Being fans of various food festivals and events the Missus and I always check the California Community Connections San Diego Food & Festival Events listing. We are pretty much disappointed to know that San Diego doesn’t have a Thai New Year, or Songkran Festival. But the good thing is that there is a 4 – day Cambodian New Year Festival.
Cambodian New Year is also celebrated during the same period of time as Thai New Year. The San Diego Cambodian New Year Festival is held at the Colina Del Sol Community Park, and turns the normally somewhat seedy park located at 52nd Street and Orange Avenue into a wonderful family experience.
And of course there’s food! Normally 8-10 booths. We did get our share of food, starting with our favorite; Papaya Salad.
Here’s the booth that made our favorite Papaya Salad:
One of the benefits of getting to the event a bit early (1030 start), meant that we were able to chat with the vendors. This Young Lady was so very nice and friendly, and wanted to make sure She made your salad just right.
The prices were $3 for a small salad, $5 for a large. You can guess which we bought. All of the Papaya Salad vendors also gave you a taste of your completed salad to make sure that it was created to your satisfaction. Try and get that at the Funnel Cake booth…….. We scarfed up this salad so fast, there are no photos, but let me assure you it had a very balance of salty(fish sauce), sour(lime), and sweet(sugar). So good that we made sure to get another order as we were leaving. We also got some chicken skewers for $1, that were fairly bland, but still good for the price.
We managed to get several versions of Papaya Salad:
The prices were consistent at each booth, and all of the vendors asked you to check the flavoring of the Papaya Salads they made. And each Papaya Salad was different.
This booth served up Thai and Laotian style food:
And I’m sure I’ve seen them at a Farmer’s Market somewhere. But I’m pretty sure they didn’t serve up the great looking Pork Larb on display here. ($5.00 for all Larb, $3.00 over rice)
I’ve found that Pork Larb has more flavor and is more moist then Beef Larb. This version also had a very generous amount of herbs and onions.
I would have enjoyed it a bit more if the bitter pork liver had been omitted, but this was a pretty good Laab.
At this point, we decided that all of my picture taking was slowing down the whole process, so the Missus decided to "charge forward". And picked up some Green Mango:
I grew up eating Green Mango with Shoyu and Sugar; and this was pretty close with a fish sauce, chili, and sugar dip. The Missus was absolutely taken with this.
She also got some Shaved Ice from this booth:
The Kids manning the booth took their job seriously and didn’t fool around. They were quite impressive, and really worked efficiently as a team.
By this point it was starting to get crowded, and it was time to leave. Here are a few more photos:
If you plan to attend(and we suggest you do), try to find parking on the street adjacent to the park. Parking in the park’s lot is free-form, and is pretty cramped. You won’t regret attending this festival, you’ll find that it is much more friendly and laid-back then most festivals of this type. And the food is pretty good as well.
Cambodian New Years Festival
Usually between April 13th though 16th every year.
