Cambodian eatery surprises palate with flavorful combinations
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It was a gradual seduction. First, Elephant Walk in Somerville flanked a French menu with Cambodian dishes, teasing our palates. Then the Boston Elephant Walk fascinated us with a cuisine that seemed to take flight from the concept of Cambodian in some dishes while retaining a Western slant in others.
Now there's Carambola in Waltham, where a Cambodian menu is presented in an Eastern style. The herbal scent of lemongrass; the bite of chilies; smoky, sultry accents; a hint of sour and then of sweet - all these tastes and smells converge, beguiling the senses. Falling in love was never easier.
The Boston area glories in ethnic restaurants, and Waltham has plenty. But owners of all three restaurants, the de Monteiro and Perry clan, come at the genre from a different angle, both bolder and more accessible than at many places.
Carambola beautifully displays chef Nadsa Perry's young and gutsy style. Her flavors are distinctive, and there's no Americanizing of the food. Yet the cuisine is easy to understand: There's no feeling that you'll never know what you're eating or never get the good stuff saved for insiders.
Unlike Western-style menus, this one is divided into types of dishes - soups and braises, salads and pickles, grilled dishes - and the idea is to eat as an Asian family would, sampling many dishes, a bite of salad, a nibble of fish, a sip or two of soup. That's seductive, too, giving a wide array of taste sensations in one meal.
The flavor combinations are often surprising. Take loc lac, for instance. Tiny cubes of beef are surrounded by a ruffle of frisee greens, slices of tomato, and green beans. It's lovely to look at, but then again one might encounter such a dish at many different Asian restaurants, I think.
Until I take a bite of the beef.
Hmm. A smoky taste hits my palate, as though the beef had been grilled. But the menu listed this dish under sautees. Then I realize that the taste is not exactly smoky but more subtly musky, and that the flavor is irresistible, a combination of mushroom soy sauce, black pepper, and garlic, lightly caramelized, that infuses each small cube of beef. Loc lac goes from being the dish I thought would be predictable to being the one I can't stop eating.
Somlah kako proves to be another revelation. The concoction is full of butternut squash, zucchini, eggplant, green beans, spinach, and green papaya. From eating Western stews, one would expect a pleasant taste, a virtuous feeling, perhaps, from all those veggies. Instead, what comes through is exciting - the bursts of lemongrass and green papaya and especially the preserved fish giving the stew a surprising piquancy.
Keing d'ananas shows off what Nadsa Perry calls the Cambodian penchant for balancing different taste sensations - sweet with sour, hot with cool. When reading the list of ingredients on the menu, one might think the pineapple and coconut milk would result in a sweet stew. But tamarind, chilies, and kaffir lime meld to create a complexity of flavor. This dish, studded with shreds of pork and chunks of pineapple, is delicious, fashioned to match Perry's childhood memories.
Cambodians enjoy grilled foods, and it's a nice change of pace from the more complex dishes. I loved the whole grilled black bass, served with a chunky sweet pepper salsa and a clear and spicy tuk trey dipping sauce, for its clean straightforwardness. Baby back ribs had a good smokiness and were a lovely presentation with pickled cucumbers and fresh bean sprouts. Unfortunately they were a shade overcooked.
Tofu is not my favorite food so I'm always impressed when I like it. Our party of five actually haggled over who would get the last bites of the tofu dhomrei, crispy-edged cubes of tofu in a sauce that balanced acid with sweet. Tomatoes, pineapple, fresh peas, and a sprinkling of kaffir lime leaves gave plenty of contrast to the mildness of the tofu. The curries were pleasant, too, although less interesting than other dishes.
One of the most intriguing was the carambola salad. Carambola, the Latin name for starfruit, is an unusual-looking five-sided yellow fruit that is used as a decorative theme for the restaurant as well as the name. So it was a delight to find the star-shaped fruit to be bracing and juicy, a perfect foil to the strong tastes of basil, greens, and a dressing of lime and tuk trey (fish sauce).
The mood evoked by the food of Perry and her sous chef, Rene Sola, is not always matched by the service or ambience of this new restaurant, which opened in mid-December. The layout of the place, essentially divided into two parts, means those on the kitchen side feel close to the action and can catch glimpses of the cooks at work but are liable to be jostled. The other room, rectangular and pleasantly decorated, feels a little too far from the center.
Service, too, ranged from distracted to very good. The menu and the way of presenting the food demand that the wait staff be proactive in explaining the concept. One waiter did a great job; another time, a waiter was competent but did little explaining. Carambola has an excellent wine list, with bottles that are clearly and succinctly described to mix and match with the food. Would that the wait staff could do as well.
Desserts in Asian cuisines are quite different from American sweets. Carambola's don't quite bridge the gap. Sanghia, the steamed squash filled with custard, gilds the meal, with its myriad tastes, quite nicely. But beyond that, the other offerings are Western-style: a dense, fudgy chocolate cake and fruit tarts are made elsewhere. They were good, but my tastebuds were searching, possibly for something as simple as fresh fruit, that would better complete the picture.
We've grown more sophisticated at appreciating the world's cuisines. Carambola gives us Cambodian food in all its multifaceted flavors and beauty. Consider us lucky.
