Organization
Cambodian Street Food
Cambodian Street Food is a family-run Cambodian restaurant on Foothill Boulevard in East Oakland, California.[1] Malinda Bun, an Oakland native, opened it around 2018 to bring Cambodian food to the neighborhood.[1] It stands in a house-like building whose front is covered by a mural of an apsara and the temples of Angkor Wat.[1]
History
A family friend with an empty property asked Malinda Bun whether she wanted to start a business of her own, and she opened the restaurant there.[1] She saw a gap: "There's a lot of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Hispanic restaurants but there aren't a lot of Cambodian restaurants [in Oakland]," she said in 2020.[1] The restaurant has no permanent staff. Family members rotate shifts, and the recipes have passed from one generation of the Bun family to the next. Malinda's mother, Mach Ham, taught her children to cook Cambodian food and remains an important part of the restaurant.[1]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the family helped feed vulnerable neighbors through relief programs such as World Central Kitchen.[1] The restaurant was one of three businesses featured in a YouTube food tour of Oakland. In March 2026 it was the subject of Episode 655 of a food series on Instagram.[2]
Food
The menu keeps to traditional Cambodian dishes, among them beef larp, Mongolian beef and salaw machu kreung, a tangy, spicy soup. The beef larp is made with finely ground beef, peppers, lime, chopped lettuce and mint.[1] The family serves the kind of food usually saved for the Cambodian New Year all year round, so that diners need not wait until April.[1]
Community
The restaurant has become a well-known spot in Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood. Malinda Bun counts it, with other Cambodian family-run businesses such as the Camchilao food truck, as part of the family's own "Little Cambodia" in East Oakland.[1] Before the outdoor dining ban of 2020, diners could eat on its patio.[1]
Visiting
As of 2026 its telephone number was (510) 842-3134.[3]