sister, and learned cooking from family members. In Cambodia, she said, it is essential for women to be able to cook so they can take on the role of homemaker.
Cambodian food looks similar to Thai, but the taste is different, Phon explained. It is a combination of sweet and salty and sour. Unlike many cuisines, “spicy” is more a reference to extra flavor than to heat.
Amok serves dishes such as Chaa Krueng, a lemongrass curry with bell peppers and onions, and Lok Lak, beef with onion and tomato, often served with a fried egg over jasmine rice. Specials include shrimp spring rolls, and if you ask nicely a day in advance, Amok, a fish curry steamed in banana leaves that is the food trailer's namesake.
“All of the menu is like the simple foods I cook every day from my memory,” Phon said.
Prepare to come hungry. To-go boxes leave the window stuffed to the brim.
“We come from poor families, with the idea people don't get enough food,” Phon said. “So we give everyone more.”
Though Cambodian food often includes soups, Phon said the trailer makes serving soup difficult. And though she doesn't want to think that far in the future, having a restaurant to serve such dishes is a really big dream for the future.
So far, with only a little more than a month of business under her belt, Phon has made the trailer her own. Even with a rare day off last week, Dixon said she spent most of the day in the trailer preparing for the next day's service.
“We don't really take a day off unless we're really tired,” Phon said