- On the sleepy coast of Kep, Cambodia, you'll find one of the
world's best crab markets. To eat like a local, you choose your crab directly from ocean baskets, boil them from right before your eyes, and feast on all you can
eat crab within the market. If you love crab, this is
the Cambodian food trip where your dreams will come to life. Now that is what you
call a crab steam room. I was just bathed in crab steam. (easy listening music) Good morning. Hope you're
having an amazing day. It's Mark Wiens in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and today, we're taking
a day trip to a coast, to a place called Kep,
and it's famous for crab. So we're gonna go on a
crab road trip today, and then coming back, we're
gonna go visit a pepper farm. This is gonna be an amazing day trip. And I can't wait to share it with you. (easy listening music) We just made it to Kep. It's actually not that
far away, but it took us almost a little bit over
three hours because the road conditions are not extremely good. And the road moves
pretty slow, and there's occasional cows and dogs
that cross the road. And plenty of obstructions,
but we made it. We drove to straight to the local market. And as soon as you step out of the car, you can just, this waft
of smoking grilled seafood hits your nose. It's a little bit of a makeshift market and located right along the ocean front. You can smell all the smoke
from the grilling seafood. And whoa, lots of squid here. But I want to go straight
to the pier first to see the crab situation. (percussive music) Wow, this is such an amazing environment, such an awesome market. Right along the ocean,
and actually I'm standing on this deck right now. There are just baskets
and baskets of crabs. They actually grab the
crabs right out of the water and they sell them right here on the bank. People are here just bargaining
for crabs, fresh crabs. (water splashing) - [Woman] (Speaks in foreign language). - So you just gotta come
in here and start digging through the crab baskets and there are just so many crabs. We're trying to look for the big size. - [Woman] (Speaks in foreign language). - (Speaks in foreign language). - Oh yeah, look at this guy,
small body but huge pinchers. Check that out. Okay, and this is oh, okay,
another thing I want to show you is that you gotta tell
the difference between a male and a female. This one I think is a male
crab, because of that, it's called an apron. - One kilo eight dollars. - [Man] Eight dollars. How about six dollars? - Six dollars. - No, no. - (Speaks in foreign language). - (Mumbles). - [Man] Okay seven dollars? - [Woman] No no no. - Crab as fresh as you can possibly get. - Two kilo. - Okay, that's exactly two kilos. - [Man] Looks like (mumbles). - [Man] (Speaks in foreign language). - [Woman] (Speaks in foreign language). - Okay (speaks in foreign language). That was an energetic situation
but it was pretty fun. You just kind of come over here. You talk to some of the vendors. They give you a price and
from what I understand, the price really really
fluctuates between the day. So it's kind of hard to know
the exact price of the day. Today it was eight dollars per kilo. And you can bargain. We got it to seven dollars per kilo. There's a lady cooking right
here on the ocean front. Let's see if she can cook these crabs. (percussive music) - [Woman] (Speaks in foreign language). - This is absolutely amazing. They take the crabs,
they put them into a pot. Oh, as soon as they're done
boiling, then just drop them into a big basket and let them steam. And then drop them into a bag. Oh, that's just fresh boiled crab. It's amazing, the smell
of the wood fire smoke mixed with the fresh
crab and the sea breeze. This is a perfect crab
eating atmosphere here. So now you just kind of sit
around and wait and just hold on and wait for your crab to finish boiling. That puff of crab stream, oh wow. - (Speaks in foreign language). - [Woman] (Speaks in foreign language). - Now only only is this a crab paradise but you can step over to another stall. And just find an abundance of seafood. There's so much squid. There's lot of different types of fish. And we ordered up a, you can
just kind of pick and choose. They grill them. And if you order them, then
you put them back on the grill for a little while to heat them again. And she has so many good looking fish. Once you finish the mission
of buying all of your seafood and getting cooked, next step
is to buy rice and sauce. And I love how they put the
sauce in old water bottles. There's red sauce, there's green sauce. But she said that the
green sauce is spicier, so we went with the green sauce. And the sauce just completes the meal. We got all the seafood and you
just come back to the market. You can take it all to go
and you can sit somewhere or you can eat it within the market. And you just go to to
one of the drink stalls. And they have tables set up. You just order drinks and
you can sit at the table and devour all of the seafood. One of the best gift opening
sessions I've ever had. What a just a stunning fish market seafood devouring environment. They even gave us a plate
