Neary Khmer Restaurant — Restaurant in Siem Reap

This is a Khmer Restaurant in Siem Reap. I've been to this place for a family dinner in 26 January 2020, before Covid-19 became a big issue in the whole world including Cambodia.

Since it was night time, I can not assess the the real environment in daylight. You know, something that is beautiful at night is not necessarily as beautiful as during the day time.

Well, I arrived at this restaurant at around 19:00 pm for my family dinner of three, after spending my whole day scanning the Angkor Wat and its surrounding areas.

It was really a busy time for the restaurant since so many guests packed this restaurant. Most were group dinner, where each table was occupied by at least four pax, including me with the driver where we were seated inside the restaurant, near the small beautiful garden not far from the wall that separate this restaurant building with other neighbouring establishment.

My first glimpse was that the Neary Restaurant is impressing. It looked beautiful, ensuring that make you feel confident, and once you take a look at the physical appearance of the restaurant, then you will feel "yes, this is the good place for dinner".

We were greeted by, a lady, in black. She was looking like a supervisor or floor manager of the restaurant, I guessed. She was energetic, helpful, well groomed and kind. She spoke English fairly good.

She gave me the menu book where all of the menu was printed therein, equipped with colored pictures of the food as well as short explanation of what inside the food and of course the price (not including 10% VAT). There were so many, many choices of menu that you can choose from. Sometimes, too many menu is not too good too because it will make you headache to decide of what you will eat.

I can not recall clearly of what my menu that I chose, but one thing, mine was fish thing, vegetable, and fresh coconut for our drink. My wife and my son were happy with all of the food they ordered, and no complaint. The coconut water was also good and fresh. All in all it was a good experience to have a family dinner in this restaurant.

I also can remember that the restaurant has parking space in front of the restaurant.

One small thing that worthed to note is that the restaurant is a little bit further out of Siem Reap city center. Well... 2-3 km to the outers of the city Siem Reap city center is not a big deal, right?

And the road from the city center on the way to the restaurant was a bit bumpy. But, it could be because my driver chose a short-cut or what, I'm not too aware of this. It was night and a bit tired that I did not care much about the route and in what area this restaurant is situated.

The good thing is this restaurant is...

Feel of dishonesty. BEWARE when they serve you white rice. Dined here twice. Dinner and lunch the following day. The food here has been pretty good. The Khmer soup is good portion and good flavor. Anything deep fried hasn’t disappoint yet. Problems are, they will scoop rice into EVERYONE’s plate and charge .70 cent per scoop without asking or telling and they charge you additional $1/$2 on paying with card. Our first time dinging here, both kids got western food, burger & steak, we got Khmer soup and dip. They came by and started scooping rice into all of our plates. When paying, I see charges for 2 white rice & waiter said using card he has to charge an additional $2 (bill was $68). Following day, we told them kids don’t need rice because they’re eating fried noodle and fries. We got fried pork rib and Khmer soup. They scoop total of 3 plates of white rice. When the bill came, it states 4 white rice. I asked the waiter if ANY of the soup or my pork rib came with rice, he said ‘NO, THEY DON’T COME WITH RICE.’ (Funny, because last night they didn’t charge us for 2 out of the 4 rice) Then, when we handed the waiter our card to pay, he said he has to charge $1 (bill was $45) for card use. It’s like they just make it up as they go. I don’t know exactly how the whole fee charges work but I really don’t appreciate the dishonesty on the sneaking...

We got tricked by a friendly and not so honest Tuk-Tuk driver to this place. He said it is a cheap Khmer restaurant. We didn’t check the menu before going to our table because we trusted our driver that everything will be cheap and not overpriced. To our surprise, everything on the menu is very expensive and overpriced. We ended up ordering a few dishes for our family because we didn’t want to walkout to show some respect. At the end, we were charged a lot of dollars for a few dishes that we ordered. Here is the hidden part, they poured two bottles of water without telling us how much they would cost. Each bottle of water costs $2 dollars and .50 cents(very expensive and so ripped off). Normally, we spent only 50 cents for a bottle for the same brand of water bottle. The other ridiculous part is that they charged us .75 cents for a small scoop of rice. Imagine how frustrating that is for me as a Khmer guy. The items we ordered weren’t up to par with the ridiculously overpriced and expensive food. We were fooled by our own people. Learn from my mistake. Do not trust a Tuk-Tuk driver by default and check the menu before going inside the restaurant. Make sure to do your research. Don’t go to this restaurant until they stop...