Lemongrass Restaurant claims to be the only Cambodian restaurant in the UK. A bold claim that I can’t be bothered to fact check but am going to assume is wrong unless everyone accepts my equally staggering counter claim: Charlie Del Monte is the greatest love machine in Cambodia. We cool?

Nestled in the heart of Camden or somewhere near there, Mrs Del Monte and I dashed to Lemongrass in the break between Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part 1 and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part 2 before we’d found out that the whole Harry Potter universe is actually a Dudley Dursley fever dream, a result of him eating over-ripe Vacherin before going to bed. The Bane-Hagrid-McGonagall 3-way in Part 2 really was scraping the barrel, Mr Rowling. Though I do confess to being impressed by the actors’ suppleness. 20 mins from theatre land on the 29 bus up the road and we were at Lemongrass at 17.30 as the doors opened. The waitress was très friendly and helpful and in no time I was enjoying a tall, cool Tiger beer (no Cambodian beer to be had) whilst we awaited our dishes. The restaurant is simply decorated, not overly lit and had awesome 60s Cambodian pop music playing.

Mrs Del Monte and I shared a Leek Cake for starters (I’ll put a hilarious Welsh joke in the captions below); then Lok Luk Fillet Steak and Phnom Penh Chicken, (Phnom Penh so you know its kosher), along with Egg Fried Rice with Fresh Ginger. The chicken was nice enough but didn’t blow me away, but the Luk Lok was ace. I would have ordered the Fish Amok, but apparently this takes an extra 30 mins and we were on the clock. You don’t get to be a successful, thrusting, busy executive like me by waiting 30 minutes for fish. I will wait a maximum of 10 minutes for a fish. Or 15 if it’s a really big one.

£34 for two including booze and I’d recommend it, even to the idle benefit-scroungers who’ve got 30 minutes to blow on waiting for a fish.

កម្ពុជា!

Note the intricate napkin arrangement and the dirty great glass of Muscadet.

Leek cakes. Cue hilarious joke about Welsh people in South East Asia. This blog basically writes itself.

Effectively sweet and sour chicken. The chunk of pineapple are a somewhat outré. Like my belly button.

The piece of resistance: Beef Lek Lik.

I didn’t want the egg fried rice with ginger, but Mrs Del Monte is ginger and you can imagine the fuss caused if in any way I appear to reject something ginger. This caused a lot of confusion when I declared that “I can’t stand Ginger Rogers.”

That is a clear, sensible menu. Take note all restaurants that don’t have that.

The curse of Del Monte seems not to be in effect. Even at five thirty!

You’ve got to wonder why they place so much emphasis on “non smoking” going so far as too basically make it the name of the restaurant. There’s Mrs Del Monte in flagrant contradiction of the edict, smoking as usual! (That’s Valentine’s Day covered. Enjoy buying flowers, suckers!)

Lemongrass Restaurant
243 Royal College Street
Camden
London
NW1 9LT
Tel: 0207 284 1116
http://www.lemongrass-restaurant.co.uk/