The Best Restaurants Happy Hours and Hotels in Siem Reap

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The Best Restaurants, Happy Hours and Hotels in Siem Reap www.compassandfork.comWhere to Eat in Siem Reap: Best Restaurants

The Best Restaurants, Happy Hours and Hotels in Siem Reap www.compassandfork.comPub Street is the busy touristy street in town. It has a lot of pubs, bars, and restaurants. As it is quite touristy, it is not where we found the best food in town. We did however enjoy a fantastic puppet festival on Pub Street. These are paper puppets, carried by several people on long sticks. As they raise and lower the sticks, the puppet appears to move. So where do we recommend? There were some lovely places to eat in Siem Reap many featuring traditional Cambodian cuisine which we really enjoyed. Reservations are recommended at most of these places as they are popular and busy. So our list of the best restaurants happy hours and hotels in Siem Reap that we found:

Genevieve’s

Good food at Genevieve’s and the meals are huge. We had Lok Lak and a pizza; both were very good. This is inexpensive, casual dining and great food. Wine is available at very reasonable prices. The owner is an Australian. One of the highlights of dinner is the singing waiter. Dinner for two including alcohol was about $25 USD.

Ember at La Residence de Angkor

This is also the hotel where The Martini Bar (listed in Happy Hour) is located.

This is more a fine dining experience although still casual. By Siem Reap standards this is expensive, but for a special occasion, a splurge or just compared to what it would cost you at home, it is good value. The meal and service were excellent.

The banana leaf salad here is a definite contender for the best salad ever! And the slow cooked lamb shoulder with green olives was just magnificent. Total bill for two including wine was $125.

Il Forno

If you find you want a break from Asian food, Il Forno offers good wood fired pizza. Find Il Forno off a lane on Pub Street (between The Lane and Pub St). The house wine was pretty good. A 1/2 carafe was $9, a large pizza would be okay for 2 for lunch or 2 mediums if you are really hungry. Total bill= $25 for two pizzas and house wine. The meals (non pizza) looked okay as well.

The Best Restaurants, Happy Hours and Hotels in Siem Reap www.compassandfork.comThe Haven

This is a social enterprise which offers development opportunities for the disadvantaged. You can read more about it and a similar social enterprise in Phnom Penh in our Banana Fritters post.

Viroth’s

A great place to try some Khmer food not so commonly found on the menu. Everything we tried at Viroth’s was great. Total dinner was $25 for two.

Reservations are recommended at Viroth’s if you want a good table, as it get’s quite busy. Find it at 246 Wat Bo St. just past the La Residence de Angkor hotel on the corner Wat Bo Street (the next street along.)

Viroth’s is also a boutique hotel several hundred meters from the restaurant (don’t confuse the hotel restaurant with the stand alone one) with 35 rooms which receives excellent reviews.

The Best Restaurants, Happy Hours and Hotels in Siem Reap www.compassandfork.comRelax with a Cocktail for Happy Hour in Siem Reap

Cambodians have definitely learned the art of Happy Hour and the cocktails and prices make it very attractive to relax after a long day exploring the temples with a drink or two before dinner.

A couple of places we recommend for a Cocktail during Happy Hour (in no particular order) are:

The Martini Bar- at La Residence de Angkor

Happy hour features 2 for 1 cocktails and is a bargain at about $6 for two drinks. Free hors d’oeuvres accompany your drinks. This is a really nice place, nice ambiance, nice decor. The bar is a bit classy as it is at the La Residence de Angkor one of the best hotels in Siem Reap.

Try the Basil Trance (muddled basil with vodka, cranberry, passion fruit, and lime). The cocktails are handmade.

There is also a restaurant with both indoor and outdoor dining (more about the restaurant above.)

The Silk Garden

Located in a lane off Pub Street the Silk Garden is a little difficult to find. Look for Miss Wongs and the Silk Garden is across the way in the alley (stand with your back to Miss Wongs and walk straight).

Great Happy Hour with $2 drinks from 5-7 pm. Featuring handmade drinks, we can recommend the margarita and the mojito. The mojito ingredients were prepared in the mortar and pestle, nice touch, and a very nice drink.

This is a nice quiet spot in a very busy area, a little oasis of calm.

The Best Restaurants, Happy Hours and Hotels in Siem Reap www.compassandfork.com

The Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC)The Best Restaurants, Happy Hours and Hotels in Siem Reap www.compassandfork.com

The Foreign Correspondents Club in Siem Reap is as the name implies, where the foreign press corp gathered. There is also a FCC in Phnom Penh. Today it is a bar, restaurant and boutique hotel.

The gardens provide a nice ambiance; the table and chairs are comfortable and widely spaced for a relaxing evening drink. Cocktails are ½ off (no need to buy 2) and it works out to about $5 USD for two drinks! For something really cool and refreshing try the passion fruit daiquiri.

I am sure if we were there longer we would have more entries on our list of best Happy Hours in Siem Reap. If you have any suggestions for your fellow travelers, please leave a comment at the end of this post (no URL is required.)

Where to Stay: Hotels in Siem Reap

There is a wide range of accommodation from the very luxurious to backpacker lodgings in Siem Reap. It caters for every budget.

Staying in town provides easy access to restaurants, bars and other activities. You can walk to a lot of places around Siem Reap, or use a tuk-tuk. Most tuk-tuk trips around town are $1 USD.



Booking.com

Accommodation Options

The Best Restaurants, Happy Hours and Hotels in Siem Reap www.compassandfork.comWe have mentioned a few places here where we had drinks or dinner that are also hotels; The FCC, Viroth’s and La Residence de Angkor. Each of these hotels would be an excellent choice. I would classify them as boutique hotels, each being rather small and individual. There are a number of luxury resorts in and around Siem Reap that also provide an excellent choice.

There is a lot of accommodation on Charles de Gaulle Road, the road running between Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. It is a busy road, the hotels tend to be quite large and tour groups use these hotels. However, you can find some good deals for some of these hotels.

And a number of mid-range family or locally owned hotels provide great options to experience local Khmer hospitality.

For our accommodation throughout Cambodia (and South East Asia) we used Booking.com. You can check availability and prices for Siem Reap.

We travel frequently, for other travel resources we use and recommend you can find our recommendations here. For tips to plan your own dream trip and tips for staying healthy while traveling our previous posts may help.

More Information on Cambodia

For further information about visiting Angkor Wat and Siem Reap, this is the fourth of a 4 part series. You can find the previous articles:

Part 1: Visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia: Everything You Need to Know

Part 2: Visiting Tonle Sap Lake and the Less Crowded Temples of Angkor

Part 3: Siem Reap What to do Beyond Visiting Angkor Wat

And to get you in the mood our hand selected best of books, cookbooks and movies about Cambodia is great for inspiration.

You can find all our content about Cambodia including cuisine and recipes in Destinations. And if you have any question or other travel suggestions about Siem Reap, please leave a comment below.

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