Crystal Thai Cambodian—the slathered-in-orange-with-purple-trim dining space at 10th and Orange in Central Long Beach, just south of the formal border of Cambodia Town—has been serving the Cambodian and Long Beach communities for over 15 years. Unabashed in its embrace of traditional Cambodian cuisine, this is the closest you’ll experience a Cambodian home kitchen without literally stepping into one.
In the words of food lover and Cambodian-American James Tir, “My mom makes it better—but Crystal Thai Cambodian is the only place that comes close.”
The vibe of Crystal Thai Cambodian is always worth enveloping in.
Crystal Thai Cambodian might be a cramped space but it is always booming with sounds.
Families happily yell at each other and servers and cooks—an offense only to the whitest of patrons. If the owner happens to be present and front-facing, a chorus of “Bong Tony!”s will be heard throughout the time of his stay, noting the presence of their fellow brother. A constant earful of splendous classic Khmer bops—from Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea to Khemarak Srereymun and Boty Phen—will happily play. (And your request to identify most songs on Shazam will be met with a “song not found.”) Clinks and clanks from the kitchen are heard tableside. It is often at least half-filled, if not always full, mostly with Cambodian families. Cash only. Might close early if no one is aruond. Sweets on the counter if you want some on your way out.
“Crystal Thai Cambodian is one of the best spots to try and enrich your palates with authentic Cambodian dishes,” said Chef Chad Phuong, the Cambodian Cowboy running Battambong BBQ. “Run by Bong Tony—he’s a longtime Long Beach resident, man—that knows a thing or two about Cambodian cuisine. They are old-school. They use sustainable, truly traditional ingredients—and the reality is that they are the survivors of The Killing Fields. Every dish is made of love and an homage to classical Khmer dishes.”
As I’ve always said: To eat a plate of Khmer food from a Cambodian chef? It’s not just an act of eating; it is directly experiencing cultural resilience.
Skip the Thai; go for the Cambodian food at Crystal Thai Cambodian.
I understand why most non-Asian eaters will gravitate toward the Thai plates that are far more common to their palates. The pad thai. The Thai boat noodles. The papaya salad… It’s the easy order, something familiar.
But what makes Crystal Thai Cambodian special—and the reason so many Cambodians are affably admirable of this space—is its dedication to traditional Cambodian food. We’re talking nom p’jok. Prohok kteh. Nom sdao. Plea. Whole fried catfish—or trei chhma chien. Cha kroeung. Somlor machu kreung…
These are the dishes you wanna go for. Of course, it is always best to go with a Cambodian friend if you happen to have one free. But ultimately, it is honestly about exploring—and assured, you won’t be judged. Surely, you might be handed a fork and spoon. And with this, you shouldn’t take offense. Yes, when ordering the somlor machu kreung and requesting beef (as you should), unless speaking Khmer, you are likely to be asked if you want the intestine and tripe included; I always say yes and encourage you to say yes, but no one will bat an eye if you deny the offal.
“The place delivers all of the deep-cut Khmer dishes without compromising on the disparate elements that make Khmer food unique,” James said. “Elements that are too sweet, too sour, too savory, and too bitter on their own, create a chaotic harmony when packaged in one bite.”
The food is happily harmonious while being heavy on the sours and umami—in other words: Cambodian perfection.
If you aren’t to start with the beef skewers—a crowd pleaser if there was one from Crystal—then go for the nom p’jok.
I’ve long extolled the culinary virtues of nom p’jok at Crystal Thai Cambodian—and it is a great noodle dish to begin one’s dive into Cambodian food in Long Beach. A bowl of thick, vermicelli noodles, served with an assortment of herbal leaves, and a separate bowl filled with a turmeric-tinged broth. That broth uses muddled yellow catfish—a deceptively clean fish that eschews the ordinary earthiness of catfish—and then, through some culinary alchemy, results in an umami-meets-citrus bomb that is as light as it is addictive.
Speaking of that fish, their whole fried catfish is a wonder. I know: it’s is not your typical Southern American, cornmeal-battered but the fish itself is just remarkable. Mekong catfish—which is not a bottom feeder but actually eats river weed, making its meat this beautiful yellow color and wonderfully clean—is the star. Put a chunk of that in a lettuce wrap with their tamarind sauce, some fresh herbs—including the wonderfully bitter sdao; mint; Thai basil; cilantro…—maybe some Thai chile and voila.
