How Your Noodle Order Can Help Save a Child

It’s hard to imagine that a torture survivor from the Killing Fields could be a jovial and joyous eccentric. It seems a man who spends his meager restaurant profits to support landmine victims in his homeland Cambodia shouldn’t have much to smile about. Yet upon entering Angkor Restaurant at 614 Gerrard Street East, I’m soon caught up in Chef Chandaramony Eang’s boundless enthusiasm.

“Canadians do not know how to eat fish,” he explains out of the blue, motioning with his hands how he would pare thin slices. “First season,” he says. “Then slice thin. Taste great with beer!” He pats his belly and pulls a chair right up to my table. I’m taken aback when he throws his arms around me, too, but I’m the touchy feely type and soon fit right in.

This master chef, a rare escapee from the Khmer Rouge death camps, fled to Thailand where he studied Asian cuisine. He came to Canada and expanded his knowledge at George Brown’s school of social work. For ten years, for twelve hours a day, he has been running his cheerfully odd little restaurant, the first Cambodian resto in Canada, and very likely the best.

It’s a crying shame that I walked by Angkor a million times in my two decades of Toronto life. I inadvertently let the finest noodles in town pass me by. The resto itself is like a shrine of sorts to history, spirituality, folklore, death, and food, which are all apparently interchangeable aspects of life itself. The cheery and eerie mingle on crowded walls- portraits of Cambodian ancestors, landmine victims, and gods and goddesses with long elegant finger decorations. While there are a half dozen laughing Buddha statues taking up a fair bit of the limited space, Chandaramony himself could be the Buddha, and I hope that’s not sacrilegious to say so. This self-sacrificing fellow feels it is his mission in life to share his food magic and his love with his fellow human beings, even when he was subject to witness massacre and abomination. When not helping Cambodian refugees settle in Toronto, he is operating his rescue organization, helping landmine victims back home with his own money. And the only time he thinks about himself? LOL- when he’s cooking.

“I can cook with my eyes closed,” he says, demonstrating some chopping and seasoning in the air. “You tell me, and I make it from scratch. I make my own pastes, nobody makes like me.”

The taste will knock you off your feet! the menu’s welcome claims. Apparently the ingredients have remained the same since the dawn of the Khmer empire. I’m not so sophisticated a fooknik that I can spot the subtle differences between Thai and Cambodian cooking, but Chef Chandra makes it easy for me: “If you like Thai food, you will LOVE Cambodian.”

My lunch mate and I begin with lychee and soursop milkshakes- this is something I have never had, and they are absolutely delightful.

The meal starts with a bowl of steaming chicken mushroom soup in coconut milk. The flavours are complex and robust. Vegetarian spring rolls are a beautiful accompaniment. The stir fried spicy chicken with peanuts and steamed rice is so delicious I can’t find the words. It’s also blazing hot, and though I am crazy about spicy food, I can barely tolerate the heat and make a note to ask for mild seasoning in the future.

The stir fried spicy rice noodles with chicken are like a pad Thai without being gummy. The star of the show, however, is the stir fried spicy beef with eggplant. Chef Chandra creates the spice paste from scratch, and my palate identifies turmeric, kaffir lime, galangal, and ginger- maybe tamarind? The eggplant melts in my mouth. I spoon the sauce into my gullet as if I were a starving man.

The meal closes with a pot of tea and a bowl of crushed, frozen mango. If this little spot is not the garden of Eden, I don’t know what is. There’s more charm, more history, more love, and more flavour than I’m used to in my very colourful life. The place is a treasure trove and the crown jewel is my new friend Chef Chandra. I must find a way to let Angelina Jolie, the only outsider citizen of Cambodia! know about this man and his mission- and his food.

When I mention this, he seizes me and kisses me. “You read mind, you read mind!” he exclaims, scurrying behind the bar to bring some news clippings of Angelina. “I pray every day for way to find her. She is not afraid of landmines. If she would help my cause, I would cook for her my very, very best!”

If you know Angelina’s people, please let her know about the Aid for Victims of Cambodian Landmines at www.rescuecambodia.org. Please visit the site to learn more about the plight of landmine victims and to donate.

You can also help by eating frequently at Angkor Restaurant at 614 Gerrard Street East, Toronto. Bring all your friends!
416.779.6383

Visit writer Lorette C. Luzajic at www.thegirlcanwrite.net.
You can purchase her poetry collection, The Astronaut’s Wife, through indigo or amazon online, or through her site.