Foodizen: Not Cambodia Town
May. 15, 2019
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Not so long ago, there was pregnant buzz in the city's gastronomic circles about the neighborhood in South Philadelphia that people were calling Cambodia Town, where near half of the city's roughly eighteen,000 Cambodians live, many of them arriving as refugees in the 1980s. Equally recently as May 2015, an commodity in the Inquirer's food section divers Cambodia Town as encompassing the blocks of Sixth and Seventh Streets between Morris Street and Oregon Avenue, with Mifflin Square Park, equally its beating centre.
Back then, Central khmer Kitchen at Sixth and Morris was the go-to Cambodian spot, but diners looking for bowls of kuy teav, the flavors of pungent prahok , or spicy lemongrass-tinged stir fry could choose from humming restaurants like Heng Seng , New Phnom Penh , Central khmer Sugariness Basil , or I Eye Cambodia . During warm weather condition, you could fifty-fifty buy sizzling skewers, sticky rice, and papaya salad from up to a dozen women with charcoal grills on the sidewalks near Mifflin Square Park. At the time, there was excitement over the possibility of the city officially naming the expanse Cambodia Town, and even possibly setting up a Business organization Improvement District, backed by the local councilperson.
"We ran into a buzz saw," says Andy Toy of SEAAMAC. "Some members of the community felt they weren't included. Cambodia Boondocks is not going to happen."
Just then a couple things happened. The first, in October 2015, was an outbreak of gun violence in Mifflin Square Park, with more a hundred shots fired over ii nights—a conflict between rival Southeast Asian and African-American gangs—leaving one person dead. After looking the other manner for years, police force quickly shut down the park's unlicensed food vendors , ie. those Cambodian grandmas selling skewers from their grills. Police claimed that vendors led to a lawless situation that resulted in gambling and illegal alcohol sales. "A police cruiser sat in the centre of the park for like a year," Thoai Nguyen, who runs the neighborhood nonprofit group Southeast Asian Mutual Aid Association Coalition (SEAMAAC) told the Inquirer in 2017 . That motion dampened the park's lively food atmosphere.
Another, separate blow to the Cambodian nutrient scene happened last spring, when Khmer Kitchen closed its doors. "This one's a heartbreaker," wrote Philly Magazine's Alex Tewfik .
Over the past three years, SEAMAAC has taken the lead in redesigning and rebuilding Miffin Square Park , bringing in bankroll from the William Penn Foundation and Knight Foundation, among others. Yet they experienced serious customs resistance to the idea of renaming the area Cambodia Town, particularly amidst African-American residents who'd lived there for decades.
Naming evolving neighborhoods tin exist a fraught endeavor. Just look at what happened a few years ago in nearby Betoken Breeze, for instance, before the Newbold Neighbors Association decided to driblet the proper name "Newbold" and use East Indicate Breeze instead, or what happened in Norris Square in 2017, when a developer tried to rebrand it "Stonewall Heights" . It signals, more than anything else, a brand of gentrification that pits old against new residents in a cultural disconnect that can divide a community. On Seventh Street, the people involved were different—immigrants, by and large, non middle form white residents—but the upshot was the same.
"We ran into a buzz saw," says Andy Toy, SEAMAAC's development and communications director. "Some members of the community felt they weren't included. It got really heated. Cambodia Town is non going to happen, and nosotros didn't necessarily call back that information technology was a skillful idea."
The pushback makes sense with a deeper look at the extremely diverse demographics effectually Mifflin Square: the area is a third white, a third African American and Latino, and a third Asian. Even among the Asian population, there is incredible diversity. Besides Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Lao, there are also sizable populations of Burmese, Bhutanese, and Indonesians. The largest population, in fact, is Chinese. Historically, the neighborhood was Jewish, simply now at that place are more than than xx languages spoken here, and more than than a quarter of the residents are foreign born. This level of diversity is rare in Philadelphia, which is historically one of the almost segregated cities in America.
I know we're not calling it Cambodia Town anymore. Merely the sublime Cambodian food is all the same the neighborhood's biggest describe.
I experienced this as I was eating around the neighborhood. At the corner of Seventh and Jackson, I ate delicious pupusas, crispy fried Honduran-style tacos, and big edible bean-and-cotija-cheese-filled baleadas at El Sabor Catracho . I followed that with a Vietnamese coffee and sugariness rice wrapped in a banana leaf from Café Vinh Long just up Seventh. And then I walked down Wolf Street, past the beautiful, shining orangish-and-golden Buddhist temple, to Mifflin Square Park. There, at the kickoff celebration of the park's Vendor Village, I ate rich and flavorful Indonesian beef rendang and craven sate served past Chef Yeni from the SoPHiE food truck.
SEAMAAC'due south strategy for Mifflin Foursquare Park now focuses on how to unite such diversity. Its website that details the redesign plan is translated into ix languages.