Close-ups of Crystal Thai Cambodian’s prohok kteh. Photos by Brian Addison.
The description of prohok kteh has, at the heart of it, two things: ground pork and fermented fish paste known as prohok in Khmer. And for some, it might sound strange but in all frankness, it’s a salty wonder of a dish. Slap a scoop atop cabbage with bits of cucumber or African round eggplant, squeeze some lime, and it is worth passing around the table.
And yes, some of the food can be challenging at Crystal Thai Cambodian—but oftentimes, worth it for those who love food.
Nom sdao is just one of those dishes that divides—even amid the Cambodian community itself. Chef Chad? Not a fan of nom sdao; he will happily add bits of sdao, the bitter flower buds of the neem tree, to his catfish lettuce wrap but to tackle nom sdao? Nah. Chef Jared Reeves of the Fairmont Breakers called the dish “nicely tinged with bitter at first before it becomes outright astringent.” James as well as I? Love it.
For me, it is a glorious soliloquy to bitterness, where chunks of fried fish and bits of pork are tossed in greens and an excessive amount of sdao.
Or, if you’re not one for bitter and prefer the more sour a la heavy citrus, aim for the plea, where various meats—you can go from shrimp to beef to straight up duck feet—are marinaded in lime juice and tossed with cabbage and other assortments depending on your protein choice. Me? I typically always go beef when with others and duck feet when with James or by myself.
The thing here is that the breadth of Cambodian food is beautiful and deep. It can go from simple and accessible to, at least for American palates, outright different and experimental. But there is a reason Cambodian families love it—and for Long Beach, it is an outright gem of a space.
Why Cambodian cuisine in Long Beach isn’t just food but a form of cultural resilience. (And why there are so many side Thai menus at restaurants like Crystal Thai Cambodian.)
The beauty of Long Beach’s rich offering of Cambodian cuisine lies within a dark reality. Nearly wiped off the planet during the horrifying Khmer Rouge regime under dictator Pol Pol in the late 1970s, tens of thousands of Cambodian natives sought refuge. And Long Beach became home for many.
In a sense, eating proper Cambodian food is live-witnessing cultural resilience: Upon arriving on the shores of Long Beach throughout the 1980s, even the most knowledgeable of food lovers had little knowledge of Cambodian food. It is something that exists to this day. And it led many Cambodian-owned restaurants to offer Thai food next to otherwise traditional Cambodian dishes. As Long Beach began to further its admiration for the Cambodian community, it also had to learn to separate Thai from Cambodian. It was understanding that this caring crew of refugees has an identity, culture, and cuisine all to its own. And it is not to be found in some monolithic Southeast Asian trope thrust on them by Westerners.
The difference between immigrant and refugee is a key part to understanding our Cambodian community.
The food of Crystal Thai Cambodian—and other spaces like Phnom Penh Noodle Shack, Monoram, Sophy’s, Battambong BBQ, Shlap Muan, Hak Haeng…—as well as the befriending of Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans has also shown Long Beach that there is a stark difference between an immigrant and a refugee. And the fact that, after being forced out of their home due to genocide, the Cambodian community choosing to make Long Beach their home is both a serendipitous gift and, again, an act of cultural resilience.
We have, on one hand, the direct refugees. They have been here for decades by this point but are still longing for the home that was ultimately forced out of their grasp. And, on the other, a group of their children and grandchildren. These Cambodian-Americans continually balance their identity between an American culture their parents were forced to assimilate toward (and one which they love in a far different way than their foreign parents) and learning to appreciate their Cambodian heritage and Motherland, which they only know through the lens their parents have shone a light through.
Their dedication toward simultaneously assimilating and showcasing their culture has proven they are a loving, viable community. They are a community that deserves to be uplifted. Writing about and eating Cambodian food is not just an activity one partakes in. In all seriousness, it is a spiritual, communal, deeply human endeavor. This is said with such weight because to eat Cambodian food in Long Beach, with fellow Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans, is to directly experience the result of human, cultural fortitude.
Crystal Thai Cambodian is located at 1165 E. 10th St.
