The first time I showed up at Hak Heang Chinese-Cambodian Restaurant, I couldn’t get in.
Reading online comments about Hak Heang, this does not seem unusual. It’s the top-of-the-line restaurant in Long Beach’s Cambodia Town, with Saturday nights apparently often booked for massive weddings, anniversaries or, in this particular case, a Sweet 16 party.
And not a Sweet 16 party like any I’ve seen before. It took over the whole restaurant, with seating for maybe 300, maybe more.
The parking lot was filled with Mercedes-Benzes. People were dressed to the nines. Photographers were everywhere. There was a small army of security people.
Hak Heang Chinese-Cambodian Restaurant
Rating: 2 1/2 stars.
Address: 2041 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach.
Cuisine: This top-of-the-line Cambodian restaurant in the heart of Long Beach’s Cambodia Town has a sprawling room that verges on the elegant, popular for weddings and other celebrations, and a menu of more than 100 items, every one conveniently illustrated with a photo.
Hours: Breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day.
Details: Beer and wine. Parking lot. Reservations are essential for groups.
Prices: Breakfast dishes, $5-$8. Entrees, $8-$18.
Cards: MC, V.
Information: 562-434-0296.
I tried to look into the dining room, and was asked — firmly — to leave. And I don’t think the teenager at the center of this extravaganza and her family had arrived yet. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find them pulling up in a horse-drawn carriage.
The good news about not being able to get into Hak Heang is that there are a fair number of other options in Cambodia Town — like Siem Reap Khmer and Monorom Cambodian, both of which are a short walk away. The downside is that, like Thai Town in East Hollywood, there’s not a lot of charm to the neighborhood. You go where you go, and then you leave; this is not a colorful variation on Little Italy or Chinatown. But what you do eat at Hak Heang, as I found some weeks later, is pretty great stuff, served in a room where the party never ends.
Several nights a week, there are live bands at Hak Heang — and it seems as if there are disc jockeys as well. There are local singers. There’s karaoke. There’s the community, come out to play. And to throw major events; there are probably more Cambodian events here than anywhere else in the city, which boasts the largest Cambodian population outside Southeast Asia.
When I finally got in on a weekday, I found a restaurant that’s a lot less packed than it is at parties. It’s such a big room that even with a hundred diners or so, it feels a bit empty. And the long distance that servers have to traverse, from the kitchen to the tables, can make service go a bit wonky.
At first glance, aside from the wonderfully curvy Cambodian letters on the menu, the place may seem more Chinese than Cambodian, and more Thai and Vietnamese as well. The menu is written in Chinese, Cambodian (which looks like transliterated Vietnamese) and English. There’s kung pao chicken on the menu, and beef with broccoli. But thanks to the community — and troupes of girls who love to work the microphone — it’s hard to get away from the feeling that you’re definitely someplace else.
Show up for breakfast, served from 7 a.m. till 2 p.m., and you’ll find a selection of dishes I think of as Southeast Asian street market food — a variety of soups, some with rice noodles, some with egg noodles, flavored with seafood, duck, beef stew, beef balls, chicken and pork parts.
Come later in the day, and there’s a different world of soups, including an assortment of hot and sours, with shrimp, catfish, banana blossoms, beef and deer.
Many of the dishes are spicy, indicated by a little hot pepper next to their name on the menu. All of the dishes are listed with a photograph, which gives you a fair sense of what you’re about to get — though the fried frog on steamed rice could be mistaken for chicken. Isn’t that ever the case?
I liked the bo nuong, which is a crispy beef stick, a cousin of satay, served with a pickled salad. Get the barbecue beef (or deer) Cambodian style, and a do-it-yourself meal comes to your table, with meat and condiments on one plate, and rice and raw veggies on another.
The one dish that really stands out as Cambodian is the sadao with fish. In India, sadao is known as “neem.” It’s a bitter leaf that comes from a tree, and it’s used to cure skin diseases. I don’t know what it does when eaten, but a little goes a long way. I followed it with some Hainam chicken on steamed rice, a famously bland dish. Like the restaurant itself, contrast is everywhere.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Send him email at mreats@aol.com.
2 comments:
no need to put Cambodian, just Chinese is much better. It makes you more proud!
9:24 am
Your comment is disturbing.
As a Chinese Khmer, I am proud to be Khmer !
When you declared YOUR nationality before the US Immigration agent in Khao Idang, Manila or other place else for that matter, didn't you declare Khmer as your nationality ?
Otherwise, you would not allowed to be in the States.
Never try to forget your roots or ancestry.
If you cheat yourself that you are an American, or French and so on, just look at yourself in the mirror !!!!
Proud Khmer
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