At Crab & Co, the sea comes to the table: Sam Taroth sits down to Kep West's signature seafood grill
Among the pleasures of a stay at Kep West, dinner at Crab & Co ranks high. Sam Taroth took a seat one evening at the resort's seafront restaurant. Sophy Ouch, Food & Beverage Manager, welcomed her at the table as the house's best-selling dish arrived: a long wooden board of grilled fish and seafood, all landed fresh on the Kep coast.
From the kitchen to the dining room
The dish starts its evening in the kitchen. Under the brass heat lamps, the chef builds the board on a bed of banana leaf. The blue crabs go in first, then the seabass, the lobster halves, the squid and a row of clams. Parsley goes in the gaps. Lemon wedges sit at the corners.
Nothing is rushed. The board is checked, turned, checked again. Then it leaves the pass and crosses the dining room, carried with both hands, past the bar and the long bottle wall.
A welcome from the Food & Beverage Manager
The light was going soft over the water when Sophy Ouch arrived at the table. He did not bring a menu. The dish was already on its way.
“Welcome to Crab & Co,” he said. “Tonight we would like to introduce you to our signature seafood grill. It is very fresh, and it is our top seller.”
Sam greeted him with a sampeah, palms joined. He returned it with a smile.
Sam's days at Kep West were split between the pool, the pier and the gardens of Knai Bang Chatt. The evenings belonged to the table. Crab & Co sits on the shore, a few steps from the rooms, and it is where Kep West shows what the local sea can give.
A generous seafood board
The Grilled Seafood Lover is made for two to four people. Set on the table, it takes up half of it.
At the centre lies a whole seabass, grilled with lime salt and pepper. The skin is crisp. The flesh comes away in clean white flakes. Around it the kitchen arranges slipper lobsters, split and charred, a long row of king prawns in their shells, rings of squid, clams opened on the grill, and blue crabs from the bay of Kep, their shells turned bright orange by the heat.
Two sauces sit on the side. One is the lime and Kampot pepper dip, the house classic. The other is the Koh Kong dipping sauce, sharper and greener. A full bowl of egg and vegetable fried rice and a crisp mixed salad complete the order, which is listed at $99.
Sam had the board to herself. She did not finish it. Nobody really expects anyone to.
Sam's first bite
“It smells so good,” Sam said, leaning over the platter. “I can't wait to eat it.”
She started with a clam, still warm from the grill. She tasted it, closed her eyes and put a hand on her chest. For a moment she said nothing. Then she laughed and reached for a prawn.
The rest of the meal followed the same rhythm. A prawn, then the crab, cracked open by hand. A spoon of fried rice between two pieces of lobster. The seabass came last, pulled off the bone in long flakes and dipped in the lime and pepper sauce.
Fresh seafood, from close by
Freshness is not a slogan here. It is the logistics of the place. Kep's crab market is a few minutes away. King prawns and squid are caught daily by local fishermen. Mud crabs and slipper lobsters come from Koh Kong, further along the Cambodian coast.
That shows on the plate. Grilled seafood hides nothing. If the prawn is not fresh, the grill tells you. At Crab & Co, the prawns snap and the crab meat is sweet.
Kep crab, the house signature
The seafood grill is the showpiece, but the menu runs much wider, and crab leads it.
The Braised Mud Crab is the dish most associated with Kep West. The crabs are slow-cooked in coconut milk with chili and fresh green Kampot peppercorns. It is rich, a little hot, and best eaten with the hands.
Crab also turns up in lighter forms. The Kep West crab cakes are made with jumbo crab meat and served with Kampot pepper mayonnaise. The fresh crabmeat au gratin comes baked in a cheese sauce under a crust of breadcrumbs. A salad of jumbo crabmeat and avocado is topped with crème fraîche. The crab bisque is flambéed with Cognac and finished with crabmeat and cream.
The Cambodian traditional amok is made here with jumbo crabmeat and scallops, steamed and served with rice. The crabmeat fried rice comes topped with a fried egg and katsuobushi.
Prawns, lobster and whole fish
For a second sharing board, the Poached Seafood Lover is the gentler twin of the grill. Octopus, slipper lobsters, king prawns, squid, blue crabs and clams are poached and served with the same lime pepper and Koh Kong dips.
Slipper lobsters also come fried in golden crispy garlic with salt and pepper, by the half kilo or the kilo. King prawns are steamed in butter and garlic, or braised in the signature Kep West chili sauce. Freshly steamed shrimps come with a simple chili dip.
Whole fish has its own page on the menu. The seabass can be steamed with superior soy sauce, grilled with a house dipping sauce, or fried crisp and served in sweet and sour sauce. The grouper, richer and softer, is steamed with superior soy.
Guests can also pick their catch and choose the cooking. Kep blue crab, Koh Kong mud crab, local king prawns, squid, seabass, grouper and slipper lobster are sold by weight. The kitchen offers some twenty preparations, from green or black Kampot pepper to tamarind, Khmer curry, salted egg and golden crispy garlic.
Oysters, scallops and starters
Pacific oysters are served raw with condiments, by the half dozen or the dozen, or baked au gratin with Hollandaise sauce. Scallops come au gratin too, or seared on a green mango salad. The pomelo and seafood salad mixes sautéed seafood with shallot, roasted peanut and herbs from the garden.
The French side of the kitchen shows in the bouillabaisse, with scallops and seabass stewed in a saffron shellfish broth, served with rouille, gruyère and croutons. Bouchot mussels, imported from France, are cooked in white wine and herbs and served with fries.
An evening at the water's edge
Sam ate slowly. Sophy stopped by the table twice, to check on the sauces and to suggest a dessert.
By the time the board was cleared, it was dark over the bay. A string of lights ran along the pier outside the glass. The fishing boats had their lamps lit further out. Some of them, no doubt, were bringing in the next day's dinner.
Crab & Co at Kep West
National Road 33A, Kep, Cambodia
Menu and reservations: www.kepwest.com/dine
Watch the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNVrXhUb9U
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