ភោជនីយដ្ឋាន ចាប៉ីយក្ស-Chapei Yeak Restaurant — Restaurant in Khaet Preah Sihanouk

What can I say about Chapei Yaek without sounding too harsh? I visited with hopes of enjoying an upscale seafood dinner based on the rave reviews, but unfortunately, it didn’t quite meet the expectations set by those reviews.

The place feels more like a café trying to do too much, and perhaps it should’ve just stuck to what it knows best—coffee and pastries. They seem to excel at offering buns, croissants, and a wide range of coffee options. However, it appears the family behind the café wanted to branch out into the restaurant business, and thus this restaurant was born.

Adding to the confusion, a couple of years ago they launched a Japanese restaurant upstairs. Now you’ve got a café on the ground floor, a Cambodian restaurant in the same space, and a Japanese restaurant on the second floor. And don’t worry, the Japanese menu is available downstairs, and I’m sure the Cambodian menu can be served upstairs too. You can get your coffee anywhere in the building.

So, what didn’t I like? For starters, it felt like they cater only to larger groups. As a solo diner, I was overwhelmed by their extensive 97-page food menu, a 47-page café menu (also the drinks menu), and a Japanese menu on top of that. No restaurant with a menu this large can focus on doing anything particularly well. I should’ve seen the red flags and left, but as a traveler unfamiliar with other dining options nearby, I soldiered through this absurdly oversized menu.

I eventually ordered a few dishes—the oysters, beef, and pork, along with fish korko soup. Unfortunately, everything was just average. They sell most items by the kilogram, which doesn’t make sense for smaller groups or solo diners. Even their smallest portion, 300g, feels excessive. When was the last time you ate 300g of anything? That’s the size of a big ribeye steak!

Overall, the restaurant just feels mediocre. I would return for the coffee and atmosphere, but as for the food? I’ll...

This place is a mixture of Khmer, Japanese and a cafe rolled into one very large menu. The Japanese ambience of cherry blossoms and paper panels are upstairs, while downstairs is decorated with a HUGE christmas tree and giant Khmer instruments(their namesake).

The menu has Khmer, Chinese, and dishes from the Japanese restaurant upstairs too. The food was pretty yummy, I'd recommend the sweet and sour fish as well as the oyster with egg (tastes a bit like chow fun). We also had the tofu seaweed soup and stir fried mixed vegetables, which was filling. We ended the meal with some tasty macaron cookies. Out of the many places in Sihanoukville, this place was rather decent and is well known to locals, so...

We went to this place since the TucTuc driver told us his is a crowded tourist place. Place is clean, the prices are high (but that's all over Sihanoukville) and the staff spoke zero English. We used the WiFi and grabbed a beer. Had to order a bottle of Heineken since they don't serve local beer. After we got the unopened bottles staff just stared at us smiling. Asked for a bottle opener, got one and proceeded to open our beers. Staff looked at us opening our beers and cheered....