One of the offset initiatives was creating Vendor Village with a $175,000 grant from the Knight Foundation . "Let's try to bring back vendors where someone can do it the right way," Toy says. SEAMAAC launched its SoPHiE food truck last year to recapture some of the vibrancy that had been lost in the crackdown on the neighborhood'southward original Cambodian street vendors. "Nosotros're using the food truck every bit a way to appoint the community," Toy says. Now, a rotating roster of immigrant chefs operate the SoPHiE nutrient truck, which SEAMAAC offers as a symbol of entrepreneurship for the customs. Then far, the SoPHiE truck is Vendor Hamlet's only vendor, but SEAMAAC hopes that it will attract more than legal nutrient vendors in the futurity. (SoPHiE stands for "South Philly East," which has been SEAMAAC'south working name for the nameless neighborhood at present that Cambodia Town is off the tabular array.)
On another recent Saturday, every bit dozens of volunteers wearing blueish Comcast Cares t-shirts—along with the Phillies Phanatic—cleaned up the park and planted flowers, I spent some time inside the SoPHiE food truck with Burmese chef Zarzo Lian equally she prepped her specialities, including her Myanmar-style green beans tossed with cilantro, scallions, fried garlic, peanuts, sesame, and fish sauce. "I dearest this neighborhood," Lian said every bit she fried lemongrass-and-pepper craven and spring rolls. "Nosotros run across all different kinds of people."
Lian came to the U.S. as a refugee in 2000, living briefly in Washington, D.C., and then in Edison, New Jersey, where she worked equally a sushi chef. She moved to Philadelphia in 2010 and spent several years working in immigrant outreach at both the Nationalities Service Center and at SEAMAAC. She estimates at that place are almost 2,000 Burmese refugees living in the city. "I want to create jobs for refugee women who might non be able to speak English or drive a machine," she said.
The SoPHiE food truck helped her change careers. "I've really loved this experience," Lian said. "Now nosotros know how to run a business." In fact, later on her start summer of working in the nutrient truck, she now owns a franchise of Hissho Sushi.
SEAMAAC's strategy for Mifflin Foursquare Park now focuses on how to unite the diverseness. The website detailing its program is translated into nine languages.
SoPHiE aside, the thought of Kingdom of cambodia Town has not been totally obliterated. More than anywhere else, this is however the best neighborhood for amazing Cambodian food. My favorite food truck is Boba & Company , which operates most of the time a cake from Mifflin Square Park at 6th and West Moyamensing. Boba & Company is famous for its chimera teas and exotic fruit drinks (including ane with the distinctly odorous durian fruit), its "Cambo corn" doused in kokosnoot milk, and its amazing "Golden Phoenix"—spicy ginger-and-lemongrass chicken wings stuffed with minced pork sausage, noodles, and mushrooms. And frankly, I enjoy the underground vendors who still pop their charcoal grills out onto the sidewalk and fill the air with the smells of spicy meats on a sunny afternoon.
Along 7th Street, the long-fourth dimension Cambodian spots like New Phnom Penh serve not bad deep-fried spring rolls, thick pan-fried noodles with pork (style better than your Thai takeout pad meet ew ), and rich, brothy, beefy kuy teav or Phnom Penh noodle soup (often on the carte du jour in its Vietnamese spelling hu tieu nam vang ), which is similar to pho simply with thinner noodles, a complex pork base, and commonly eaten for breakfast. Even some of the family members from Khmer Kitchen take opened a new place chosen called Sophie'due south Kitchen further north at 5 th Street and Washington Avenue.
My favorite Cambodian restaurant, however, remains I Middle Kingdom of cambodia, which opened in early on 2015—right before the troubles in Mifflin Square Park. The swirl of flavors at I Eye Cambodia can exist disorienting and edgy but so satisfying and soulful, particularly the fried quail, the sadao , the bitter flower salad with shredded pork and shrimp and of course the prahok (spelled brahok on their carte). I Eye Cambodia'due south brahok ktis is rich footing pork swimming in an unctuous sauce of republic of chile paste, lemongrass, kaffir leaves, and fermented fish sauce, balanced past coconut milk. Served with crudité platter of carrots, cucumbers, and eggplants, this is the about unique, amazing vegetable dip you'll sense of taste.
I know we're not calling information technology Cambodia Boondocks anymore. But the sublime Cambodian food is withal the neighborhood's biggest depict.
Jason Wilson is The Citizen's 2022 Jeremy Nowak Beau, funded past Jump Point Partners, in honor of our late chairman Jeremy Nowak. He is the author of three books, including about recentlyGodforsaken Grapes, series editor ofThe Best American Travel Writing, and writes for the Washington Post, New York Times, New Yorker and many other publications.
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/foodizen-not-cambodia-town/
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