04/17/08

Overall, pretty good, and affordable for San Jose

by melissako

My boyfriend and I start off with my favorite tomato-pinapple soup with fish. It was tasty but I found it to be slightly on the salty side which had me gulping down water for a while. The sach ang (beef kabobs) were really good when eaten by itself or with rice; I'm glad we ordered 4 kabobs; & ended up with 1 1/2 for leftovers. We tried the fish amok recommended by so many other reviews; the fish steamed in the banana leaves was super tender and moist, however, I felt the coconut made it a little too rich for my tastes and my boyfriend insists that his mom makes it better. Finally, we ended with the mango delight, only they had run out of mango ice cream so we had coconut instead. Waaaay too sweet! More water gulping... Overall though, the food was pretty good, the server very courteous, and all those courses set us back only $40 for the whole thing. In the end, we'd still rather go out to Oakland's Phnom Penh: much more delicious for half the cost.

• Pros: they have a small parting lot
• Cons: only one server when we went; so service (i.e. refilling water, getting the bill) was a bit slow

08/18/03

The perfect melding of Thai food and the best flavors of Vietnam.

by Contributor

The perfect melding of Thai food and the best flavors of Vietnam.

The Food
The women who work in the Campbell location are gracious and eager to share their knowledge of the food. Let them steer you to the chicken salad, redolent of fish sauce and Thai basil, with its bean thread noodles, peanuts, and cabbage. The shish kabobs (beef, chicken, or pork) are sweet and smoky, flavored with lemongrass and galanga, and vegetarians shouldn't miss the soft stir-fried eggplant with tofu.

The Scene
Chez Sovan's first location, in San Jose, is a grubby little restaurant in an equally grubby setting, serving perhaps the finest Cambodian food in the area. Serving the same food, the Campbell location is a bit more pleasant to look at, with rose-colored linens, wall carvings of what looks like Angkor Wat, and, endearingly, a single yellow maple leaf taped to the wall.

--Laura Reiley



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