Bada Bing Battambang

I'm really lucky to have co-workers who willingly accompany me on my food adventures. Most of the time, we find new gems. Today we did not. You can't win 'em all.

Battambang Restaurant (1806 S. San Gabriel Blvd., San Gabriel) is a nondescript building that is easy to pass.

I wish we had.

I was excited to try Cambodian food, and the place seemed so promising. The complimentary iced tea was cool, refreshing, and fragrant.

But then it went downhill from there.

Giggles' salt lemonade was disgusting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's salt lemonade. What did we expect? But Giggles has actually had and enjoyed this before at other establishments. This just sucked. Period.

And none of us had any idea what that tan stuff in there was. Eeks.

I got boba milk coffee. The boba wasn't cooked enough. Badness.

Giggles, Whipping Boy, and I shared Family Dinner A ($23), which consisted of three dishes.

The mam bo hoc nuoc dua (curry fish) came out first. Very very salty, but fairly tasty with rice. Whipping Boy noted that it was actually very beef-like, which was an apt observation. It was hard to believe it was fish!

Next up was canh chua ca (hot and sour fresh fish soup). So so sour! Pucker City! And not in a good way! Maybe it's supposed to be really sour, but it was too much so for my liking. The fish in the soup, however, was indeed fresh and good.


The third dish, bo nuong (beef stick), looked like it had potential -- beautifully charred! Sadly, the quality of the meat was subpar. Like sub-sub-submarine-way-down-in-the-sea-subpar. So very disappointing.

None of us really got our fill, so we headed to a childhood favorite afterward, which was perfect for a hot day. It was time to re-scoop-erate!

I thought this was quite the sight.

But this little sign on our way out really made us laugh.

We all agreed that if we went there tomorrow and the next tomorrow and the next tomorrow, we'd be 300 pounds. Love that sign.