One more point of importance is that because a good Japanese chef can easily earn a monthly salary of $5,000 in Japan, there is very little that would induce such a person to come to a developing country like Cambodia where wages are really low. In addition, a good cook is not only capable of making tasty dishes but also interested in eating delicious food himself, and Cambodia is not exactly a gourmet paradise for Japanese food.

Cafe Sushi (Sihanoukville)****: This is a very reasonably priced seafood restaurant that takes advantage of all kinds of fish caught nearly as the town of Sihanoukville sits next to the ocean. If you are a fan of sushi, the really good sushi consisting of seven pieces is priced at $8.00. If you prefer a plate of sashimi, three or four kinds of fish costs again less than $10.00. With this sashimi come a bowl of rice, a salad, and miso soup, which are more than adequate for most people. If aji (horse mackerel) is in season (late summer), it can be made into all sorts of dishes that are absolute delicious. The two Japanese preparing these dishes are highly trained professionals, and they have not disappointed us. Aside from these items, the restaurant offers unagi (eel) sushi and grilled salmon head that are particularly good. 

Origami (Phnom Penh)****: This is by far the best Japanese restaurant in Cambodia. Because of the high quality and the admirable skill of the Japanese chef in the selection of great ingredients, the price of $25.00 for the best sushi plate seems very reasonable, while a set dinner consisting of at least five small dishes as well as a basket of prawn and vegetable tempura served at the end is only $10.00, a real bargain. The owner of this restaurant is a refined Japanese lady trains all the servers in a very strict Japanese fashion. The dining area has a very nice decor based on Japanese art in an exceptionally elegant building. If this whole establishment were transplanted to Tokyo, it would still be considered one of the best there, although the prices would be at least 5 times as high. Business-wise, this restaurant must be doing really well since it has private rooms upstairs where the Japanese ambassador, for example, could really entertain foreign diplomats. If you like Japanese food and wish to splurge a little, you would never go wrong by visiting this place. If you click the image on the right, you can see the entire photo menu.

Basho (Siem Reap)**: This little restaurant in Siem Reap is fairly successful by offering various dishes made with local products. The Japanese owner-chef is quite wise by eliminating from his menu those items that require freshest ingredients in the form of fish, as it is very difficult to get it in this inland town of Siem Reap. As a result, his dishes that use local products such as chicken, pork, and all kinds of vegetables are very tasty and reasonably priced. In addition, his sushi rolls are also quite tasty, using such ingredients as fried prawns and mayonnaise, pickled plum paste and cucumber, etc. Their Japanese-style curry dishes are considered their pride, but the sauce is very mild, so those who are used to hot curry may find it quite disappointing. All in all, the Japanese chef here seems to be making a great effort to create original and tasty dishes that are satisfactory to anyone interested in Japanese food.    

Fuji (Siem Reap)** (no longer in business): This new Japanese restaurant, located on the second floor of the Ta Prohm Hotel very near the Old Market, follows many other good Japanese dining places in that they have sushi and sashimi, which are quite pricey only because they use very fresh fish. However, tuna here is not very tasty as tune should as in Japan, although their salmon and other fish slices are very good. One good point about sushi here is that they use sweet-vinegar, warm (therefore not dry) rice that is disappearing among sushi restaurants in foreign countries. Besides these fish items, they serve such standard dishes as shabu shabu, broiled eel over rice, fried oysters, shrimp tempura, soba and wheat noodles, lunch boxes, and set meals. After receiving a hot hand towel, one can really enjoy food that is accompanied with hot or cold tea and a plate of fruit. As we are rating restaurants in terms of taste, service, and ambiance, the first part is very good, but the other two are not satisfactory. If they decide to improve their decor, for example, they may deserve a three-star rating.

Kobe (Siem Reap)**: In terms of taste and ambiance, this establishment is very good, but the menu items are overpriced. A set menu of beef and vegetables cooked in front of you is about $20 and is not very large, so it may be satisfactory for ladies, but not for men. Meat comes from Australia and is of high quality. This restaurant is on National Route #6 and is therefore very far from the Old Market area.

