Soup Semantics
Wednesday, 25 February 2009 by kinakoJam
New Zealand's capital city, Wellington, has a few good bowls of noodles up its sleeves, especially those of the Malaysian variety - though we somehow didn't manage to fit in a decent laksa on our last trip there. We stopped at R & S Satay Noodle House on Cuba St before we began the nine-hour drive back up to Auckland. Erik's laksa was not too compelling - a few fish balls and bean sprouts floating a in a watery broth - but this 'Khmer satay soup' (pictured above) was rather tasty. In consistency, spiciness and lemon-tinged acidity it hovered somewhere between a Thai soup and a Malaysian laksa. There were plenty of al dente rice noodles and it was generously heaped with strips of tender white chicken flesh (no dodgy bits - not that I'm averse to a clump of skin or fat every now and then). The ground peanut was barely discernible except towards the end: it served mostly to thicken the soup.
Is this a genuine Khmer-style soup? Perhaps the Cambodian food experts on the Gut Feelings team can lay down the law.
