Cambodian Accent

There was only one table occupied at Angkor, 16161 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 990-8491, last Wednesday night. Which is a shame, because the first Cambodian restaurant in the Valley (actually the first I know of outside of Long Beach) serves really delicious food in a pleasant atmosphere at reasonable prices. And, unusual for a 2-week-old storefront restaurant, they even have a beer and wine license.

What should you try? Well, we ordered a veritable feast, and there wasn’t a single dish I didn’t like. A particularly voluptuous soup mingled the flavors of coconut, pineapple and chicken; egg rolls were tiny, crisp and delightful; shrimp came in an egg and wintermelon sauce; a salad of green papaya, pork and prawns had the piquant bite of chile peppers; and fried bananas in a very sticky sauce came to the table in flames. This is just a small sampling of the food we tried: Five of us ordered more than we could possibly eat, washed it down with beer and ended up with a bill totaling $81.

Certainly this interesting new restaurant deserves a few more customers.