Shonan** (Phnom Penh; formerly Ohan) (no longer in business): Another Phnom Penh restaurant, this establishment has quality Japanese food, but is more like a high-class watering hole. One feels that this place is offering more inexpensive dishes by sacrificing the grade of fish they use for sushi and sashimi. They must have succeeded with this strategy as their parent establishment is said to be prospering in Vietnam.

Guru Mother Cafe (Siem Reap)**: This small restaurant in Siem Reap has almost everything going for it. Based on our belief that a Japanese restaurant in a foreign country must be either very expensive or really reasonable, this restaurant belongs to the latter category, because it only serves those dishes that make use of mostly local products, like pork, tofu, and vegetables, and the chef owner and his partner are successfully drawing out fairly good taste from each material. As a result, the dishes they offer are quite inexpensive. The biggest complaint we have is that some dishes are either too salty or some vegetables are overcooked.

Their pride is a set menu at $5.00 consisting of three small dishes, a miso soup, and a bowl of rice. A small dish can be pork with ginger, cooked daikon radish with bonito flakes, vegetable slices with the Japanese vinegar sauce, or pumpkin  Japanese style.

In addition, this cafe offers all kinds of sake and shochu (Japanese style vodka made from different kinds of things like sugarcane, sesame, potato, barley, etc.). In consequence, the place has the atmosphere of a Japanese izakaya (watering hole) at night.  

Ginga (Phnom Penh & Siem Reap)**: Owned by a Singaporean company and offering Japanese food, the two Ginga restaurants in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are very similar in that the quality of fresh seafood is mediocre and the service is terrible. Because they established themselves in the two cities fairly early, they have rather large serving areas and can therefore accommodate large tour groups from Japan. Because Japanese tourists believe that only in Japan can they get good Japanese food (although Origami proves otherwise), so they are quite tolerant in accepting average Japanese food while traveling abroad.

Maido (Siem Reap) (no longer in business): This new restaurant in Siem Reap is also owned by foreign business people. When we first went there at lunch time, we ordered two plates of sushi and a do-it-yourself barbeque dish of Australian beef. This dish was quite nice, but the sushi was a disaster. All the pieces were way too large with rice in comparison with the fish slices, and those slices were warm! When we asked our waiter if a Japanese chef made the sushi, he said no, although we knew the answer beforehand. Well, this is the first time we had warm sushi, and hopefully the last.

However, if one is keen on BBQ beef, then a plate costing $8.00 is not that unreasonable, although the portion is rather small.   

This establishment has an all-you-can-eat choice for barbequed dishes for about $18.00. If one is really hungry or needs to eat a lot, this may be a very good choice.　However, we would prefer eating at the Raffle Grand Hotel d'Angkor where a buffet lunch or dinner is less than $30 and you get so much more.

Maisa (Siem Reap)**: Owned and managed by an elderly Japanese lady, this eatery offers food based on her philosophy that she would feel bad about charging her customers a lot, so she buys relatively inexpensive raw fish, so that the various plates of sushi and rolls available at most times are relatively inexpensive but are very ordinary. If one eats here, the best items are those based on ordinary local products such as tofu, pork, chicken, and vegetables.

The owner frankly admits that her profits are derived from tour groups that come there in large numbers. This may be why she can charge $2.50 for a small can of local beer to Japanese tourists who are probably unaware of what things cost in this town. In a nutshell, we can safely say that almost everything is overpriced, in spite of her philosophy.

Tsukinoniji (Siem Reap)*: This new restaurant is totally unacceptable, as our orders of various types of sushi were so bad we did not want to finish them. As soon as one picks up a sushi piece, it crumbled because a right amount of pressure was not applied to solidify the rice. Naturally, we were told that a Japanese chef was not there to make the sushi dishes.