Burger King unleashes a torrent of like restaurants

I never have darkened these doors. In fact, the only one of the restaurants in this post that I have tried is bbq, below, because of a two-for-one promotion. That eatery is part of a Korean chain, and the food certainly is memorable. Memorable, yes, but I have to say it is not so in a good way.

When Burger King opened its doors two blocks from my apartment in January 2014, I tweeted half seriously, “There goes the neighborhood.”

Little did I know.  And how much do I regret that I unwittingly had foreseen what would ensue. Burger King cranked open the floodgates that caused an inundation of fast-food restaurants — which enjoy throngs of young Khmers starting late in the afternoon — along a four-block stretch of a street that parallels mine.

Our mid-rise apartment building is, I hear, only about five years old.  The lot it occupies apparently was a banana plantation prior to construction, and the greenery it provided exemplified my neighborhood.  In no small part because of our building boom (soon to be bust, I think) and the growing profusion of restaurants, gorgeous tropical trees are vanishing apace.

When we moved to the Boeung Keng Kang I area at the end of 2013, one of the chief attractions

‘Malcolm has landed’ is true but admittedly grandiose

 

View of central Phnom Penh from roof of my apartment building.

Life in Phnom Penh seems to start unfailingly around 7 a.m., two hours after what somehow has become my routine wake-up time.

Sitting in the apartment that we’ll occupy probably for no more than six months, I hear construction starting on the house 10 floors below me in the neighboring lot.  I can see tuk-tuks gathering on street corners, hear Buddhist chants and notice other sounds of life, including birds, rising in volume.  Later this morning, the city’s inescapable energy is sure to peak.

(One reason for expecting to move is that the apartment we had to grab was merely acceptable and available following our arrival here on Dec. 3.  Two weeks in a basic hotel was quite enough, and the building is well situated in an area with a concentration of ex-pats, upscale coffee shops and, heaven help me, a Burger King that soon will open.  There goes the neighborhood.

(But I expect that the open kitchen with its two-burner electric stovetop, bath with pink tiles, master bedroom with bubblegum-pink sheets, lukewarm water in the shower and fluorescent lighting will prove to be too much to bear for an extended period — that and a bigger reason that I’ll detail toward the end of this post.  One attraction is the rooftop pool, however.

(For the $1,000 a month we’re spending on a furnished 2BR, how can I complain?  Well, you’ll see.)

Since I spent three weeks here in March, I have encountered a few surprises.