Khmer Kitchen
Khmer Kitchen was a family-owned Cambodian restaurant at Sixth and Morris Streets in South Philadelphia, open from 2012 to 2018.[1] The Neth family ran it as a BYOB in a corner storefront, and its fiery curries and chili-spiked salads drew diners from across the city.[1][2] Philadelphia Magazine called it the largely Cambodian neighborhood's unofficial ambassador.[1] It was listed as permanently closed as of September 28, 2026.
History
Sopheak Richard "Rick" Neth came to Philadelphia as a Cambodian refugee. He later came back to the same corner storefront to open Khmer Kitchen in 2012.[3] He co-owned it with Dyna and Sophia; Phalla Lon was the head cook. The family saw the restaurant as a way to recover their own culture and share it with the city.[3] Its name is pronounced "Come-I Kitchen."[3]
In 2013 the Philadelphia Inquirer critic Craig LaBan gave it two bells. In 2015 it anchored a story by Joy Manning in the same paper about South Philadelphia's growing Cambodia Town.[1] Within a few years LaBan counted it as a touchstone restaurant for the rising generation of the city's Cambodian community, and he named the Neth family among the first of those who came as children to open businesses built on the flavors of their Cambodian heritage.[2]
Philadelphia Magazine reported the closure in March 2018, after a little under six years; the restaurant had been gutted.[1][4] LaBan wrote in May 2018 that it had closed that spring. In October 2019 he wrote that it had closed two years earlier, when the partnership dissolved.[2][5] The family later opened a new Cambodian restaurant, Sophie's Kitchen, on Washington Avenue.[5]
Food
Every dish was made to order.[3] Phalla Lon made the curry each day by crushing three kinds of dried chiles with turmeric, galangal and Kaffir lime. It went into a slow-simmered pot of chicken and coconut milk and into a pineapple soup with rib tips.[3] The soups included the sour soup salaw machu kre'ung, with fermented fish paste, lemongrass, holy basil, chiles and Kaffir lime, served with chicken, beef or tripe. There was also salaw ka-koe, a kabocha pumpkin stew in lemongrass broth thickened with roasted rice powder.[3]
Other dishes included pleah sak-koe, thinly sliced raw eye-of-round beef with lime and fish sauce, and phrah-hok katheeth, spicy ground pork with fermented monkfish and coconut curry. The kitchen also served shredded papaya salad with garlic and crushed peanuts, whole tilapia with pineapple sauce, fried shrimp with a lemongrass and coconut curry dip, and curried mussels, a specialty of Dyna's.[3][2] A 2016 menu listed kah-puh ch'in, salt-and-pepper shrimp with coconut curry sauce, and cha kr'ung with beef, stir-fried with lemongrass, galangal and Kaffir lime leaf, along with an off-menu coconut curry chicken.[6]
Visiting
In 2016 the restaurant's address was 1700 South 6th Street.[7] The dining room was painted bright orange.[3] In 2016, it also delivered through Postmates.[6]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Philadelphia Magazine, Philly's favorite Cambodian restaurant, Khmer Kitchen, has closed (March 2018)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Philadelphia Inquirer, Craig LaBan, I Heart Cambodia review (May 2018)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Philadelphia Inquirer, Craig LaBan, Khmer Kitchen review (January 2013)
- ↑ Philadelphia Magazine, Foobooz, Khmer Kitchen has closed (March 2018)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Philadelphia Inquirer, Craig LaBan, Sophie's Kitchen review (October 2019)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Belly of the Pig, Khmer Kitchen review (April 2016)
- ↑ I May Roam, Exploring Philadelphia's Cambodia Town (August 2016)