so we can pile all the crabs onto the plate. Look at this pile of freshly boiled crabs. And they've got the
different types of fish here. We've got the bottles
of sauce and we've got some rice to accompany it. We got to begin with crab. I'm gonna go for this guy
right here on the top. Grab a crab. What I love about these
crabs is that their bodies are pretty small, but then
those claws are just huge. And don't eat the rubber
band, break off the claw. We're gonna do a lot of crunching
and munching in this meal. I think they're blue swimmer crabs. But what's cool about
these crabs is that they're really easy to pluck open on your own just with your fingers or with your mouth, you can crack them and just
kind of break the shells are really soft. Oh yes. Alright. Okay, cheers, (mumbles). (pop music) Hmm, oh wow. The freshness just lights up your mouth. (laughing) Nuggets just pop out. Oh thank you very much. - Thank you. - Thank you. Just nuggets of crab
just slide out with ease like you're pulling a
knife out of a sheath. (pop music) Oh wow. You can see
that they're male crabs. I think what you do is
you removed the apron and then you can turn it around. Take off the top of the shell here, and that removes the whole head and eyes and top shell, and then from here, what's easiest to do is
just break it in half. Just break it in half like that, and then, because these
are male crabs, they're mostly meat on the inside. Although there's a little
big of (mumbles) I believe. And you should have
little drumsticks of oh, just popping oozing crab. It's just unbelievably juicy. Oh, that is some of the juiciest
crab I've had in my life. One crab down, let's move
into the fish, the trio. Stingray skin is very, very thick. Oh, look how stringy
that meat is down there. Check out that. It looks
like it's chicken breast. That is just pulled into
strings of chicken breast. It really is like chicken but softer and a little more juicy. Okay, that's really good, but this fish would be better with a
little bit of sauce in it because it's pretty plain tasting. I'm gonna dump sauce into this side of my styrofoam container. And then we also got some of the red sauce which she gave us on
the bottom of the bottle to eat with the fish over here. Oh yeah, it's so fleshy,
it's just like solid meat. Okay, the stingray is
really enhanced with sauce. Peel back, oh you peel back that skin and you just got juicy oily fish flesh. (pop music) Oh that's butter. Oh that texture is just completely different. It's so oily and you can feel
those omega threes, those fatties, those fatty oils
just overwhelming your mouth. That fish has this wonderful
textural quality to it. And it is time to now
move into another crab. For this crab, I'm gonna
try dipping it in a sauce. Oh yes, oh look at that, it just slides. Oh, it just slides out and splatters with a little juice. Give it a nice little dunk in the sauce, and a bit sized nugget. (pop music) Oh, okay. That is good with the sauce too. Definitely very good with the sauce. 'Cause that's a nice garlicky compliment to the incredibly fresh
and incredibly sweet crab. This is some of the easiest
crab that I've eaten too. It's so easy to peel. All you do is literally like
you just crack it with ease. Oh that is just crab sensation. You can literally just
grab fish by the fistful. Look at it, that's an
entire fistful of fish. And I'm gonna dump this into the sauce. Just kind of wipe up the sauce. That might actually be
too much for a one biter. Or actually not. (pop music) - [Man] It's so nice and juicy. - Hello. - [Man] Hello. - [Man] So that is creamy. - [Man] Oh yeah. - (Speaks in foreign language). - [Man] Two kilos of mango. - Thank you. She's giving me a sample of
the mangosteen right now. Oh yeah, oh that's just juicy sweet. This might be one of
the more perfect markets in the entire world. Not only do they have an
unbelievable fresh selection of crab, and fish, and
seafood, but it is just loaded. This market is loaded
with durian right now. The only thing that I could
possibly want right now after that seafood is durian. So Gil and I and Ying are all
gonna break durian together. - [Woman] (Speaks in foreign language). - Ying, how is it? - Very good. - Oh that is a proper aroma. That's how you want durian to smell. Okay I can't wait. Cheers. Uh hmm. Oh wow. I might just stay here
on the ground for the rest of the afternoon. Oh that's like condensed whipped cream with a better wine almost
alcoholic taste to it. - Amazing. Dude it has been too long. I'm happy to break my
durian fast with this one. Amazing, Cambodia, Kampot specific, Kampot durian is amazing. - I ended up going back
to that same fish stall to buy one more fish to take
away for dinner tonight. We're gonna bring this back
and eat it for dinner tonight. But we gotta go now. We've spent way too long at this market. We just got lost in the
maze of seafood and durian. (laughing) - (Speaks in foreign language). Thank you. (pop music) We have just arrived. That was just about a 15 minute drive from the center of Kep
and there are a bunch of pepper farms in this area. We came to one that's
called Sothy's Pepper Farm. But Kampot and Kep, this area of Cambodia is known for having the best pepper. Growing the best pepper
in the entire world. A lot of people regard it as
the finest quality pepper. Whoa, black pepper corns. What are these, these are like pickled? - This is a green pepper like
pickle with crystal salt. - Oh that black pepper is incredible. - It's like uh-- - And these are green
pepper corns with some salt. - Yeah. - Okay, oh yeah. - Yummy (laughs). - Oh it's so good. - [Man] This is amazing. - Yeah. - Oh that's incredibly fragrant. There are three main reasons
why Kampot pepper is known to be some of the best in the world. Number one is because of
the minerals in the soil that is natural here in the environment and the climate here. - Quartz. - And this is quartz? - Yeah. - And the second reason is
there's a whole association. - Yeah. - Of Kampot pepper growing association and they keep the quality high, they set the regulations high. And then the third reason is
because of the chemical free. - [Man] Yeah. - So chemical free growing
using natural fertilizers. That really is why
Kampot pepper is regarded as the best in the world and I've been just snacking on the
pepper this entire time. I've eaten handfuls of pepper already and my mouth is burning and numb. And I love it. It's so good. - [Man] How you (mumbles) doing? - [Man] We love it. - [Man] Alright, I see. - [Man] We are durian lovers, we have some in the car right now. (laughing) This is actually a whole eco farm. - [Man] Eco friendly, yeah. - And it's just blooming with fruit. Just mangoes all over, there's jack fruit. There's all sorts of edible things and then right behind me right here is one of the pepper fields that we're gonna walk through. Unfortunately, they have
already done the harvesting because it's about to be rainy season. So they've done most of the harvesting. So there's not a lot of pepper corns on the actual vines,
but there's just a few. (pop music) I just love green pepper, oh it's good. And you also just picked,
this will be pepper when it grows bigger. - That'll be pepper, yes yeah. - Ah, that's just a little
tiny baby peppercorn stem. - [Man] Yeah, that will
be flower (mumbles) later. - Ooh, oh yeah. You can definitely taste that it's pepper. It kind of goes up your nose a little bit. Young pepper leaves. - [Man] Yeah, young pepper leaf. - Oh cool, thank you. Oh, oh it's amazing. Has a little bit of a lemon flavor to it. The green peppercorns
are the ones that turn black when you dry them. - [Man] Absolutely yeah. - And then the red
peppercorns are more ripe. - [Man] Right. - The red peppercorns. (pop music) Oh wow. Oh they do have like an almost
fruity pepper taste to them. It's a type of spice that does grow on you as you keep eating. And it just makes your mouth
feel a little bit on fire and numbing and it's so good. (pop music) Oh that is a spice overload.
The fruity spice of the vine. Check out these durians, oh. - They're not ripe yet okay. When it's ripe, you smell this one. - [Man] Oh wow. - [Man] This is not (mumbles)-- - Look at this little baby. This farm is just gorgeous. Full of pepper, there's fruit
trees, durian, rambutan. There's herbs all over. Amazing place. Ooh. - Inside. - It's like a pepper walk
in fridge but an oven. Okay thank you. - [Man] (Mumbles). - Okay. I've already been in a crab steam room but now I'm in a pepper steam room. This is just a drying room
and it's really hot in here. I can feel the humidity and the heat. And this is a pepper drying room. The pepper aroma is insane
here. It's pepper steam. This room is just filled
with pepper steam. This is a spice lover's dream come true. I could sleep in here. Look at the size of these
mangoes, just growing. Yeah, they're beautiful,
oh this one (laughs). - This one (laughs). - This one is huge, look
at the size of that mango. - [Man] Red, black and white. (Mumbles), we do quality control. - Another reason that
Kampot pepper is so good is that it's hand sorted. They just sort through the pepper by hand picking out all the bad
things and picking out all the broken pepper
corns and just choosing the best quality. And that's gonna wrap
up this day trip to Kep and to the seafood market. That's literally the
definition of a food road trip. We just drove straight
to the seafood market. We bought seafood, we ate seafood. Oh and then we had a durian. And then we drove to this pepper farm. The pepper farm tour was really
really a learning experience and the guide is really knowledgeable. And the actual tour of
the pepper farm is free but then you have an
opportunity to buy pepper. This was such a fantastic
day trip from Phnom Penh and it was great to get out of the city. Uh, all those crabs, okay. I'm gonna have to end the video right now before I get too excited
again about the crab and the durian, and the pepper. But I want to say a big thank you to you for watching this video. Please remember to give it a
thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Also, I'd love to hear from you in the comments section below. And if you're not already subscribed, click subscribe now for lots
more food and travel videos. Goodbye from the pepper
field in Kampot, in Kep. This was fantastic and I'll
see you on the next video.
